The Haunter of the Threshold (13 page)

Hazel took the phone outside, for some privacy. “I’ve been real busy grading papers for the summer session. I
meant
to call you, but

. . . you know how it is.”

The tinny voice tempered. “I didn’t even know you had a cell phone until that fine young man Ashton gave it to me...”

Yeah, dad? You should’ve seen that ‘fine young man’ pissing on
your daughter last night.
She held back a laugh. “I just got the cell, dad,” she lied. “I didn’t have time to call you because right when the session ended, Sonia and I went up to New Hampshire to meet with her fiancé. We’re there now.”

“New Hampshire? How long will you be there?”

“Just a week or two.”

Disappointment seeped into her father’s tone. “I was so hoping you could come to the grand opening of the new parish, but that was two weeks ago. It’s a beautiful church, honey...”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she kept making excuses. “I forgot. But when I’m back, I promise, I’ll come and see it.”

“Hazel. You know I want you to do more than just come and see it.” The voice sounded forlorn now. “You need to come
back
to church, come
back
to God. It would make me so happy for you to be my choir director. You sing so beautifully...”

Oh, Jesus, this is a drag.
“I’m really busy with school, dad. Between teaching and working on my doctorate, I really don’t have time.”

A pause, then, “There’s always time for God, honey.”

“I’ll call you in a few days, okay? And I will come and see you when I’m back, I promise,” she struggled to end the uncomfortable call.

Was her father choking up? “I love you, Hazel—”

“I love you too, dad,” she nearly whined.

“And more important than that,
God
loves you. But sometimes I don’t think you believe that.”

I DON’T believe that,
came the instant thought.
Why would God
love a reckless, indulgent pervert like me? Every thought in my head
OFFENDS God...

“Hazel? Are you there?”

“Yes, dad. I have to go now but I will keep in touch–”

He chuckled. “At least try to not duck
all
my calls.”

Hazel sighed.

“Goodbye, honey,” her father bid. “Go with God...”

“‘Bye,” she said quickly and ended the call.

SHIT! that’s so uncomfortable!
She knew the reason she didn’t like talking to her father was because even the mere sound of his voice made her feel guilty.
My head’s a cesspool, and he wants me
to go to CHURCH!
She turned despondently, leaning against a front post. How could anyone be so at odds with themself? A pickup truck parked only feet away, and out strode two more working-classers, either loggers or construction workers. All brawn and wide shoulders, muscled legs, tufts of hair spilling from their collars. “Howdy,” one said with a half-smile. Hazel eyed his crotch, said, “Hi,” and watched them enter the tavern.
Go with God,
she repeated her father’s words but at the same time fantasized: she’d been hauled atop the pickup’s hood. The first redneck lay right on her head and fucked her face; an elephantine penis seemed to bend down into her throat and bug her eyes out with each thrust. The other pumped her pussy with a small toilet plunger...

Sick, sick, sick,
she thought.

Fwump!
came a sudden sound.

Behind the tavern a large man effortlessly tossed a huge garbage bag into a dumpster.
It’s him!
It was the “woodsman.” This close Hazel felt tiny.
He could roll me up in a little ball and just fuck me,
squash me into the dirt...

“Excuse me,” she rushed. “Do you have the time—”

He disappeared through a backdoor, never having heard her.

Hazel shuffled back in, hoping her perch was ready, or anything to get her mind off the carnal muck that seemed to cover her like slime.

“Are you sure?” Sonia said from the driver’s window. “That’s a long walk in this heat.”

“The cabin’s only a couple miles. I just feel like a walk”—she patted her stomach, which was protruding now—“I need to work off some of this food.”

“Well, all right. But if you get tired, just call me on your cell and I’ll pick you up.”

“Okay.”

Hazel watched Sonia back the Prius out from amid the phalanx of pickup trucks, then drive away. She felt stuffed now, yet antsy. The call from her father, she knew, had thrown her off kilter. Yes, she knew she was a crummy daughter. She knew her father was a good man who loved her very much and would do anything for her, yet still she avoided him. He made her think of
herself
too much, and this frustrated her. She felt frustrated, too, in not being able to meet the woodsman, though why she couldn’t imagine.
He’s just a
backwoods manual laborer.
She could only presume her fascination denoted some subconscious—and perverse—fantasy.

Shit...

Over the treeline, the horizon began to flame as the sun inched lower.
Maybe a couple miles of walking’ll clear my head...

The winding road back toward the cabin was paved but soon Hazel found herself veering off on a wide dirt road. If she had her bearings right, it should navigate her toward Lake Sladder, which she’d love to see. Intermittently, she passed clusters of trailers set back in the woods. They seemed hidden. Flaps of laundry fluttered on clotheslines. The forest thickened the farther she proceeded, the tall pines and oaks seemed closer and closer together. Suddenly she felt uneasy, bare-legged and flipflopped when snakes and briars could be all around.
Go with God, go with God,
her father’s voice kept harassing her. She’d devoutly attended church up until the end of high school, long after her sexual obsessions had made themselves plain in her psyche.
Did I ever really believe in God?
she asked herself now but then was certain that she did.
So when did I stop?

No answer.

Her father had always been a Methodist minister, and owned a small truck dealership on the side. The new parish was his dream. Hazel knew how much her father wanted her to come back to church—he blamed “liberal, atheistic university life” for steering her away—but now, in this vibrant heat and fresh outdoor air, she suddenly realized that it had not been waning faith but instead a sense of overriding self-disgust. She felt she didn’t belong in church, that for someone who so eagerly pursued sexual debauchery as herself, her presence in the pews would be hypocritical.
I’ve got enough to feel bad about...
Her mother had abandoned her marriage only months after Hazel had been born, and though her father had never offered details—“It was simply God’s will, and that’s good enough for me”—Hazel had overheard some relatives verifying that her mother was actually quite a tramp.
Now I know where I got my sex-pot genes,
she thought. Sometimes she wondered the most ludicrous things:
Is my mother an Asthenolagniac? Is she a Asphyxiphile or a Maieusiophiliac?
Hazel had to laugh.

Suddenly she stopped; it seemed her mind had been meandering along with her feet, for now she realized the dirt road had forked and she’d unconsciously veered with it. The trees stood surreally still around her. Up ahead—ten yards? Twenty?—a man stood with his back to her. Just...
standing
there.

Hazel’s eyes thinned.
There’s no reason to be afraid...so
DON’T act afraid.
She took confident strides forward. “Excuse me, sir. I think I took a wrong turn back there. Could you tell me how to get back to the—”

Her throat sealed off the remaining words when the man quickly turned. Her purse fell to the dirt. The man wore a shabby, stained T-shirt, smudged jeans, and—

Holy shit, what IS this?

—a mask. A Peter Pan mask.

Hazel didn’t actually shriek until she turned around and found a second, taller man blocking the road behind her. This one, dressed just a shabbily, wore a Snow White mask.

The several-second pause was her biggest mistake; by the time she attempted to flee perpendicularly into the woods, Peter Pan had already had his hand gripping the back of her top. One swoop of his arm flung her into the dirt.

Stereophonic chuckling descended. A knife to her throat chaperoned words in what seemed a southern accent. “Don’t’cha make no noise or’se I’ll cut’cher throat’n bleed ya to death while we’se fuckin’ ya.”

Hazel’s heart hammered as a dirty hand hauled her top over her head. Two dirtier hands mauled her breasts while Peter Pan grabbed her hair. “What a big-ass pile’a steel wool this is,” he chortled. He rubbed her face in his crotch. The denim of his jeans smelled unmistakably of fish.

Snow White said, in a syrup-think New England accent, “Yew heerd what she said, said she eats like a pig. Well, haow ‘baout we see if she fucks like one tew?”

Someone from the restaurant,
came Hazel’s frantic deduction.
But, shit!
The restaurant was packed!

Now a hand pawed her crotch. “Bet’cha she got a shaved pie.”

“Neeeew...”

“Shore. Young gals these days, ‘specially the collerge gals, all shave it. Bet’cha it is.”

“Aw’right, then, yew’re on. Winner gets his nut’n her fust.”

Hazel’s flipflops were flung away and her shorts were peeled inside-out and off.

“Well dew tell!” said Snow White. “I en’t never
seed
a chunk’a red pussy har like thet!”

Mortified, Hazel tensed when one of them grabbed a fistful of her abundant pubis plot and
pulled
. Pain prickled; the skin of her sexual mound pulled out.

“
Big
ass pussy fer such a little thing.”

“Ee-yuh. Nice big lips on it.” The eyes behind Snow White’s eye-holes leveled. “Best jew keep them eyes shut, reddy-head. Less yew see’a us, better the chance we durn’t kill ya.”

Hazel’s eyes sealed shut.

“Flip her over naow. I wanna see whar her shit come out.”

“Dag straight.”

The rough hands flipped Hazel over like a sack of flour. Her buttocks was parted.

“Shee-it!” affirmed the southern voice. “That ass is fresh cornbread right out the oven!” and a fingertip shimmied in the anal opening.

“Well-used, tew. Yew kin tell by lookin’. More like’a slit instead of a hole. Means she’s no stranger to gettin’ it in the ass.” Belt buckles clinked. “Well go on. Yew got fust dibs.”

Hazel sensed her attackers changing positions. She grunted; her cheek dragged in the dirt as her hips were hauled up. With her eyes closed, she seemed to
sense
more. She heard the sound of a throat being cleared, then—

Hhhhock!

A mucoid lump landed in the crack of her buttocks after which a penis of more than modest girth pushed through.

“Shee-it,” came the immediate complaint. “This stringbean’s asshole tain’t tight at all. And fer such a li’l thing?”

“Heh, heh, heh. Told ya it looked well-used. Probably had more cocks goin’ in it than shit comin’ aout.”

In spite of the reeling horror, Hazel was able to register the grievance, and—

“Ho boy!” Peter Pan delighted.

—Hazel deftly tightened her anus.
So I’ve got a big asshole, huh,
she managed to think.
How’s this for big, you redneck garbage-pile?
Her dexterity enabled her to tighten the sphincter and hold it for a considerable length.

“Aw-aw-aw,
man!
All’s a sudden, she’s tighter than a li’l boy’s ass!”

Snow White’s New England drawl cackled. “Haow would jew know abaout li’l
boys’
asses?” and then a guttural peal of laughter fluttered up.

“Just a figgure’a speech, ya know?”

Now, with a mechanical promptitude, Hazel began to oscillate the intricate muscle without any relent at all, opening and closing at a pace that matched her heartbeat.

Her sodomizer was panting, grunting almost in distress as the penis plunged in and out. “I’se swear on my mama’s grave this is the
best
dang cornholin’ I ever had!” and then he began to shiver, his strokes picking up, and:

“Ah, fuck—ahhhhhhh!”