Prey Drive (11 page)

Armondo stood in a boxer’s stance and danced backward out of the way of Joe’s attack. Joe landed beside him. His teeth snapped the air inches from Armondo’s face. Behind him, Joe heard the guards whoop with excitement.

“Get that son of a bitch!” someone yelled, but Joe couldn’t tell which one of them the guard was cheering on.

A fist caught Joe in the eye and a flashbulb went off in his head. He staggered backward. He felt his eye swelling. He looked up at his opponent and a knee caught him in the chin and dropped him onto his back. His jaw throbbed. The big Mexican jumped on top of Joe, straddling his chest, and began raining down punches. Joe bit the man’s thigh through his prison-issue cotton pants. His teeth sank deep in the muscle and Joe immediately tasted blood, an explosion of it, spurting into his mouth. Joe had to swallow hard to keep from drowning in it. He’d hit the femoral artery. He continued to bite down, chewing a large avulsion in Armondo’s vastus muscle, ripping through the orange fabric of his pants and leaving a bleeding hole that gushed blood.

“Ahhhh!
Puto loco!
You fucking bit me!”

Obviously the guards hadn’t properly prepared the man for who he was facing. Armondo punched Joe several more times, breaking his nose and further swelling his eye, and then he tried to scramble away but Joe pursued. He grabbed Armondo’s ankle and pulled, dragging him back within reach of Joe’s blood-drenched canines. Blood lust raged within him. Joe could barely think. He was all fury and appetite as he bit down on Armondo’s calf. Joe received several kicks that sent lightning bolts of agony through his already shattered nose. He held up an arm to defend himself from the kicks as he ripped and tore at the big convict’s soleus muscle until he’d torn it away from the tibia. Hobbled, Armondo continued to fight. He spun around and began punching Joe again. The man’s pain tolerance was off the charts, no doubt boosted by the methamphetamines wafting from his sweat glands.

Joe tackled the man and scrambled up onto his chest. He leaned down and clamped his teeth onto Armondo’s face, biting through skin and cartilage, removing the Mexican’s nose with a large, stomach-churning crunch!

“Holy shit!”

“That’s enough! Stop! Stop!”

“The fight’s over! It’s over!”

Joe could hear the COs yelling at him, but he could barely understand what they were saying. The monster was roaring in his ears. It swelled in his pants like a third limb. Joe heard Armondo scream as Joe chewed up the man’s nose and swallowed it then leaned down and attacked his face again as the guards tried to pull him away and Armondo continued punching him and screaming. Joe bit off one of Armondo’s eyelids and punctured his eyeball with one of his teeth. He’d bitten through Armondo’s lips and part of his left cheek before the guards successfully pulled Joe away.

“My face! He ate my face!”

Joe had made a ruin of the big convict. Armondo’s left eyelid was gone and the ruptured eyeball drooled down his teardrop-tattooed cheek like a dead jellyfish. Where Armondo’s nose had been was now a ragged mucus and blood-filled hole. Each breath bubbled with red-tinged snot. A flap of the convict’s right cheek hung loose where Joe’s teeth had torn it away from his face, revealing Armondo’s teeth and gums and the pink muscle of his jaw. His face was now fixed in a perpetual grin. It looked less like a living human face with flesh missing and more like a skull with flecks of skin still clinging to it.

Joe roared like a lion as three of the officers wrestled him out of the room, forgetting about his restraints in their eagerness to get him back into his cell. Joe’s mouth looked like a slaughterhouse, with meat and blood staining his jagged teeth. The front of his pants was tented, a tremendous erection straining against the fabric. There was a dark stain forming on the orange fabric. There was no doubt what it was. Joe had ejaculated while tearing Armondo’s face off. The expression on Officer Belton’s face was one of abject horror. Joe smiled and brought his hand to his face, wiping away the blood and viscera before bringing the gore-soaked fingers to his lips, licking the blood and gristle from each digit.

“I want more,” he said. “The monster is still hungry.”

One of the officers seized Joe’s arm and jerked it behind his back while another officer slapped handcuffs on his wrists. Joe locked eyes with Belton, who turned away and dropped his head.

“That’s the last time, Belton! How the hell are we supposed to explain this?” one of the officers said, jabbing a finger at the large black officer. Veins were popping out all over his face.

“Yeah, that’s the last time.”

Fifteen 

Selene was just getting home from another modeling job at the university when she steered her Vespa over to the bank of mailboxes on the corner, three houses up from the home she rented with her roommates Linda and Paul. It was springtime, and the fog had not yet started its languorous march through the streets. Selene’s neighbors were either just getting home or stuck in traffic somewhere. The street was quiet and the air smelled fresh and verdant, like fresh-cut grass and flowers in bloom, like she was standing in the middle of a forest rather than a little cul-de-sac in Hayes Valley.

She removed her helmet and her long black hair spilled out and cascaded down over her shoulders. She shook her hair out and ran a finger through it, feeling foolish, like she was recreating a scene from some movie where a starlet with perfect hair and makeup, dressed to look like a tough biker-chick, removes her helmet for no particular reason and stands there straddling the bike and flipping her hair around. The fact that Selene was straddling a scooter just made it all the more ridiculous.

She fumbled her keys into the lock and unlocked her little mailbox. It was all she could do to keep from squealing. She immediately recognized the handwriting on the plain white envelope. Amongst the advertising fliers, coupons, unpaid bills, and supermarket circulars was a letter from Joseph Miles. She tore open the tiny envelope and read the entire letter right there by the mailbox.

Joseph never wrote long letters. That was the odd thing about him. She had two friends who corresponded with prisoners and they both regularly received letters at least ten pages long. Joseph Miles seldom wrote more than a page. He said it was because anything he wanted to say would have been heavily edited by the guards or destroyed before it ever reached her. But she had never received a letter that had been edited. She knew they edited the letters she sent to him but wasn’t so sure it worked in reverse. She had no doubt they read them and would have turned over any incriminating statements he might have made to the warden or even the district attorney’s office, but that would have only been if he’d confessed to a crime or was in the process of trying to commit one. That’s what Selene thought anyway. She wasn’t sure. So, to her, Joseph’s short but sweet letters were just another of his many personality quirks.

Her heart was racing. Her palms perspired and her panties grew damp. The letter was written with Joseph’s normal flourish of praise and promises that left her wanting more.

She didn’t know why Joseph Miles affected her so powerfully, but she had never wanted anyone as much as she wanted the convicted serial killer. Just thinking about his massive, muscular arms wrapped around her, his lips against her throat, the feel of his teeth biting into her flesh, tearing her apart while he fucked the shit out of her made her literally swoon. She and Joseph Miles had never so much as exchanged a kiss, yet she was completely obsessed with him. She gunned the Vespa’s engine and hurried home to read the letter again, hoping her roommates would not be home so she could take a nice long, hot bath with scented candles, bubbles, bath salts, a glass of wine, Joseph’s letter, and the eight-inch dildo she had affectionately nicknamed “Big Joe.”

The letter had once again confirmed Joe’s affection for her. But it wasn’t just Joe’s affections she was after. She wanted his passion as well, not just to feel it but to possess it. She wanted to feel what he felt. She wanted to know the ecstasy he knew when he murdered and mutilated those people. She clutched the letter to her chest and turned the little scooter around. It wasn’t quite time to go home yet. She had a few ideas first.

San Francisco was a serial killer’s paradise. There were so many underground sex clubs, S&M dungeons, brothels, bath houses, seedy bars and night clubs, and other pick-up joints that a predator could go undetected for years—at least until the bodies began to surface. It was in one such club, called The Backdoor, that Joseph had met Alicia and his homicidal impulses had first roared out of control. It was to that same club that Selene drove now.

She’d driven past it many times since she’d first learned of its existence. South of Market, just east of Sixth Street was an innocuous-looking building that housed the now notorious swingers club, The Backdoor. Joe had been the one who first told her about the club as he described his meeting with Alicia over a prison payphone on one of the rare occasions he was allowed to use the phone. She’d probed him for details and he had eagerly supplied them. Joe had appeared delighted by her curiosity and happy to relive what was obviously a fond memory for him.

“What does it look like?”

“It isn’t that exciting from the outside. It’s just a regular storefront with blacked-out windows and a little silver plaque by the front door that says ‘The Backdoor.’ You’d easily pass by it a dozen times if you didn’t know where to look. But once you know where it is, it’s impossible to overlook.”

He’d been right. Ever since he’d told her where to find it, she’d stared longingly at it whenever she passed by, wishing she had been there that night long ago when Joe showed up with a raging hard-on and an appetite to match.

“And what’s it like inside?” she’d asked.

“It’s magical! A sex addict’s paradise. When you first walk in, there’s a coat check girl who you can leave your clothes with. They prefer everyone to be naked but a lot of people keep their clothes on. Inside, there’s a bar, a dance floor, and even a stage where bands sometimes play. There’s a hot tub and a pool outside. Then there are the theme rooms.”

“Theme rooms?”

“Each room is different. There’s a room called the Orgy Room that has a bed that stretches from wall to wall and can easily hold ten couples at a time. There’s a dungeon that has a crucifix with shackles on it, stocks, and even a rack. There’s a room filled with dildos and other mechanical sex devices, and there are condom dispensers and sanitizing gels in every room. Most of the people there are in their thirties, forties, and fifties and look kind of like your high school English teacher, but there are always enough twenty-somethings to balance out the fat, hairy, wrinkled perverts. Enough to make the trip worthwhile. There’s always someone there who can get you off.” She could almost hear the smile in his voice when he said it. “I met my Alicia there. It was one of the best nights of my life. I’d love to take you there someday,” Joe had said.

For all of her jealousy at the constant mention of Alicia, Selene had been intrigued and aroused by the idea of fucking the big cannibal in front of an audience. She’d likewise been intrigued by the idea of a house full of sex addicts.

Selene piloted her little red Vespa scooter into the gravel-covered parking lot, bumping along like she was riding a horse rather than something with an engine and tires. It was only six o’clock in the evening. The sun had just begun its slow decent and the shadows were growing longer moment by moment. Already the parking lot was filled with sports cars, SUVs, trucks, and old Fords and Chevys. At least three dozen vehicles and two taxis pulled up as she sat there in the parking lot with her engine idling. One contained a couple only slightly older than Selene dressed in black leather and lace, the woman wore a corset and hip-boots with six-inch heels and he wore a leather vest and chaps, shirtless and pants-less. They held hands and skipped into the club, giggling like school kids.

The next car that pulled up held three guys in their twenties, frat boys by the looks of them, who looked like they were already drunk, and a young, freckled redheaded woman of about the same age who looked like they’d paid for her. She was wearing a catholic school skirt that barely covered her red panties, white knee-high leggings, and big clunky patent leather heels that she was having difficulty walking in. Her white button-down blouse was tied in the front to reveal her flat, freckled stomach.

The frat boys threw money through the window of the taxi and then staggered inside, dragging the girl behind them. She looked reluctant and borderline terrified. Selene rethought her assessment of the girl. She was obviously not a pro. The frat boys had probably dressed her that way for the evening. She was probably one of their girlfriends or at least thought she was or would be after this evening. It was more likely that she was about to be passed around and then sent home alone in that same taxi, dripping in semen and reeking of Astroglide. If she had the chance, Selene thought, she’d warn the girl before she lost everything that was innocent about her.

Selene pulled the scooter to a halt in front of the club next to the Harleys, Kawasakis, and Suzuki crotch rockets. The first person she saw when she walked in was a large bouncer sitting on a stool by the coat-check girl. He had short gray hair, gray-green eyes, and a handlebar moustache. His heavily muscled arms were covered with tattoos. He was dressed modestly in a black T-shirt and blue jeans with black motorcycle boots. Selene guessed that one of the Harleys parked outside probably belonged to him.

“ID.”

Selene pulled a slim wallet on a chain from her front pocket and fished out her California driver’s license. The big biker stared at the license for what seemed like a full minute. Behind him on a wall covered with photographs of swingers partying it up at the club from the early seventies to today was a sign that said “Couples $50, Single men $65, Single women Free!”

“Go on in. You can leave your clothes with coat check.”