Steamy Screams: Anthology of Erotic Horror

A WITCH TO LIVE James Beamon

“If we but ask Gawd,” Pastor Frye wailed, “forgiveness is ours.”

He saw his seventeen-year-old daughter in the congregation, wearing all black like it was a goddamn funeral. Blasphemy.

Pastor Frye continued, “Acts 13:38 says: ‘I want you to know’,” he pointed a thick finger at Nina Frye, “‘that through Jee-Zus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you’.”

The pastor used to be safe here. She was a witch, and everyone knew it. Now, her presence was both anger and embarrassment to Pastor Frye. Shame.

“Deacon Jones here will lead us in prayer,” Pastor Frye passed the congregation to his deacon. Frye stepped off the pulpit, dabbing the sweat off his brow with a burgundy handkerchief.

The congregation prayed. Nina Frye and Pastor Frye’s eyes battled like the eternal war had found homes in their pupils. Her smile did not reach her eyes. He had no smile.

Their whispers etched themselves over the prayer:

“Why are you here Nina? Ready to receive the Lord’s love at last?”

“Some souls are beyond redemption, daddy.”

“Leave. This ain’t the place for you.”

“It is a place for me as much as it is for you. How do you think I can sit here among you? Daaadddy.” She purred the word.

The prayer was over. Congregation eyes were on Pastor Frye. The women exchanged glances with one another. Hushed conversations snaked their way through the air to his ears.

“Mmmm-hmmmm”

“Heathen girl… ”

“… filled with the devil… ”

“Thank you… thank you, Deacon.” Pastor Frye’s awkward recovery.

“Nobody. Nobody is beyond redemption. Today we gonna focus on that. If there’s somethin’ in your life you need forgiveness for, Gawd sees that. Gone and change what you need to change. Today.”

He stepped back on the pulpit. It was his command center and his voice commanded allegiance to his request.

“While the choir sings, I want y’all to think. Think about what ya know the Lord wants for ya, what ya can be doin’ to fix what’s broken. You just come on up here to the front of the church and ask the Lord to come into ya life. He’ll fix what’s broken. He’ll heal you; ya just gotta take them first steps for him to come inside.”

The choir sang a slow melody that complimented the organ.

The witch Nina Frye battled with the Pastor Frye. Their stares did the fighting. They talked without speaking.

“It ain’t too late for redemption,” Pastor Frye told her.

“Just because you ask for forgiveness doesn’t mean the taint goes away,” Nina Frye replied.

“You ain’t gotta always belong to the devil.”

“I have been his consort. What does that make you?” Nina had malice in her eyes and smugness on her lips.

“Gawd still loves you child.”

“You trying to convince me or yourself? You know the book. You know the rules. Your mind suffers under Exodus 22:18. What does your body suffer?” Her smile widened.

The image assaulted Pastor Frye. He had been angry at her. All the divinations in her room. The chants and incense. Rumors of her raging promiscuity. The rituals in the backyard illuminated by the full moon.

His little girl.

He went to her room, that night, incensed with anger. The smell of myrrh from her candles. The low sound of drums emanating from her stereo. Her door was open. She was beyond the sense of decency and privacy that belongs to the good and the Christian.

Nina Frye’s naked body was draped in the smoke from incense, jewels and gemstones. She was on the bed, back arched, her breasts firm as if held in place by that thick smoke, nipples stiff. Her brown skin glowed in the candle light. Her curves writhed to the haunting beat like a charmed snake, enraptured. Her fingers were rubbing her clitoris to the melodic call of the drums. Sweat was beginning to bead on her body, moistening the gemstones and crystals that adorned her body; the stones glimmered in the low light.

Pastor Frye looked on in rage he could not contain.

And his manhood, neglected—forsaken—after his wife’s departure… so many years… pressed against his pajamas for release.

Nina Frye was silent the whole time, in her own world of witchcraft and carnality. She opened her legs to her father, inviting him in.

Anger and passion both run red, the difference impossible to see on nights you stop caring to look. The bewitchment, no, the anger compelled him to climb on top of his young misguided daughter. His rage drove his hard thrusts home inside her. She welcomed his presence with groans each time he buried himself, her legs suspended in the air and rocking wildly from his efforts. When his need was quenched—an angry yell through his climax—his shame forced him to flee.

Goddamn witch. Pastor Frye had asked forgiveness for his transgression. Nina Frye was staring at him, her spell forcing the memory to play. Her stare was black.

Pastor Frye stood on the pulpit, choir singing behind him, daughter in front of him, her eyes devouring. He saw the image of their tryst flicker. Suddenly, he no longer saw himself with Nina. He saw another.

She moaned for him. He fucked blood from her. She moaned for more. His skin, the color of pitch, shimmered in the wan light. It shimmered because it writhed on its own accord.

The shimmering blackness wasn’t skin. They were faces. Thousands of small, charred faces writhing in agony; they were his body.

The devil saw Pastor Frye in the room with them. The Adversary turned and gave the pastor a smile and a nod. The nod was agreement with the pastor’s unspoken assessment of his daughter’s good pussy. The smile welcomed a prodigal son home.

Pastor Frye was sweating profusely now. The witch Nina Frye had him trapped in her stare. The choir was singing backwards. The demon congregation was waiting in anticipation for the feast of tainted flesh that was to come.