Fuck the Rules Page 4

  My jaw dropped. It was hugely entertaining watching the smug pretty boy get his come-uppance. I mean, just who does he think he is with his gadgets and girls and guns, when the rest of us only have landlords and high cholesterol and the same rattletrap cars we’ve driven since high school?

  I watched the rest of the film until the VHS cut to a blank screen. There were no closing credits, no music—nothing, except for a Russian actress puffing on cigarettes for thirty minutes until the tape stopped. I rewound it and played it back from where the guy had gotten smacked in the nuts. Again: femme fatale with nothing better to do than stand about idly chain-smoking. My copy of the film was forever changed as I’d willed it, and if I had to guess, so too was every other copy ever produced.

  The revelation hit me right then, hard and sudden like the shot to the nuts I’d witnessed the guy onscreen take twice over.

  I was a god!

  All this time I’d focused on petty things – bedding women, driving fast cars. But there were things money couldn’t buy – revenge, for instance, against that self-important fuckhead of a boss I punched a clock for every day, week in, week out for two years without so much as a raise, a sick day, a vacation, or even a thank you.

  Well, he was due for a fuck you, and his fair share of no thanks.

  The phone rang, interrupting my musing. It was a debt collection agency. Their calls had become more frequent of late, which was odd because I distinctly recalled no thanksing my debts out of existence – several times already, in fact. I gave them another no thanks, a loud one this time to make it stick, and hung up.

  “Comrade?”

  I nearly leapt out of my skin at the sound of a woman’s voice, gruff and stolid as a Siberian winter.

  “Comrade, over here.”

  The woman in the television was staring out the screen as though she were peering through a window into my house.

  “Pay attention when I speak to you!” she yelled.

  “S-Svetlana?” I answered her. To this day I don’t know how I knew her name. That was neither the character’s nor the actress’s name, but it suited her just as well.

  “Da, comrade,” she answered, her husky voice tough and seductive. She sneered, shaking her fists at me in disgust. “What is wrong with you? You are a sapless little boy when you should be a man!”

  “I am a man,” I said, though none too convincingly. Besides, Svetlana was hot, and I didn’t want to antagonize her if there was any chance I could bed her later.

  “You think so?” she scoffed. “Show me your penis.”

  I blinked at the screen, locking eyes with her assaying glare.

  “Do you even have a penis?”

  “Yes! I mean, yes, of course!” I said, fumbling with my belt buckle. I undid my trousers and let them fall to my ankles.

  Svetlana eyed me up and down with her fists on her hips. “Pah! I’ve seen bigger penises on newborn badgers!”

  I looked down at myself, my cheeks burning in shame. She was right. I realized for the first time how small my dick was. It looked thin as a pencil and short as a discarded cigarette butt.

  “I’m sorry!” I blurted, but stopped short when I saw she’d changed. In her arms was a machine gun, though where she’d gotten it was anyone’s guess. She certainly couldn’t have had that hidden away in her form-hugging leather bodysuit.

  The gun was huge – it looked like something that’d give Stallone or Schwarzenegger some trouble lugging around. A woman of Svetlana’s trim figure would definitely have had to struggle just to shoulder the weapon, and yet she bore it in her arms as though it were a plastic mock-up you’d find in a toy store.

  “You want to be a man?” she coaxed.

  I nodded.

  “Then you need this!” she said, proffering the gun. “You know where to get this?” she went on, shutting her eyes as she put the barrel in her mouth and French-kissed it, her tongue darting in between each of the flanges on its muzzle.

  “Yes!” I said dropping to my knees in front of the TV to press my face to its screen. “Yes, I do!”

  That same night I placed a call to my cousin, Alan. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in over a year, despite him living just across town. We grew up together, but drifted apart in adulthood as our personalities became ever more incompatible. He was the outdoorsy type, into trucks and guns, but mostly guns. I’d always been something of a loner. In truth, I couldn’t stand him, but played nice to appease my parents. I don’t think he ever figured out I didn’t care much for him.

  He picked up on the fourth ring and was more than happy to hear my voice. Our conversation went smoothly as we got the trite pleasantries out of the way and went straight to business.

  I told him that I wanted to start collecting guns. In the moment of silence that followed, I could almost sense his excitement through the phone, as though his reaction had charged the air with electricity.

  “And I want to start my collection with something big,” I told him.

  He showed up at my apartment the following evening with a canvas bag strapped across his back. It was about as long as he was tall, and as wide as a guitar case. He set it down on the floor of my living room, and when he unzipped it to show me what was inside, my eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.

  In the bag was twenty pounds of black metal monstrosity chambered for 5.56 rounds. It was an old piece, from 1986, but that detail made all the difference – Alan’s father had bought it before the automatic weapons ban of the mid-nineties, and when his old man died, the gun was passed down to Alan.

  “It’s called a squad automatic weapon, SAW for short,” Alan said. He pointed to the ammunition belts in the bag with the gun. “Of course,” he added with a chuckle, “the other reason it’s called a SAW is because it’ll saw right through anything you point it at.”

  I knelt before the bag to get a better look at the gun inside. It reeked of iron and grease. Alan doted on his guns, and by the looks of how he’d cared for this one, it was likely the star of his collection. This meant he wasn’t likely to part with it for cheap, but as luck would have it, he was hard up for cash. His wife had dragged him into a nasty divorce, and Alan stood to lose his gun collection to her in their property settlement.

  I cut him a check for five grand – a ton of money, and more than I had on hand to be sure, but if the check bounced I could just no thanks it away. Besides, I’d only need the gun for one day. If Alan took it back for my failure to pay him, then I’d still have put it to use for my purposes, and wouldn’t need it any longer anyway.

  Alan and I shook hands. Just like that, I was the proud owner of a fully automatic piece of military-grade hardware. We spent the next hour going over the finer points of its operation – loading the ammo belt and whatnot – until at last we said goodbye and he started for home.

  Morning dawned the next day. I slept through the first alarm, then slapped the snooze button until I deemed it a suitable hour to crawl out of bed. I’d earned the privilege; it was my thirty-sixth birthday, after all. I helped myself to a bowl of Fruity Pebbles in Budweiser, a raspberry Pop-Tart and a cup of black coffee. Then I hefted the gun in its bag into the trunk of my car and drove to work, which brings me back to where I left off.

  After I’d shredded Watterson and turned Sharon into Swiss cheese, I stepped out of the elevator cab with the big gun level to my hip, jutting parallel to the floor like a three-foot-long black dildo. Fuck if it didn’t feel good! Shit, the bulge in my pants was so rock-hard it hurt.

  “Svetlana, that’s for you, baby!” I yelled, yanking the trigger and rocking side to side, dousing the office in a solid stream of bullets.

  The cubicle bank was empty – correction: looked empty. No one dared raise their head. Then Mitchell the office hotshot peeked out from around the corner of a cubicle wall.

  “Oh my God, Danny!” he huffed in a breathless whisper on realizing the shooter in their midst was none other than their fellow co-worker, Danny Pannacotta. Good old Danny who
always refills the coffee pot when he pours the last cup; Danny who cleans his uneaten food out of the break room refrigerator every Friday; Danny who takes his personal phone calls away from his desk so not to disturb his co-workers; Danny who never got a gold star on the board; Danny who never got to park in the employee of the month parking space; Danny who never got to bed that cock-gobbling hussy Sharon; Danny, Danny, Danny who never got a break because Mitchell caught them all and who was now about to spray Mitchell with lead.

  “Dance, motherfucker!” I screamed, squeezing the trigger.

  The gun leapt into action with a staccato thup-thup-thup and constellation of muzzle flashes. Mitchell’s feet kicked out from underneath him and he fell over backward, the unrelenting chain of fire shearing him in two up the middle vertically. When at last his body hit the ground, he looked as though he’d been put through a circular saw head-first down to his waist.

  I stepped past him and rounded the corner, spotting Cynthia cowering beneath the desk with her cell phone at her ear.

  “Give it over, now!” I shouted, taking a hand off my gun.

  Without taking her wide, fearful eyes off of me, she slid her phone across the floor. It bumped into the side of my shoe and I crushed it underfoot.

  “Now get the fuck out of here!” I yelled, sweeping a hand to the elevator.

  She didn’t move, not even to breathe.

  “Go!” I shouted, and she sprang from beneath the desk, running stooped over with her hands on the back of her head.

  Cynthia wasn’t too bad a human being. I didn’t mind letting her go.

  Moving down the hall to the break room, I found Susan crouched beneath the table. Richard, the company’s bookkeeper, knelt with his back against the counter at the room’s depth, his hands up, pleading. The microwave heating his lunch beeped. It was fish, again. That son of a bitch always stank up the office with his smelly lunches.

  I opened up on them both, pivoting at the hip to spray the small room with bullets. A slug caught Richard between the eyes, splitting his glasses at the bridge of his nose and sending both halves crashing into opposite walls; his head reacted similarly. Susan lay face down beneath the table, her body riddled with puckering red holes. By the time I was done, the room looked like it had been repainted with gallons of raspberry jelly.

  “Yaaah!” came a scream from behind me, and all of a sudden I was yoked backward. My firing hand tensed up, and the gun spewed a stream of bullets that crept up to the acoustical ceiling tiles and into the overhead fluorescents. Sparks and glass rained from the exploding light bulbs, and half of the office was plunged into darkness.

  I shook off my attacker and wheeled around to face her. It was Ingrid, who had apparently been eating a take-out salad at her desk when I showed up. She crouched in ready position, back arched like an angry cat, a plastic fork in her hand.

  “What the fuck are you going to do with that?” I asked.

  “What the fuck aren’t I going to do with it, shithead?” she shouted back.

  “Fuck you,” I replied, and shot her once in the gut. Her knees gave out and she crumpled forward, clutching her stomach. That’d hurt like hell but she’d live, probably. Bitch had it coming for being so rude on my birthday.

  I heard a rustle back the way I’d come. Lloyd peeked up from behind the cover of a cubicle wall. He froze when our eyes met, and then made a break for the elevator, pumping his legs in a mad sprint for the exit. I wheeled in place and fired. His hands went flying over his head like a Sunday preacher on a rush of inspiration as his body went slack and he crash-landed face-first on the linoleum.

  I turned back around in time to catch Thomas running at me from down the hall, desktop stapler held high to bash me in the head with it. Fear stopped him in his tracks when he realized I’d spotted him. I squeezed off a short burst of concerted fire at his abdomen, opening a hole in his torso I could chuck a watermelon through.

  I was rounding the corner at the far end of the office when the emergency stairwell door swung out violently, crashing into the flat of my face. I staggered backward as John the security guard stumbled out of the doorway. He’d timed my advance and kicked the door as I approached so that it would swing into my path.

  The pain was blinding – I was certain he’d broken my nose. I regained my senses an instant later, but by then it was already too late: John was at close quarters. He batted the muzzle of my gun away and rammed his pistol into my chest, firing twice.

  Let me tell you: you don’t know pain until you’ve been shot. It’s not like in the movies. Catch a slug, and you go down. The smoldering hurt from the white-hot bullets in my torso made me almost want to repent for having shot those other people.

  Almost.

  They did have it coming, after all.

  What happened after that was a blur as I swung in and out of consciousness. I remember blue and red lights – cops, I think – men in white coats – doctors? – and something else. You’re gonna love this.

  I saw Death. He’s just as you’d expect, shrouded in black and nothing but bones beneath. I was dying despite the doctors’ efforts to get those bullets out of me.

  You can guess what happened next. When he was so close that I could smell his rotten breath, right before he could grab hold of me and shuttle me on to the afterlife, I leaned in and whispered in his ear: “No thanks.”

  And you know something? That bony bastard knew right then he’d been conned. His expression didn’t change – he’s a skeleton, after all – but damn if he looked pissed off. I’ll give him credit though: he’s a wily fucker, because instead of letting me die, he put me here with you – wherever this is. If I’d have known it’d amount to this, I might not have refused him.

  You see, before he left, Death took away my power to tell reality no thanks. Nowadays, when the guys in white like you show up, and I tell them no thanks, they just shake their heads with confused looks on their faces.

  Which brings us to the here and now. I presume you know about no thanks too, otherwise, how else would you or any of the others like you have ended up here? Don’t act surprised; what the hell else did you think would happen? I mean, you can only say “fuck you” to the universe enough times before you’re the one who gets fucked. You’re trapped in here as much as I am, except I won’t be for long. I’m practicing, you see. Training. Already I can feel my powers coming back, and it’s only a matter of time until I no thanks my way out of this place.

  And while I’ve enjoyed your company for what it’s worth, now it’s time for us to part. Hell is other people, after all, so happy trails and fuck you, buddy, because you’re not sticking around.

  Not gonna happen.

  No sir.

  No thanks.

  Go on, get out of your seat. There you go. Now get lost. No thanks.

  See? Even now you’re walking away. I’ve still got it!

  No thanks.

  Keep going, buddy. Leave me alone.

  No thanks.

  The Punishment Room

  Suzanne Fox

  Shivers tingled Mia’s skin as a chilly draught kissed her naked body. But it wasn’t the cool breeze drifting through the open door alone that made her tremble.

  Bang!

  She jumped as the door slammed shut and the clicking of curt footsteps grew louder and closer, until he stood before her. The temptation to look up at him was almost all-consuming, but Mia fought the urge. She kept her head lowered, her eyes fixed on the floor and the polished, black shoes that invaded the space before her. The hardness of the wooden floor tormented her bare knees but she held her position, back arched into a gentle curve, and fingers intertwined behind her head. The black shoes disappeared from her field of vision as he stalked behind her.

  A predator. An alpha… Her Master.

  She counted one, two, three, four, five to slow her breathing, as his wrath washed over her in an unseen wave of tension. She understood his anger. She knew its roots were grounded deep within her disobedience, and
it was why she waited, naked and penitent, in the punishment room. His presence had the substance of a physical weight and she battled his oppression to maintain her posture. Experience had taught her that anything less than perfection would only serve to incur further chastisement.

  Mia tried hard to be his perfect submissive. She had given her submission freely and without coercion. Now, she did nothing without first being granted permission. Every morning she put on the clothes that he selected for her. She ate the foods that he told her to eat. She fucked him on demand, and in whatever way he desired. She took her greatest pleasure from serving and gratifying her Master in every possible way, and she suffered immense shame at any failure.

  “Oh, Mia.” The quiet tone of his voice conveyed the depths of his displeasure far more than any amount of shouting could. “You’ve disappointed me again. I thought you’d learned your lesson after the last time.”

  Mia chewed her lip and swallowed any excuses that threatened to roll from her tongue. He hadn’t given her permission to speak. Instead, she focussed her stare on the scuff marks that scarred the oak floorboard before her and tried to close her mind to the inevitable.

  “Assume your punishment position.”

  Immediately, Mia leaned forward, resting her weight on her forearms and knees. She raised her feet, pointing her toes toward the ceiling with the grace of a ballerina. She could adopt any pose he ordered her into without a second thought. She was well-trained and obedient. Usually.

  His cool fingers trailed from the nape of her neck to the cleft of her bottom, and the tremors that rode her flesh intensified. She sucked in a deep breath as his hand traced its way toward her buttocks – her bruised, abraded, and oh so tender skin. Acting on instinct alone, her muscles tensed, drawing her backside away from his fingertips by mere millimetres.

  Oh, Christ, Mia thought, forcing herself to relax, but it was too late. The slight movement didn’t go unnoticed and the flat of his palm wobbled her flesh with a slap that echoed around the harshly furnished room. Mia whimpered but held her position. She was strong, capable of enduring endless spankings, but her battered body had been left so sensitised from her last punishment that even the lightest touch of her underwear had brought her to the verge of tears. A viscous warmth trickled down her bottom and thigh as a cane wound from her last whipping re-opened and fear tightened its mean grip, twisting Mia’s guts. She trembled with a violence that exhausted her already weary body.