In Laymon's Terms

Mark Justice

1.

It started out to be a great night. Maybe the best night ever.

It was the kind of party he’d never been invited to in high school. Back then, he was the fat bookworm with the thick glasses and out-of-date clothing.

Now he was different. Better. Eighteen months of diet and exercise, contacts, and some new duds made all the difference.

“Hey, Bishop, this party gonna be a booty convention,” Greg said from the front seat. “Maybe you’ll finally get laid.”

Okay, some things hadn’t changed. Mike Bishop was a Nineteen-year-old virgin. But he was going to a big party with two of the coolest guys at UCLA. Chances were good that this would be the night. Hell, he didn’t even care how hot the girl was. He’d take the spillover from Greg and Duncan. Gladly.

His stomach was twisting nervously. That was okay. He had a good feeling about tonight.

For the first time, all the pieces were in place.

No one at the party would know him. He was a clean slate. All the nerd-dom of his past had been erased. All he had to do was relax, be cool, and let the party come to him. He was smart. He could be funny.

On paper, anyway.

Ten years of scribbling stories had taught him how powerful words could be. They were his only weapon and his only salvation in school. Words got him into college.

And, through words, he hooked up with Duncan and Greg.

Two star basketball players.

Who never missed a party.

They couldn’t say the same thing about classes, though. That’s where Mike came in. A simple recommendation from an instructor and he was tutor to the stars. The boys got to stay on the team and Mike Bishop moved up several social levels.

“Yo, Bishop, you bring any rubbers?” Duncan said, from the driver’s seat. He brayed like a donkey and gave Greg a high-five.

“‘S’okay, bro. We got extra.”

Mike felt his face grow warm. He was glad it was too dark for them to see him blush.

They hadn’t told him where the party was, just that it was going to be the hottest gathering in Southern California. They’d been in traffic for about thirty minutes when Duncan took an exit and began climbing.

The road ended at the biggest house Mike had ever seen. There must have been fifty rooms in the mansion, and it looked to be made mostly of glass. Duncan gave the keys to his SUV to a casually dressed valet at the front door. He looked like a bodybuilder. When Mike climbed out of the truck, he smelled the ocean. He’d bet the rear of the house overlooked the Pacific.

He thought it was the most amazing house he had ever seen, and he hadn’t gone inside yet.

As they stepped to the front door, Mike could hear the thump of loud music and the buzzing of conversation from within. Greg clamped a big hand on Mike’s shoulder.

“Nervous, bro?”

“Naw.” Mike’s mouth was so dry, it made a clicking sound when he talked.

Greg smiled. “Of course not. Anyway, we owe you. Just stick with us and it’ll be a night that will change your life forever.”

“’Sides,” Duncan said. “Just bein’ seen with us ought to guarantee you at least a blow job.”

“Yeah,” Greg said. “From Duncan.”

“Dickhead,” Duncan said. He took a playful swing at Greg.

They all laughed.

It’ll be a night that will change your life forever.

Mike wiped his sweaty palms on his Dockers.

They went in.

2.

It all happened pretty fast.

The party was going full tilt when they entered. The music was cranked so high he felt the thump of the bass deep in his chest. The smell of pot permeated the place.

People were everywhere. On the stairs. Making out on the furniture. Dancing in the huge ballroom. Mike didn’t really notice the men. The women, however, were the most beautiful he had ever seen in person. He was sure some of them had to be models. And the incredible thing was, there were far more girls than guys in the house.

It seemed everybody knew Greg and Duncan. They were getting high-fives and knocking fists with dozens of guys. And they were kissing and hugging as many women. He saw Duncan grab the asses of a couple of them and give long squeezes. The chicks just laughed.

Mike was amazed. I’ll never be that cool.

But Greg and Duncan were cool. And they introduced him to everybody. He couldn’t care less about the guys. The incredible thing was the way the women reacted. He was getting hugs and kisses just like Greg and Duncan did.

He was really part of their circle.

One gorgeous redhead (Greg introduced her as Mandy) pulled him close with her left hand. She pressed her breasts against his chest.

They felt like soft pillows. She smelled like roses.

Then, with no warning, she rubbed her other hand up and down the front of Mike’s pants.

That had never happened to him before. Involuntarily, he jumped back.

The redhead gave him a wicked little smile and walked away.

His penis began to stiffen.

I can’t get a hard-on now, not in front of everyone.

He tried to take a deep breath and calm down, but the thought wouldn’t go away.

She actually rubbed my dick.

He was suddenly sure she thought he was a dick after the way he reacted.

I’m acting like a virgin.

He was determined not to blow it. He didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of Greg and Duncan.

“Mandy’s hot, huh?” Greg was right behind him. Did he see what happened?

“Uh, yeah. You, uh, know her pretty well?”

Greg just smiled. “Would you like to get to know her better?”

Mike swallowed and thought about the beautiful redhead rubbing his crotch. “Yeah.”

“Then I’d turn around.”

He whirled about and found Mandy standing behind him. She was smiling and holding two cups of beer.

“I sort of got the impression you might be getting thirsty,” she said. She handed him one of the beers.

He knew he should say something. He didn’t trust himself to speak. Instead, he lifted the cup to his lips and drained it.

“I guess I was right.” She drank her own beer in one long swallow. He watched her long, slender neck ripple.

She licked foam from her lips, sat her cup on an end table next to a vase of flowers, and took his hand. “I want to go for a walk.”

Mike knew he was about to become an ex-virgin.

3.

They went out one of the back doors and stepped onto an immaculately maintained lawn. It was small. As Mandy led him to the edge, he saw why. The garden ended at the top of a steep slope that led down to the beach. He could hear the ocean’s rumble and see the occasional white-capped wave.

He didn’t see any steps. A place like this surely had steps down to the beach. But if she wanted to do it on the sand, he would gladly risk the climb down.

That wasn’t what she had in mind.

She pushed him down on the soft grass at the edge of the garden.

“What are you—”

“Shhhh.” She pressed a finger to his lips. She worked the finger between his lips and slowly inserted the tip. He began to suck on it. She withdrew her finger and leaned over him, pressing her own lips to his. She replaced her finger with her tongue. She straddled him and began to slowly grind herself against him.

He was harder than he’d ever been.

She finished the kiss and sat up. She pulled her sweater over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She took his hands and put them on her breasts.

She moaned and thrust against him harder.

She backed away from him and he lost his grip on her breasts.

She worked her way down to his jeans and unfastened them. She pulled them down past his erection. He was so stunned it took him a moment to realize he needed to lift his butt off the ground to help her.

When he was exposed to the night air, she took him into her mouth. He was sure he was going to explode right there. Fortunately (or unfortunately), she stopped.

She stood up, smiling down at him, her gorgeous breasts seeming to glow in the moonlight. She reached under her skirt and removed her panties. She tossed them to the side and, leaving her skirt on, she straddled him again and put him inside her.

In all the stories he had read, in all the fantasies he had, he never imagined it would feel this good. He wanted to make it last, to not appear to be a virgin.

He started reciting the titles of Raymond Chandler novels in his mind to postpone his orgasm.

The Big Sleep. Farewell, My Lovely. The High Window. The Lady In The Lake. The Little—

Mandy’s soft moans became louder and she started saying, “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

That did it. He spurted deep inside her and officially lost his virginity. She fell forward until her head rested on his chest.

I can’t believe that just happened.

“Mmmmm.”

“Does that mean it was okay?”

She raised her head and smiled at him. Her eyes looked sleepy and content.

That was when they heard the first gunshot.

4.

“What the hell was that?” Mandy jumped up. Their genitals separated with a wet popping sound.

Mike knew it was a gunshot, yet he said, “Firecrackers?”

There was a second gunshot. It came from the house and was followed by screams.

“Firecrackers, my ass.” Mandy pulled her sweater on as she headed for the house.

“Wait.” He grabbed her arms. “We don’t know what’s gong on. We have to be careful.”

“I have friends in there!” She pulled free of his grip. She turned back to face him. “You have friends in there.”

Great. I just had sex with a beautiful girl and now she thinks I’m a coward.

Truth was, Mike was pretty sure he was a coward. Which made him determined not to act scared in front of her.

“Okay. Let’s go. But be quiet. We don’t have to announce ourselves.” He pulled his pants up.

They crept up to the back of the house and around to the large window that looked in on the ballroom. They crouched behind a row of shrubbery. Mandy peeked over the top of the bushes.

“Can you see anything?”

She gasped and said, “Oh my God.”

He looked for himself.

The ballroom had become a slaughterhouse. The music still thumped. But nobody was dancing.

Bodies were stacked everywhere. Men and women, splayed in unnatural poses and covered with blood.

But how? They had only heard two shots. There must have been sixty or seventy people at the party.

There was movement in the back of the room. And Mike understood.

He saw several women walking through the room. They carried what looked like long daggers or short swords. At first he thought they must have been wearing some kind of skintight outfits, like red spandex. As they came closer, he saw he was wrong.

They were naked. And covered in blood.

The women were amazons, muscular, statuesque, and incredibly beautiful. Despite the carnage in front of him, Mike was getting aroused. He backed away from Mandy. He didn’t want her to notice.

“Look,” she whispered.

The blood-drenched women were kicking the bodies. Looking for survivors. Another figure stepped into the room. It was a man, also splattered in blood, though not as much as the women. He, too, was nude and covered with black, coarse hair. He carried two old-fashioned silver-plated .45 automatics.

Like The Shadow.

A body on the floor moved. An arm lifted and waved feebly.

Two of the women literally ran across the other corpses to reach the survivor. Their swords hacked into the flesh, sending fresh sprays of gore into the air. The hand that had been moving was sliced from the wrist and flew across the room, smacking into the glass just a few feet from Mandy. She and Mike backed away into darkness and hoped they hadn’t been seen.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. She sounded like she was going to be sick.

Mike crept back to the window. One of the amazons approached the man with the guns. She lifted the sword to her mouth and licked away the blood. She kissed the man and Mike could see their tongues touching, mingling the blood between them.

The man’s erection was huge and it jutted straight out from his body. The woman grabbed it with her blood-soaked hand and stroked it. The man smiled at her. He rubbed the barrel of one automatic across her left nipple, streaking the blood in the shape of a scimitar. There was a commotion on one side of the room, out of Mike’s line of sight. He couldn’t hear what they were saying. Only the steady thump of the dance music.

Another amazon was dragging a man into view.

He must have been hiding.

Mike recognized him. It was Greg.

He heard a whimper from Mandy. She was standing next to him again.

That’s right. They knew each other.

Mike wondered how well Greg knew her.

Mandy gasped and Mike saw two of the women holding Greg while a third prepared to run him through with her short sword. But Greg fell forward, throwing both of the women off balance. He managed to pull free and immediately ran away.

Right for the big window. Right at Mike and Mandy.

Mike didn’t know what Greg had in mind. Was he going to try to break through the window? It seemed pretty thick. He was probably running in a blind panic.

As he neared them, Greg’s eyes widened in recognition just as the man calmly raised one of his .45s and fired. The impact lifted Greg and threw him forward against the glass. It didn’t break.

Greg hung there for a second, long enough for Mike and Mandy to realize most of his face was now splattered on the glass, inches in front of them. Greg slowly began to slide down the window. He left a trail of blood and brains and bone.

Mandy lost it. She screamed and pounded her fists against the glass.

Mike tried to pull her away.

Too late. The man and his amazons had spotted them and were running toward the door.

5.

“Run!” He tugged her arm, hard. They both took off for the garden.

He had to restrain himself from running away from her. Running was all he wanted to do.

Part of him screamed: Let her take care of herself.

He took her hand. They ran to the edge of the garden and looked over the hill, to the steep drop to the beach.

“We have to jump,” Mandy said.

Mike hesitated. “It’ll be a long roll. Lots of rocks and stuff.”

She shook her head. “Worse than guns and swords?”

She was right. They had no choice. He took a tighter grip on her hand.

She was jerked violently away.

Mike spun around. One of the amazons held Mandy with an arm (a bloody arm) around her throat and the tip of a short sword at her cheek. The other women were almost there.

How did they get here so fast? He realized the woman holding Mandy was not part of the crew they had seen inside the ballroom. They must’ve been outside the house.

“Mandy!”

“Run, go!” she said before her air was cut off by the muscular red arm.

And he did want to run, to roll down that hill and try to escape across the beach.

Instead, he took a halting step toward her.

Strong arms grabbed him. His throat was squeezed hard. He could feel wetness and smelled a metallic odor. Blood. He couldn’t turn his head. The tip of a sword touched his face and pierced the soft skin.

Great. I lose my virginity and get killed on the same night.

But the sword didn’t slice any deeper. Not yet.

He heard the amazon’s breath, steady and slow.

The tip of the sword was removed from his cheek and was replaced by a strange sensation.

She’s licking me. She’s licking the blood off my cheek.

Mike tried to squirm free. That only resulted in the arm circling his neck even tighter, choking him.

“There you are.”

The naked man stepped between Mike and Mandy. He still held the twin .45s. He was still erect.

He stroked Mandy’s cheek with the barrel of the same gun he’d used on the breast of the amazon inside the house. It left of smear of blood on her face.

“Amanda, Amanda,” he said. “Our long lost child. We’ve come to take you home.”

Mike stared at them in disbelief.

She knew him? This maniac who had just shot their friend?

“Greta, bring her back to us.”

The amazon grabbed Mandy’s sweater and ripped it from the collar to her waist, then tossed it aside. She then jerked the skirt down Mandy’s legs and lifted her out of it.

Mandy didn’t struggle. She looked at the ground.

“Ladies,” he said, looking at two of the amazons. “Paint her.”

Greta released Mandy. The other two caressed their own bodies then rubbed those hands across Mandy’s face, breasts, and legs, smearing her with wide swaths of crimson.

When they finished, Mandy was motionless, arms at her sides, eyes cast downward.

“You have come back to us at the perfect moment,” he said.

His eyes were wide and unfocused, like those of a person burning up with fever.

“It is almost time. We have much work to complete. We must bring forth the Red Kingdom, for, soon, Our Nameless Lord returns to this veil.”

A sigh came from the amazon holding Mike.

“So you see, Amanda, we could not abandon you now, so close to Ascendance.”

He stepped close enough to lay his lips against her cheek. Mike saw his massive penis brush against her stomach. He felt jealousy rise in his gut.

The man softly kissed Mandy’s face. “We forgive you.”

He leaned back, presumably to drink in her enormous relief at his generosity.

Instead, she spit in his face.

With her saliva dripping down his shocked face, Mandy said, “Fuck you, Roger.”

He gasped. Greta grabbed her again and Mandy tried a kick at Roger’s balls. He danced back and she missed.

She snarled at him.

Roger pointed one of his guns at her. “Ares!” he shouted. “I am High Priest Ares.”

Mandy laughed. “You’re a porno actor who couldn’t get work once every producer figured out you couldn’t get it up unless you were hurting somebody.”

They all looked at Roger’s shriveling erection.

“Even the junkies stopped doing scenes with you. And those chicks would fuck a dead guy for a fix.”

Roger smashed the barrel of the gun across her mouth. Mike saw a tooth fly out, along with a lot of blood.

But Mandy was smiling when she looked at Roger. Her remaining teeth were red and blood dripped from her lower lip. “Better than Viagra,” she said.

Roger’s cock was hard again. Now he smiled.

“It seems you won’t be sticking around to greet Our Nameless Lord.” He put one of his guns against her forehead. “I’ll pass along your regrets.”

6.

The amazons brought Mandy and Mike to the edge of the lawn. They were pushed down to a kneeling position, facing the house. An amazon stood behind each of them. The remaining four women stood a few feet away with Roger. They had their hands raised to the sky and were chanting in a language that Mike didn’t recognize.

“It’s made up,” Mandy said. She spit out another glob of blood. “Roger invented the ‘Nameless Lord’ language one night after snorting a bunch of coke. And these steroid lesbians will do anything he tells them.”

The amazon behind Mandy smacked her in the back of the head.

“Ow!” Mandy turned her head as much as she could. “Lisa, you are such a bitch.”

The big woman said nothing.

“How do you know them?” Mike’s teeth were chattering from fear. He felt as if he were trapped in a drive-in movie.

First the teenage guy gets laid, then killed.

“The Wonder Women? We all went to the same gym. I met Roger at UCLA. We shared an acting class. I wanted to do theater. He had his sights set on Behind the Green Door, Part 12.”

“You, uh, dated?”

I’m pathetic, he thought. I’m about to die and I want to find out if she was screwing him.

“For a while,” she laughed. “Until I realized what a twisted nutjob he really was.”

Lisa smacked her head again.

“Shit! Lisa, you know where he got all this Nameless Lord stuff? You’re following a guy who found his religion in a goddamn comic book.”

Lisa hit Mandy a third time, then resumed staring at the other women and Roger.

The chanting had stopped.

Roger walked over to Mike and Mandy, his large erection bobbing up and down.

He was smiling.

“Our Nameless Lord has asked me to give you one final chance to come back to us.”

From her kneeling position, Mandy looked up at Roger, her gaze defiant.

“Okey-doke,” Roger said. He pointed one of the silver-plated .45s at Mike’s head. “Say good night to the boyfriend.”

Mike couldn’t breathe. He was going to die. Just like Duncan and Greg. Please don’t let me piss myself, he thought.

“Wait,” Mandy said. “Okay, Roger. I’ll come back. I’ll go to the meetings.”

“The services.”

“Right. I’ll do the chant. Whatever you want. Just don’t kill us. Let the kid go.”

Who’s the kid? Then realization struck. Me? She called me the kid?

“He’s not your boyfriend?”

Mandy snorted. “Get real. His pals told me what a little loser he was. I felt sorry for him. Doesn’t mean he deserves this.”

Mike felt the disappointment and the humiliation like a blow to his stomach.

Little loser. I felt sorry for him.

Just like high school.

Nothing had changed.

Roger considered her words.

“Sorry. He’s a witness. He has to die.”

Fine, Mike thought. Just get it over with.

“But,” Roger added, “you may decide how quickly it happens. One shot, boom, and it’s over. Or, I can give him to the girls.”

The naked, blood-soaked females behind Roger smiled and raised their swords. Suddenly, Mike very much wanted to live.

“What do you want?” Mandy said.

Roger inched closer to Mandy. He moved his hips until the head of his penis was in front of her mouth.

“I want you to worship the holy staff of High Priest Ares,” he said. The .45 in his left hand was still centered on Mike’s forehead. “And you better make it good.”

7.

Mandy’s face went through a number of changes very quickly. Shock. Disgust. Anger.

Resignation. When she looked at Mike, he saw sadness.

“Sorry about all this,” she said.

He tried to smile at her, to be brave in the face of certain death and all that Indiana Jones crap. But he knew if he tried to smile she would see how much his lower lip was trembling.

She turned back to Roger and took his erection into her mouth.

She went to work on it like an expert, sliding her lips up and down the shaft, the blood from the penis mixing with the blood from her mouth.

Roger closed his eyes and rocked his head in ecstasy.

Then Mandy bit off the end of his cock.

Roger screamed and pulled away. His finger jerked spasmodically on the trigger of the gun in his left hand. He was falling backward and the shot went high, hitting the amazon who held Mike.

Mandy leapt forward and grabbed for the pistol in his right hand. Roger screamed again but would not let go of the gun. The barrel was slick with blood and Mandy lost her grip. She fell back into Lisa and they both tumbled off the edge of the lawn and rolled down the slope.

Stunned, Mike knelt staring at the flopping, twitching body of Roger. He had clasped both hands to his groin. Blood was gushing from between his fingers. The remaining amazons were just standing there, too shocked to move.

The other pistol lay a few feet from Roger.

Mike dove for it. He picked it up and pointed it at the amazons.

They didn’t even notice him.

“Hey,” he said.

The one on the far right looked down at him.

Mike fired a round into the center of her face. The back of her skull exploded in a blossom of scarlet.

He had been aiming for her chest.

The amazon next to the one he had shot started to raise her sword. Mike aimed at the belly this time. The round drilled her in the center of her left breast.

The other two started forward, stepping over the still-screaming Roger. Mike stood up to get a better aim.

He tripped over the body of the amazon Roger had shot.

He fell on his back and went tumbling over the slope.

8.

He tried to use his arms and legs to slow his descent. All he succeeded in doing was getting banged up by a number of small rocks and plants. Finally he somersaulted once more and landed in soft sand.

He had managed to hold on to the gun.

A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him up.

It was Mandy. She was bleeding from dozens of small cuts. Beneath the blood—both her own and that which the amazons had spread on her—she was covered with bruises.

She spit out something. It landed on the sand with a faint squishing sound.

There was enough moonlight to clearly see the head of Roger’s penis.

She wiped the back of one hand across her mouth. “Got any Listerine?”

“What happened to Lisa?”

“Hit her head on a big rock. She’s dead.”

“I shot two of them. I think they’re dead, too. Roger accidentally shot the one holding me. That leaves two of the women and Roger.”

“He won’t be a problem. Give me that.”

She took the gun from Mike, ejected the magazine and emptied it.

“Three rounds left. We must not have heard all of the shots.” She loaded the magazine again and slapped it into the gun.

Mike stared at her.

She shrugged. “My dad’s a cop. He taught me to handle a gun when I was about five.”

A sound came from up the slope. Footfalls. Very fast. Soft grunts.

Mandy shoved him to the sand. She fell next to him.

An amazon stopped about ten feet above them. She hadn’t spotted them. Mandy raised the pistol in a two-handed grip, like the cops on TV.

The amazon saw the movement. “Here they—”

The shot blew a hole in her chest. She fell back against the hill then started sliding toward them, feet first.

The final amazon surprised them. She was already on the beach, coming from their left. It was Greta.

Mandy rolled on her side, took a shot, missed. She tried to correct her aim and fire again but the woman was too close. Greta struck Mandy’s hand with the flat of her sword. The .45 discharged, missing Greta and flying out of Mandy’s grip. She raised her sword again and brought the blade down. Mandy rolled and the sword sank into the sand. The amazon grunted, slightly off balance. Mandy grabbed a wrist and pulled Greta to the sand. Mandy climbed on the amazon’s back and wrapped her arms around her neck. With a roar Greta rose up and fell backward, pinning Mandy to the sand. Despite the weight of the woman, Mandy tightened her grip on the amazon’s neck. She had wrapped her legs around Greta’s waist, as well.

The amazon grunted and strained, muscles and tendons standing out on her body.

“H-help.”

Mandy’s voice was weak.

Mike picked up the sword. He stood over the amazon. Her eyes were wide with steroid-fueled hate.

Mike stabbed the tip of the sword into the woman between her breasts. He pulled it down, slicing her open down to her crotch. Grey, ropy strands of intestine spilled from the wound.

Greta stopped struggling. Mike grabbed her hair and rolled the body off Mandy.

Mandy drew in great, rasping gulps of air. She was covered in blood and sand.

And she looked beautiful.

He dropped the sword and helped Mandy up.

She pressed her naked body against him. He held her tight.

Finally, he said, “So I’m a little loser?”

“I had to say that,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest. “I was trying to save your life.”

They heard the sound of sirens in the distance.

She looked up at him. “Do you feel like a swim?”

He smiled and took her hand and they walked into the ocean.