Nocturnal

Mommy

The white dungeon led out into a white hallway. The hallway had the same poorly fitted stones, the same countless slathered-on coats of white enamel paint. Mismatched lights lit the curved roof. A thick, brown electrical cord, painted over in some parts, ran from light to light, hanging down slightly in some places, nailed up to ceiling beams in others.

Where the ceiling was only stone, the stones looked well fitted, like the angled blocks of some medieval craftsman. In more places than not, however, random pieces of rock, tile and chunks of wood patched the ceiling in a white enamel kaleidoscope of shapes.

Aggie saw smears of blood on the white floor — the path of the boy with no tongue. Hillary pushed Aggie on. They walked past a white-robed man wearing a Richard Nixon mask: the long nose, squinty eyes and wide grin. The man stood behind a scratched yellow mop bucket that stank of bleach. He swabbed a wet mop across the trail of blood.

“Wait,” Aggie said. “Can I ask a question?”

“Maybe,” Hillary said.

Aggie didn’t know what that meant, but she hadn’t said no. “What’s with the masks? You don’t wear one.”

Hillary let out a huff of disgust. “Because I am la reine prochaine. The ouvriers wear the masks in tribute to the guerriers who risk their lives to bring us food. You understand?”

Aggie didn’t. Was she speaking Italian?

His confusion must have shone on his face. Hillary shook her head, then reached out and pulled off the Nixon mask. As it slid free from under the white hood, Aggie held his breath, expecting to see something horrible — but it was just a man. A light-skinned black man. He stood there, mop still in hand, half-lidded eyes staring out. His mouth hung open. The tip of his tongue was touching the inside of his lower lip.

“Hey,” Aggie said, “is he retarded?”

“He is an ouvrier. He does the work that needs to be done. Now you stop talking and walk, or we will miss it.”

Hillary pushed Aggie in front of her. Each shove was just hard enough to keep him going, but he felt strength every time her hands connected with his body. They moved quickly. He got the feeling she didn’t want to be seen.

The narrow hall curved and twisted. Soon the white gave way to browns and blacks and grays, the colors of deep earth. Other tunnels branched off. There was no pattern to the branches, no regularity, just a seemingly endless choice of dark options. Stone and brick walkways changed to dirt floors. The hallway widened at one point. When it did, Hillary pushed Aggie into a side tunnel. He walked in, eager to please, but she grabbed him, turned him and held him so close that they were almost kissing.

“What you see now, no one sees,” she said. “You be very quiet, go where I tell you. You make one noise, they will tear you to pieces. Understand?”

Aggie nodded.

She pushed him through a hall so cramped he had to turn sideways to fit. Dirt and stone ground up against his face and chest. The walls here looked like an archaeological dig: dirt and stone, sure, but also blackened wooden boards, rotted timbers, worn bits of broken glass bottles, ceramic shards and rusty metal from old tools, gas cans and pipes. This was a tunnel dug by laymen’s hands, carved through old landfill. The junk hallway led up at an angle steep enough to make him winded after only twenty steps.

As he climbed, a heavy scent started to fill the air. It wasn’t a perfume, it was thicker, more … animal. He stopped to breathe it deep into his nose. Whatever it was, he couldn’t get enough of it.

Hillary pushed him. “Hurry. You must see this.”

He kept climbing. Of all things, his dick twitched. He couldn’t possibly be horny at a time like this, could he?

The floor leveled out. Aggie found himself in a tiny room with a ceiling so low that he had to crawl in on his hands and knees. The floor was a random collection of metal grates and old jail-cell bars set into the ground — he could look through them into the dark void below.

Hillary leaned in close to his ear. “We made it in time.”

He whispered back: “Made it for what?”

“To see what will happen to you if you don’t do what I say.”

A tiny light appeared below — a single candle, carried by a white-robed man. This one wore the mask of a twisted, smiling demon. Aggie saw the floor was perhaps ten feet below the grates. He was close enough that if he reached through the bars and stretched, he might be able to touch the top of the masked man’s hood.

Another white-robed masked man entered, also carrying a candle. Then another. And another.

The candles began to chase away the darkness, revealing a rectangular room maybe twenty feet long by fifteen feet across. At one end of the room, the feeble light illuminated a patchwork tarp that covered something big, a mound about the size of an elephant lying on its side.

More candle-carrying, white-robed masked men entered. They walked through a narrow door that was in the middle of one of the long walls. The door appeared to be the only way in or out. Aggie saw that the earlier masked men were leaving, saw that it was a procession — they entered, found a place to set their candles, then quietly shuffled out. The room grew brighter, as did the flickering light playing off the patchwork tarp.

One end of the tarp moved. From that end, Aggie heard the moan of a woman. A masked man ran to the tarp’s opposite end. It reached under, picked something up, then stood, holding that something tight to its chest. What was that stain on his white robe? Was it blood? Fresh blood? The masked man pushed past his own kind and left the room.

Hillary grabbed his ear, twisted it. “Make no noise. If they see you, you die.”

That strange smell intensified. Aggie’s face felt hot. His dick started to stiffen.

The stream of incoming masked men set their candles down on shelves, on a table, on the floor, on whatever space was available, then they turned and walked out, sliding past other masked men who were bringing in more candles.

The room grew brighter.

Music started playing, a thin, plinking, metallic melody. Aggie looked to the side of the room opposite the mound. A white-robed man was sitting at a white wooden table. Another masked man walked up to it, this one holding a metal stand with eight candles, all tall and parallel — a candelabra. And wait … it wasn’t a table, it was a little piano, like a smaller version of one of those big grand pianos.

A second candelabra joined the first. Now there was enough light that Aggie could see the piano player wore a Donald Duck mask. The small piano wasn’t really white, but more of a pale yellow, the paint chewed up and scarred, chips showing the dark wood beneath.

Aggie’s hands locked onto the iron bars holding him aloft. His dick was fully erect now, pushing out his secondhand pajamas. Not just erect — it was so hard it hurt.

More candles.

The room grew brighter still.

Wait … was the entire tarp moving?

Hillary’s hot breath on his ear. “Now they bring the groom.” Her lips were so close. Her breath sent hot tingles up his spine. He wanted her, his throbbing cock calling out to him to take her. But how could he want this old crone who kept him prisoner?

The music grew louder. It wasn’t a piano — it was harsher, thinner. He knew that sound. He’d heard it in an old TV show … The Addams Family … it was a harpsichord. The white-robed Donald Duck started to rock back and forth as he worked the chipped keys.

More candles, more light.

That tarp was moving. Not just the end, oh no oh dear Jesus the whole thing was moving what the fuck is underneath that thing it can’t be alive it just can’t because it’s so big as big as an elephant. What is it what is it?

The squeaking of wheels. A dolly, the kind movers use, rolled in through the narrow door, pushed by a white-robed man. And strapped to that dolly …

The boy with no tongue.

The light of at least a hundred candles flickered off the blond-haired boy’s blood-covered mouth, his jaw, his neck, his shirt. He cried with big, heaving sobs that shook his thick chest. The boy … he had a boner? Even from up here, the boy’s erection was clearly visible under his pajamas.

The masked men gathered at the tarp, ruffling it, preparing to remove it. The flapping of the giant cloth sent waves of that smell shooting up to Aggie’s nose. He had to blink away the lust, had to press his face between the cold iron bars beneath him, had to fight the pure heat that roiled through his body.

“You do what I say,” Hillary whispered in his ear, “or it will be you that experiences Mommy’s love.”

The harpsichord’s plinking tones filled the air.

The masked men yanked the tarp away.

Aggie reared back. His stomach churned, tried to push his last meal up into his throat.

Bloated, huge, a mass of white flesh like a giant scoop of lard held together with pockmarked skin. Were those legs? They were, so fat they looked like giant gray-white sausages with tiny feet, too-small doll parts affixed to the corpulent body that spilled out under them, around them. And above the legs, a bubble of a belly arcing close to the ceiling, a belly that seemed almost translucent, that twitched and wiggled every time the body moved.

If there was a head and arms, they were hidden somewhere behind the fat.

The feet kicked uselessly, like those of a new baby trying out its new muscles.

Aggie had been told not to make any noise. He opened his mouth and clamped his teeth on the iron bar below him. The metal felt cold on his lips. He tasted rust. His jaws squeezed harder and harder, until he heard his right molar crack. The pain felt like a burning nail driven into his jaw, but it cleared his mind a little bit — it stopped him from screaming.

White-robed men circled the thing. Aggie realized that it was lying on a thick table … no, on a cart, with black car tires mounted at the corners. The kicking feet hung suspended over one end. Six masked men moved near those feet, three at each corner. They reached underneath and came out with big T-bars that they slid into rusty fixtures mounted on the cart. The men leaned back hard and started to pull. More white-robed men squeezed in between the wall and the back of the cart. They pushed with all their combined weight.

The cart rolled slowly, the old-wood floor groaning beneath the tires. The masked men slowly turned the cart, moving it away from the wall until the end with the feet faced the strapped-up boy with no tongue.

The harpsichord played louder.

The white-robed men in the room started to sway and moan in unison.

Aggie felt a piece of tooth floating in his mouth. He swallowed it.

He saw the body in profile — a giant slug made of human flesh. Now he saw the arms, at least the right one, endless waves of fat so thick he couldn’t make out the forearm from the upper arm.

“Venez à moi, mon amoureux,” said a deep, resonant voice that rang with erotic promise.

The voice had come from the body on the cart.

Aggie looked left, beyond the bell curve of the bloated belly and elephantine chest. He saw the head and knew this was the Mommy that Hillary had brought him to see.

Aggie James started to whine.

Hillary flicked him on the ear. Hard. The stinging pain again helped him hold on to some semblance of sanity.

Her head. Oh good God, her head was inside some kind of box, a metal, leather and wood box affixed to the cart. Bloated shoulder meat swelled up and around the rig. She was so morbidly obese that without it Aggie knew her own fat would engulf her head and suffocate her. A few stringy, brown strands of hair clung to a head wrinkled with deep rolls.

“Venez à moi, mon amoureux,” Mommy said.

The light of a hundred candles played off of her white skin. Not pale, but actually white, like a grub dug up from the dirt, a grub that had never felt the heat of the sun.

There seemed to be a glow from within her swollen stomach. Aggie realized he could see through her belly, just a little bit, the translucent skin and tangle of veins pink-backlit by dancing candle flames on the other side.

Inside that belly, he saw something moving. Several somethings.

Fetuses.

A dozen? Two dozen? Some twitched, some kicked, but most didn’t move at all; they were just still, black dots inside that horrific parody of a fleshy water balloon.

A white-robed man walked to the boy’s dolly. He tilted it back, then moved the boy toward Mommy’s legs.

The boy started to scream.

“Mon chéri,” Mommy said.

A baby slid from between her legs in a splash of fluid. It wedged between the wet fat of her thighs. Bile filled Aggie’s mouth. He forced himself to swallow it down lest it spray out and land on the white-robed men below. The baby didn’t move. Its tan skin contrasted with her gray-white flesh. A masked man rushed in and pulled the still fetus out from between her tree-trunk-sized legs.

The blond boy’s screaming changed to rapid-fire syllables — he was begging, but had no tongue to form the words. The masked man behind the dolly reached around and stuffed a rag in the boy’s mouth, muffling the sounds.

The masked man then pulled down the boy’s pajama pants. He tilted the dolly back again and rolled it between Mommy’s legs.

Aggie felt Hillary’s hand on the back of his neck. Strong, ready to snap his spine if he got noisy. The message was clear … you ain’t seen nothing yet, and when you do, keep your fucking mouth shut.

“Now,” Hillary hissed, “Marie Latreille takes a husband.”

The white-robed men moaned louder, the harpsichord played faster.

Mommy’s head thrashed inside its metal-and-wood box. “Mon chéri,” she said.

Her stubby legs reached out, wrapped around the back of the dolly and pulled the boy into her. Her fat surrounded him — he looked like he was standing in waist-deep curdled milk.

The boy with no tongue lurched against the ropes holding him fast to the dolly. His struggles did no good.

“Mon chéri! Mon chéri!”

Hillary’s hand tightened on Aggie’s neck. She leaned forward, inadvertently pushing his head into the rusty iron bars. He reached back and spasmodically pulled at her dress.

She relaxed the grip, but didn’t let go. “Tonight, the king will come to her,” she whispered. “We will be saved.”

Mommy’s legs contracted over and over, pulling the boy into her, making the dolly rattle. Her obscene mass jiggled in time.

The smell. That smell that made Aggie so hot, so hard, it cranked up to a new level, filling the room, filling his head. Aggie twitched once, then came in his pajamas.

The boy’s scream changed, briefly, from one of terror to one of horrified ecstasy.

The harpsichord music stopped.

Aggie blinked. The heat dissipated from his head, his body. He pushed his face away from the iron bars. He couldn’t look at the scene anymore, not for another second. He turned and put his lips to Hillary’s ear.

“I’ll do whatever you say, anything, don’t let that happen to me, please!”

Hillary turned to face him. She smiled, the candlelight from below gleaming off what yellow teeth remained. She held his face, fingertips gently stroking his cheeks. She leaned in. “It is not over for him. You have one more thing to see. Now, Mommy’s husband will do the Groom’s Walk.”