When She Was Bad

3

Lilith is born (not literally, of course, though there is certainly enough blood and pain for a birthing) a few days later in a reeking tent just outside Sturgis, South Dakota. The sound in her ears is an undifferentiated roar as she comes awake; at first she sees the world in poorly defined patches of light and shade, as newborn infants are said to do.

For a moment she hovers between two worlds, two states of being. But as the second world comes into focus, the roar resolving itself into component parts (rough male voices, the rumble of motorcycle engines) and the light and shade taking on color and form (a bobbing black shadow becomes a man lying on top of her; that dark, distant sky turns into the ceiling of a huge khaki tent), her memory of the world from which she has been summoned recedes like the last dream before waking.

All this in the time it takes to draw a breath, then the realization dawns: gang bang. Good old-fashioned, one-percenter-style gang bang, and she’s the guest of honor. In addition to the biker on top of her, there are a dozen or so others standing around in a circle cheering him on; some have their cocks out, idly jerking off while they wait their turns. Everything smells of leather and sweat and grease and come.

She hears screaming-her own. A backhand swipe across the face; she tastes her own blood, thick and coppery at the back of her throat. The ogre atop her is humping away doggedly. Her eyes travel up from his grimacing face to his olive-green GI helmet, which bears the motto, hand-lettered in white ink: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for I am the meanest motherfucker in the valley.

We’ll see about that, thinks Lilith. Then she bites his nose off. Which is harder than it sounds. A nose is all gristle and cartilage-you have to grab ahold, and shake your head, and worry at it like a dog worrying at a bone.

But when she’s finished, the floor of the tent is as slippery with his blood as it is with hers. She climbs awkwardly to her feet, spits out a fleshy glob, and glances contemptuously around the circle of ogres. “Okay, boys,” she calls cheerfully. “Who’s next?”