Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

JUICE Kiel Stuart

I want juice tonight."

Rory Thomas Blaise MacLaren heard the promoter's order. He set his jaw, staring down at the!ocker-room floor. Ah, yes, the smelly little tiled room, the wrestler's home away from home, whether high school or hired hall.

At his side, his partner Sam grew quiet. Rory cocked his head, feigning respect and attentiveness.

The promoter took the cigar out of his face for a moment. "Juice," repeated Banks, in his flatlands voice.

Rory hated juicing. He kept his mouth shut about it most of the time, because if you protested (even to peers instead of promoters), you didn't work much.

The marks came to wrestling matches to be taken in by its faked violence. To Rory the real violence was more subtle, more revolting. The real violence was this person who owned you, commanding you to take a sliver of razor blade and slice open your forehead.

Rory took his gaze off the floor, fixed it on Banks's rug. A yellowish stain marred the promoter's greasy old wig, where it was supposed to pass for scalp. "Anything else we can do for you?"

Banks squinted up into Rory's face. "Get a haircut."

As smoke from the cigar assaulted him, Rory shifted his two hundred fifty-odd pounds casually. "Which is it? Haircut or juice? Gotta know."

Banks narrowed oysterish eyes. "Why?"

Rory tossed his Irish Setter mop. "'Cause I don't have enough blade for both."

It brought some stifled laughs.

On a bench next to them, Sam coughed. Rory exchanged a quick glance with his partner, as Banks bit down on his cigar.

"Juice," came through it, loud and clear. "I don't care from who." He turned his back on them and left.

Rory sighed, lacing up his boots. What the hell. Blading was the easy way; just raise your hand to your head and voilH, Christ at Calvary.

Everyone knew it was better than hardway blood — having a ring partner bust open some fragile scar tissue or getting hit over the head with a metal chair. Anyone with an IQ over twenty could tell the difference between a neat razor slash and the mess that resulted from fists or a chair.

For all Rory knew, some wrestlers liked the slice and dice. Enough of them had foreheads resembling the canals of Mars.

Rory wanted to keep his looks intact, not to mention keep away from whatever diseases he could get, wading in blood.

Sammy poked him one in the ribs and smiled. The smile spread out his mustache, the one he'd grown to look older than his twenty years. Rory never had the heart to mention it made Sammy look even younger. "Ten points, Rory."

"Yeah," he said, breathing out. "What a reach."

"I thought so."

He shook his head. Stirring up psychological turmoil in others, even a rudimentary life form like a wrestling promoter, rapidly reached the point of diminishing returns. Rory flopped on the bench and stared at the wall. Sam said something, twice. Finally, he looked up. "Huh?"

"Your mind is in another dimension." Sam waved a hand in front of his face. "But then it always is."

Rory laughed. From anyone else, that remark would have rated a black eye, at least. But Sam meant it as a compliment. He said Rory was a deep thinker. Sam was just a kid.

The kid checked out his own blade. "No sweat," he said. "I'll do it again."

Rory watched Sam wrap the blade in his wristband and silently contemplated the mysteries of his trade. He believed that the letting of blood was somehow symbolic, connected with washing one's sins clean. What would Sister Loyola have said about this, back at St. Luke's? Would she say wrestlers were closer to God because they willingly shed their blood? Probably not. Slicing open your head with a razor hardly qualified as stigmata.

He felt a brief flash of guilt for permitting Sam to take on the burden of his sins. He should have opened himself up now and again.

Rory looked around the locker room and sincerely doubted that any of his colleagues ever had similar thoughts.

There was Badass, dark and morose, rumored to have killed several men, only no one could remember exactly where or how. And Red Man, the practicing alcoholic (nobody on this particular circuit made enough money to be a practicing cokehead). Rory thought a lot of what he'd seen of wrestling would make for a good movie some day. A horror film.

Chuck "The Lumberjack" Little brushed past them on his way back from the previous match. The big moose beamed at them. "Playtime. Maybe I'll have a touch of that blonde."

Rory rolled his eyes. Chuck couldn't seem to get enough of her. Neither could most of the others. Rory supposed that she was attractive. Him, he'd rather read a book.

But Chuck's playtime meant their showtime. "Let's go." Time to head for the ring.

Sam checked his wristband again.

"Look." Rory lowered his voice. "Don't knock yourself out tonight. Take it easy." Sam, young and elastic, was a vigorous if overeager worker. It made up for his lack of size, it got him jobs, and Rory knew from experience it would eventually get him a bad back, hips, shoulders, and, Rory's own personal favorite, bad knees.

He heard the distant whine of the ring announcer: "From the fabulous Hamptons, New York, at two hundred and fifty-three pounds, Rory the Ripper!"

He saw the girl as he went down the aisle, ducking insults and beer baths. Long ice-colored hair, the oval face that just melted away from angularity, the greenish eyes… she was very striking, he'd admit. Their "stage door" was usually knee-deep in groupies fighting for attention by now. This one could probably cut right in line.

He and Sam had time for some conversation in the ring, during rest holds. "Who knows? I may get lucky tonight instead of Chuck." Sam had Rory in the dreaded abdominal stretch which looked painful as hell but was merely awkward.

The referee hovered near as Rory helped Sam sail over in a hip toss, ending in an armbar to the mat, where they could both be comfortable.

Sam grimaced as if Rory was about to tear his arm from the socket. "She probably wants to go through the whole roster. Your turn may be next." He tapped Rory, signaling their switch to standing wristiock.

"I can hardly wait," Rory snorted.

Sam covered his laugh in a scream of faked pain.

They went to ten minutes, twenty seconds, then Rory put Sam's face into the ring post for the blading, after which he helped him over the top rope and got DQ'd. Rory felt the crowd's hate, aimed right between his eyes. Sam, wearing his own blood, got the cheers. Rory saw the blonde get up and head for the exit.

"Listen," said the ref, just as they were about to leave the ring, "you think she goes for short guys?"

"I'll give her your number," Sam said.

The next night, the wrestler's home away from home happened to be an American Legion hall. But as Rory drove there, it seemed to him the Texas highways had been his real home, his and Sam's, for the past three years.

Before that, Rory remembered working the Mid-Atlantic area, and before that, Oregon, and before that, the Deep South, and before that was a pretty fuzzy memory. He'd worked with part-timers who came and went, star wannabes, and a few genuine celebrities, like four-hundred-and-fifty-pound Blubber Boy McKay. Many were cast in Sam's mold, young eagers who would eventually settle into a comfortable living in the wonderful world of pro wrestling, not household names but not paupers either.

Changing lanes, Rory caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror. He looked quickly away, laughed. There you are. Typecast. The good-looking, sullen heel. That was the «Ripper» persona. It played beautifully off Sam's fresh baby face. The innocent victim, Sam always had the crowd on his side. Maybe they all identified with the «victim» part.

Sam was, in many ways, a lot like him. No family, no roots. And no secret of his flaming hero-worship, openly envying Rory's size and skills in whipping crowds to a frenzy. A budding Rory MacLaren. As he got out of the car he wondered if that was exactly something to aspire to.

Inside, Rory tossed his bag down where his partner usually was. The chaos of preparation was all around him: taping of joints, physical warm-ups, last-minute instructions. He waited a few minutes. No Sam. He turned to Chuck. "Where's Sam?"

Chuck shrugged. "Maybe he got real lucky last night."

He set his gear down inside the locker and went out into the hallway. No sign of Sam there. Rory frowned. Down the hall was Banks's setup.

Though it was against his religion to enter the realm of the promoter unless absolutely necessary, Rory took aim and fired himself into Banks's little room.

Banks was on the phone. Rory ducked away, but the promoter put his hand over the mouthpiece and motioned him in with a wave of cigar smoke. "Wha?"

Might as well discover if Banks knew anything. "Sam isn't here yet."

Banks shrugged. "So? Work it with, ah, Whatsisface in the first."

"Red Man?" Rory inched away, heading for the safety of the hall.

"Naw, the other one. Tell him to put on a mask and — yeah, hold on, I'm still here!" Banks began shouting into the receiver; Rory took the opportunity to flee before the word «juice» could leave his lips. Without Sam's obliging presence, he couldn't be sure of avoiding the blade himself.

Whatsisface — Badass — in the first was wheezing a bit from having to do the extra match with Rory, but he lived through its seven minutes.

Not having Sam to work with made him vaguely uneasy. He took the feeling and stuffed it away.

That night he buzzed Sam's room. No answer. He gnawed on a cuticle for a minute, then silently toasted the kid's luck and turned over to sleep.

"Get used to working with Whatsisface." Banks took the cigar from his teeth just long enough to get the words out. "Your little buddy won't be back here." He was already moving out the door.

Rory let his teeth show. It was not a smile.

Shit! Sam was going to be pissed! Rory felt his skin tighten. Swell — no one worked as well with him. Who would he play off now? Ah, the kindliness of wrestling promoters. "You can him, for one lousy no-show?"

"I didn't have to. He's dead."

Dead. The word echoed down the length of the hall. Dead.

Rory's face went stony. He moved instinctively in front of Banks, putting an arm against the open door. The promoter took a step back and the cigar from his teeth. Rory struggled to formulate a sentence. "You mind telling me what happened? If it's not too much trouble."

"Who the hell knows? What's it matter? Probably drugs." A particularly unpleasant smile curled the promoter's lips.

Rory let his arm drop and said tightly, "Sam is clean." He corrected himself. "Was clean. Didn't even take steroids."

"It ain't my problem. Just trying to make a living." Banks shrugged.

Rory watched his retreat from cold, lidded eyes. Had Banks known him well enough to realize what that look meant, he would have turned pale and fled.

Rory remained staring at the pattern in the floor tiles for some time. Then he walked back to the locker room on legs that felt numb.

He passed the heavily bleeding Chuck on his way out, and the next thing he saw was the ring. Rory knew he had somehow gotten from the locker room to the mat.

It hardly registered. His mind was somewhere else. He thought of blood, of sins, of Sam, and of how Sam always commented on Rory's faraway gaze. "You're a deep thinker, man." His teeth clenched tighter and tighter.

He went through his match, an efficient machine that knew the task at hand. He barely felt Badass's hands as they moved from hold to hold, barely heard the bell at match's end. Barely noticed when he vaulted out of the ring and landed wrong. His knee blew.

Damn you, Sam! he thought. How could you let this happen? Limping back to the lockers, his faraway gaze swept the crowd, blank with growing rage. Then he stopped in midsweep.

Long spill of cold hair. Riveting eyes. That blonde, at ringside again.

She looked at him for a second or two. Then she rose and made for the exit, as she always did.

Rory hit the showers, chewing at the inside of his lip. The blond groupie might have been with that damned fool Sam. She might have something to tell him. Maybe she talked him into snorting the white stuff for the first time. Maybe he pulled a Len Bias.

In the meantime he needed to let the steaming water run over him until he felt like moving. And he didn't care how long that took.

He finally toweled off, dressed, and went looking for Chuck. Yes. That was a good idea. Start with Chuck, who might know where to find the girl.

A quick check of the halls showed no one. Oh, hell; by now Chuck might be back at his hotel. His knee hot and swelling, Rory realized dimly he should ice it. He shuffled back into the locker room to grab his bag.

Heard running water and went to the showers to look.

The blonde. There she was, in the shower with Chuck. They both appeared to be enjoying the experience, she with her long wet hair and Chuck with an idiot's grin on his bearded, bloody face as he groped her.

Rory shut his eyes.

Blood. Sins. Washing them clean.

He opened his eyes. Rory forced himself to watch them in silence for a minute, then slipped away without being seen.

He sat in his car but didn't start it. Aside from Blubber Boy McKay's bare butt, this was the most vividly repulsive thing Rory had ever seen. He closed his eyes and their embrace remained etched against his lids.

He coughed violently, as if clearing his lungs of poison.

Rory twisted the key in the ignition and gunned for home. The long Texas span of road sang blackly at him.

The ice pack didn't work. He didn't care. Rory's limp worsened. Banks booked them into one high school after another. Sam haunted his dreams almost every night. Banks still bugged him for juice, almost every night.

He never got around to meeting with the blonde.

Maybe tonight, in the fourth or fifth nameless high school with the same clamorous audience.

Rory waded through the groupies already piled at the exit. His colleagues were already there, joking about the lineup.

"A battle royale," cracked Red Man. "That's what we got."

"Yeah," said Badass, pumping his hips in a juvenile obscene gesture. "And I got your blonde right here."

Rory said nothing, taping his knee to ready it for the match. He'd stopped making jokes. He'd begun thinking about blood and sacrifice. God's bleeding clowns. It's our job. And I let Sam do it. Mea culpa, Sam. ..

As he headed for the ring, the blonde's green-eyed gaze followed him. What did she offer that was different from the hordes of other women at the door? Intensity?

Whatever it was, he would have to talk with her. She might have something to tell him about Sam. Yes, he promised himself, soon.

He went to work. Halfway through the match with Badass, Rory's brow opened up: hardway blood, which wasn't exactly pleasant but not unexpected when a mistimed knuckle hits just the right spot over a prominent brow bone.

Hardly a gusher. A mere trickle. One towel held in place by pressure, five minutes, a tiny Band-Aid, and he'd be good as new.

When the match ended Rory limped deep into the locker room in search of a clean towel. He hadn't been paying much attention to what went in his gym bag the past couple of days.

Pretty deserted back in the supply room, he thought, reaching down for a towel. The shadowy atmosphere enveloped him; for some odd reason his scalp prickled. Without knowing why, his hearing was instantly acute. He was alert for footsteps he could have sworn were there.

His breathing quickened, echoing in the small room. Then stopped.

Nothing. His laugh was a short bark, the product of air held inside too long.

He straightened, folded the towel and pressed it to his eyebrow, turning back for the showers.

It was then that the blonde stepped from the shadows, blocking his way.

He noticed for the first time that only her face was the same — that riveting face. The body was swollen.

Rory backed up. There was a glow to her skin, the way skin gets when you clamp your hand over a flashlight and can see the blood lit from within. She had that quality all over, like a fat red light bulb.

He took another faltering backwards step; she followed, glaring at his face.

With effort, he drew a breath. "Were you with Sam when he died?" His own voice sounded hoarse and weak.

She didn't speak. She grabbed his shoulders to pull him even closer, shocking him with her strength.

He tried to shove her. She didn't shove. Her grip on his shoulders was talonlike.

Run! Every nerve flashed the message. His muscles jerked involuntarily, struggling to tear loose. Useless.

Suddenly she whirled, letting go.

He heard the sound of approaching people, of booming male voices and scuffling feet. She sprang away from him and was gone.

Rory sagged against the wall, looked at the towel in his hand, and dropped it.

He slid down the wall until he touched the cold tiled floor. Silent, weak, he watched Chuck and the others pass by. And he began to make some fairly athletic leaps in the chain of logic.

Big Chuck. Big bulky 280-pound Chuck.

Lithe, 185-pound Sam.

Blood.

Always the blood. On this circuit, blood made up for the heat that other, more creative bookers could get through dramatic angles.

Run. He struggled to his feet and got out.

Rory went back to the hotel and looked down at his hands. They trembled slightly.

Quit, then. Tomorrow — that one last paycheck would come in useful. Head back East.

He sat still, wondering if the things Sister Loyola had said long ago were true. Was there a heaven? And could Sam look down and see him? "You 're a deep thinker, Rory…" Yeah, right. Couldn't think his way loose from a paper bag —

He reached out to zip his case shut.

Underneath an old photo — their first publicity shot together — he saw it, and he held it up by its thick gold chain.

His old crucifix. He put it on. It made him feel safer, somehow.

He looked at the picture again. Sam looked back at him, through those brown curls he used to wear, before he cut them to look older. Quickly, he put the picture facedown.

Rory's eyes stung. Tears? Hell, he hadn't cried since he was six. Why break a track record like that?

When Rory arrived at the high school, Badass told him that he'd be working the last match with him, instead of Chuck, who'd called in sick.

He shuddered.

"Hey, whatsa matter with you, man?" demanded Badass. "Doncha like me no more?"

Taping his knee, Rory scrambled for an answer. "I'm crazy about you. It's Banks that I —»

The locker room noises cut off suddenly. Rory looked up from lacing his boots. Banks was framed in the doorway.

"Double juice tonight, boys. We got a big crowd and I'm aiming at a bigger one next time."

"No way," murmured Rory, and if the room was quiet before, it was tomblike now.

Banks strode toward him, taking a blade from his own pocket. He waved the blade in front of Rory's face. "I've had this crap from you, MacLaren. Now put this fucking blade in your mouth or up your ass, I don't care. Double juice tonight, and this time you ain't walking away spotless, pretty boy."

Rory was aware of everyone watching him, waiting for the smart remark.

Cold-eyed and silent, he took the blade from Banks and wrapped it tightly in his wristband.

"Good boy. I want this last match short and sweet, a five-minute bloodbath. You got me? Nice." Banks smiled and walked out, his back to Rory.

Rory set his face and counted out the minutes to the last match.

From a distance: "Ladies and gentlemen, making his residence in the fabulous Hamptons…"

He followed Badass out, cross thumping against his chest. Yes, she was at ringside, fat and malevolent, green eyes glowing like evil gems.

Rory climbed into the ring and began trading chops with his partner. Badass took the opportunity to hit a gusher early on. He wiggled his eyebrows at Rory, mouthed, "What are you waiting for?" as they switched from a standing armbar to a wristlock. Badass was right, he knew it, knew Banks could fire him. Still Rory resisted.

Four minutes into the match he had a vision of Sister Loyola talking about the blood of the Lamb. He saw Sister Loyola's white face stark against her black habit.

Confiteor Deo omnipotenti…

Badass was hissing into his ear by now, as they practiced bear hugs on one another: "Are you nuts? Did you hear Banks or what? Jesus. Tell you something. Your little pal wouldn't give me this shit. He was for real."

Rory lidded his eyes again, sudden ice racing through his hot muscles. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa … He did a half-twist out of the bear hug, raised his wrist, as if saluting, and hit himself just above the left eye, so angry he didn't even feel the pain of the blading or the thump of the ring as Badass put him in an inside cradle for the count.

He pushed away from the referee, from Badass, and stumbled out of the ring for the lockers.

His vision smeary with blood and sweat, Rory found the showers full.

He went painfully around to Banks's «office» of the evening — a little hole in the corridor, away from the lockers.

It was time to tell the bastard off. He opened the door. The office was black, deserted.

Banks wasn't there. Probably in the showers or the outer hall, berating everyone's performance. Rory looked around the tiny room.

Now what? He sank against the cramped desk. Wait here until Banks came back from yelling at the boys? He'd already run out of steam, sitting here bleeding like an idiot, all set to give Banks what for, and Banks wasn't there.

Now he was beginning to feel the blood loss. It seemed to pound in his ears. Or was it only the throb of an old heater system, echoing around this little dark room?

The hell with Banks.

Wearily, Rory got up and pushed back the door.

And she sprang at him from the hall.

He drew back, saw her take in the cross. One unaffected glance, not even a hitch in her movement. She'd been out there, waiting for him. Waiting to do what she'd done to Sam… Your turn may be next…

Run! His nerves screamed. He could see light from the hall; there was just enough room to get by now. Her leer shone at him like a thin ray of moonlight. And in that leer gleamed teeth jagged as a shark's.

Go! Now! Run!

Sam's face in the photo. While he could still remember.

He closed his eyes and met her charge.

She surged forward, foul-breathed, clawing at him, her tongue a greedy slug lapping his face. He tried to flip her, but his knee betrayed him. She knocked him backwards with all the force of her soggy weight, pressing him into the floor.

Rory gasped, struggling to push her off, but thick spongy thighs clamped his body. Her teeth lashed across his split skin. He saw the spark of saliva dripping between them. Her breath reached his ears in eager, short grunts, hit his nostrils with the stench of rotting meat.

Rory strained. She didn't yield an inch, bearing down on him, heavy with the blood of the others, of Sam.

Teeth raked the side of his neck. His skin flashed a warning as the needle points opened a nick just inches from the main artery. Her snarling was the song of death. Weakening, desperate, Rory wrenched his arm free, frantic to ward off the relentless teeth.

The forgotten blade in his wristband ripped across her bloated chest.

And the blonde popped, exploding in blood like an engorged leech.

It washed over him, a crimson ocean, sucking at him with riptide force as it lashed against the walls. Then it subsided, a warm and stagnant pool.

When he struggled to his feet, all that remained was blood and a gelatinous sac that might have once been the blonde's outer covering.

Rory lurched to the desk, collapsed against it, his breath rasping. Banks's office was now wallpapered in a sticky scarlet film. Rory used Banks's overcoat to clean himself.

Slowly, enough strength returned for him to lever open a window, climb through, and head for the parking lot.

Rory turned, taking one last look through the open window.

"You want juice, Banks?" he said softly. "You got it."