    Djinn: An Extreme Horror Novel

By Sam West

Copyright Sam West 2014

Cover Image blazingcovers@gmail.com

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced or used in any way without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews. The characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

CHAPTER ONE.

Somebody’d had a really evil crap in this cubicle. Pam Wilkins gagged, covering her mouth with the sleeve of her tatty cleaning jumper, careful not to let the yellow rubber glove she was wearing touch her face.

“Fuck,” she groaned, the bile rising and her tongue floating in mouth water.

Shit, she should be used to this. She’d been doing it for almost a year, which was a long time as far as cleaning toilets went. The job could be measured in something like dog years. One month felt like ten years so she figured she should really be used to it by now.

She took a step inside the cubicle of death and the door swung shut behind her. There was no way she was getting trapped in with that stench so she placed her plastic bucket full of cleaning products at the foot of the door to wedge it open.

That’s when the dull glint caught her eye under the door hinge. At first glance she thought it was a discarded copper teapot, but then she saw the shape of the thing was too elongated to be a teapot. She bent over to inspect it more closely. Yes, it was some kind of lamp, instantly making her think of Aladdin and The Lamp.

She picked it up, slowly turning it over in her hands. It was filthy, but under the dirt it looked like it might be made of brass. Were brass lamps worth anything? She didn’t know, but she would google it when she got in. Maybe it would be worth a bob or two on Ebay.

She picked out a yellow dustcloth from her bucket and gave it a little rub.

Smoke began to curl out of the spout.

“What the fuck?” she exclaimed, dropping the lamp.

It clattered to the tiled floor, the smoke continuing to rise. It billowed in the confined space, making her gag and her eyes water.

“What the fuck,” she repeated, coughing and spluttering.

Pam stumbled backwards, staring incredulously at the smoke that now filled the cubicle.

All that smoke, but no fire, she thought, her mind whirring in confusion. How can that be?

The cubicle was thick with smoke. But the strange thing was, not even a curl of it escaped the cubicle, like there was an invisible barrier confining it there.

The smoke seemed to be clearing a little, and now that it was, Pam could make out a figure standing amidst it.

“Shit,” she proclaimed, rubbing her eyes, convinced she was seeing things.

But no, there was definitely somebody standing in the cubicle. A man, no less, judging from the tall, broad shouldered silhouette.

“What the fuck is this? Where did you come from?”

“From the lamp. You summoned me. I am here to do your bidding.”

“Yeah, and I’m the queen of fucking Sheeba. Did Wayne put you up to this?”

“No.”

Pam shivered. She couldn’t see his face as the smoke still swirled around his head, obscuring his features. How could the bastard breathe in all that smoke? She had pulled her pullover up over nose and still the smoke felt thick and frightening in her lungs. That aside, it was the voice that got to her. Despite the figure being obviously male, the voice sounded oddly asexual, falling somewhere between masculine and feminine. Not only that, but it didn’t seem to be emanating from the man himself. Like the smoke itself, the lilting voice hung in the air all around them.

It had to be a practical joke, the guy had to have a tape recorded voice in his pocket to make it sound like that. Or maybe there were speakers hidden in the toilet. Pam hated practical jokes, her life was one big joke enough as it was.

A distant part of her mind warned her that this was real. Who the hell did she think she was? She knew perfectly well she wasn’t even interesting enough to be the butt of a practical joke.

“Now listen here, you fucking psycho, obviously you’ve been loitering in the next door cubicle waiting to pull your little stunt, but I don’t want to play your sick games. I’m walking away, right now, and then I’m going to call the police.”

“Stay, Pam. I can give you everything your mortal heart has ever desired. I can make your every wish come true. I am the Djinn.”

“Fuck off.”

Pam was scared. It wasn’t right. He wasn’t right. How could he stand there in all that smoke and not be fucking dead? And now that the smoke was clearing, why could she still not see his fucking face? It was almost like he didn’t have one.

She turned to leave.

“Wait.”

The quiet command of his voice made her pause.

“Leave me alone,” she said, hating how frightened she sounded.

She remained rooted to the spot, not daring to turn around and face him yet also unable to turn and leave.

“Don’t be scared Pam, you have nothing to fear. I am friend, not foe. If you complete a simple set of tasks I can make all your dreams come true.”

Something compelled her to turn around.

He had stepped out of the cubicle where the smoke was rapidly clearing and stood less than a metre away from her. He was wearing a well cut black suit on his perfectly formed body.

She still couldn’t see his face. She rubbed her eyes, convinced she was losing her mind. But no, his features were a blur, like she was too pissed to focus. Except she wasn’t. It was Monday morning and she was stone cold sober. His hair might have been dark, but it was near impossible to tell. His head seemed to gently shimmer and sparkle, like the reflection off an ocean. It hurt to look at it for too long.

“What kind of fucking mask is that?” she asked, shielding her eyes.

“It is not a mask. Mortals cannot gaze upon my visage, my absolute, perfect beauty would destroy your mind. You would not be able to comprehend it.”

“What are you? Apart from conceited?”

“I am Djinn, the third sapient creature of God. There are humans, angels and those like me, the Djinn.”

“You mean a demon, right?”

Pam simply could not believe she was having this conversation. It was ludicrous, she was humouring a psychopath.

Yet as much as she hated to admit it, she believed his every word.

“No Pam, Djinn are not demons. Like you humans, we have free will. We can be good, evil, or benevolent.”

“And what are you?”

He didn’t smile, because he didn’t have a face, but she could hear the tease in his voice.

“Why, I am good, of course.”

She shook her head. She had gone insane, it was the only logical explanation.  It was hardly a surprise, really. All the financial worries, her bullying boyfriend and generally shitty life had led her to this point.

“You’re not real,” she said, closing her eyes, wanting it to be true.

When she opened them again, he was still there. As she knew, deep down, he would be.

“Make a deal with me Pam. Six wishes in exchange for six simple tasks. You will live a long and perfect life of your choosing, at the end of which, I take your soul.”

“What, so you can torture me for all eternity? I don’t think so.”

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Pam. I do not wish to torture you, I wish to save you from hell. Do you really think you’re getting into heaven? With all things you’ve done in your life? Please.”

“How do you know what I’ve done?”

“Because I am not of this world. Because when you rubbed the lamp, I absorbed your memories, your very essence. I know everything. I know about the abortions, the hard drinking, the prostituting yourself.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, that was only like twice. And I only did it ‘cause I was desperate ‘cause the bailiffs were on my case.”

“No matter. It is enough to send you to hell.”

“If all this is true, then what the fuck do you want with my soul?”

“What good is a kingdom with no subjects? The third realm consists of saved souls, and the more souls I save from the eternal torture of hell, the happier I will be.”

“So you’re like, the boss of this place?”

“The collective Djinn are. Look, Pam, the politics of the third realm are of little consequence. Do you want to make the deal or not?”

“But why me?”

“Why not? My lamp, or that is, my vessel, had to materialise somewhere. It just happened to be here. I wouldn’t have come out if a good person destined for heaven had found the lamp. I am here to save a soul, and along came you.”

“Along came me,” she repeated wistfully.

Pam’s head ached with the most bizarre encounter of her relatively short life. Six wishes. Oh, the things she could wish for to make her life better. The things she could have and do so she wouldn’t wake up every day in misery…

He closed the gap between them and she shivered when he reached out to touch her arm. He steered her over to the long mirror above the sink and stood behind her.

“Look at yourself Pam. What do you see?”

Pam concentrated on her own face, ignoring the blurred visage of the man behind her. Pam had had a hard life. All the twenty six years of crap were etched on her prematurely lined, sunken face.

“I see sadness,” she said softly.

“I can take all that away. I can make you happy. I can make you beautiful. I can make you rich. Whatever you want.”

Pam looked at her bloodshot, heavily bagged eyes. At the prematurely grey streaked, lank, dark hair. At the double chin and hollow cheeks. At the yellow front teeth and the missing eye teeth. She was a mess. A big, fat mess.

She lowered her eyes in disgust. She was repulsive, she would give anything to be pretty.

Even sell her soul.

“Make the deal, Pam. We cannot proceed until you consent. I will make the first offer, and it will count as the first of your six wishes. Ten thousand pounds will appear in your purse if you complete the first of your six tasks.”

His voice or its voice was so soothing, so hypnotic. She couldn’t think straight, her head felt fuzzy like she had just awoken from a deep sleep.

A distant part of her mind warned that she had fallen under a spell. Yet simultaneously she didn’t care.

“What would I have to do for my first task?”

“All you have to do is drink out of the toilet you were about to clean.”

“What?”

“I think you heard me Pam. Six good swallows, and the ten thousand pounds is yours.”

“There’s a fucking floater in it.”

“So?”

“What if I refuse?”

The be-suited shoulders towering over her shrugged. “Then the deal is off. You go back to being the sad, fat, ugly, pathetic excuse for a human being that you are.”

“Hey, that’s harsh.”

“Yes, it is. And I’m giving you this golden opportunity to change your life. Drink the water, Pam. Take control of your own destiny.”

She turned around and stared at the face that wasn’t until it stung her eyes and she was forced to look away.

I can’t believe I’m even contemplating this. I can’t believe this is happening…

When she glanced over at the stall softly shrouded by the wispiest tendrils of smoke, the porcelain bowl seemed to stare back her.

The mouth water was back again just thinking about it, her tongue curling up at the base.

“What if I do this? What would I have to do for the next one?”

“Each task is on a need to know basis.”

“But what if I do this, and not the next?”

“Then you forfeit everything, including the money for this task, even if you have completed it to my satisfaction. You finish with nothing and the deal is off. You go back to being the fat loser who scrubs toilets for a living and lets her boyfriend beat her.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, thank you. So do we have a deal?”

She hesitated for a second. “What if I get some disease?”

“That’s your choice.”

“Jesus.”

“Oh, come now, Pam. You’ve done worse.”

It was true. She had. But how did he know that?

Because he peered into your mind when you rubbed his lamp, remember?

“Jesus,” she said once more.

Fuck it, he’s right, I have done worse.

She cast her mind back to the time Wayne had made her clean the rim of the toilet bowl with her tongue when she had burnt his dinner. So this would be a walk in the park, right?

Ten grand, she thought. I could sure use ten grand.

In her head she was paying off the back rent and overdue council tax and the payday loan that seemed to have not so much doubled as quadrupled.

“Fuck it,” she said aloud, marching assertively over to the toilet bowl.

“Good girl.”

The smoke had cleared like it had never been. She sunk to her knees, and stared into the bowl. A turd looked back up at her, and it wasn’t solid. It was brown arse piss.

“Can I flush?”

“No.”

“Shit.”

“Indeed.”

She gagged slightly, breathing in the stench.

“Fuck, I can’t.”

“Maybe this will persuade you.”

She swivelled her head round and the Djinn was standing behind her, his crotch at her eyelevel. He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a thick wad of notes.

Her jaw almost hit the floor. That was a lot of dosh.

“There’s ten grand here. Now drink.”

Cursing some more under her breath, she gripped the sides of the toilet seat and dipped her head nearer the foul brown liquid.

I can’t, she thought in disgust as she lowered her head into the vile pool of shit. The putrid odour of a stranger’s corrupt bowels assaulted her nose and watering eyes.

Her puckered mouth broke the surface and she quickly slurped down a mouthful.

“Fuck!” she wailed, coming up for air.

Her gag reflex was working overtime. If she didn’t get this over with quickly, she was going to bail. She wiped her mouth on the back of her glove and left a watery brown stain on the yellow rubber.

She dipped her mouth back into the brown water and took five gulps in quick succession. When she was done she came up gasping for air and flung her back against the wall, landing heavily on her ample backside.

“Congratulations Pam,” the Djinn said to the panting, distressed woman. “You have successfully completed your first task. I shall come to you daily to grant your wish and issue further instructions.”

Pam barely heard him. It pained her to breathe and her ears were ringing. Her heart beat hard and fast and she found she was trembling all over. She felt something land in her lap and when she looked down she saw a whole heap of tens and fifties.

And just like that, the Djinn was gone.

Pam twisted her head sideways, and threw up. She reached for her mop and then thought; what the hell am I doing?

She didn’t need this piece of shit of job anymore, she had ten grand in her lap. After holding a few of the notes up to the light to check they were real, she lifted up her pullover and stuffed the notes in her bra.

She made her way back into the pub to collect her bag and coat, clutching the lamp in her trembling hands.

“That was quick,” a gravelly male voice said behind her, making her jump.

“I quit,” she said, not even bothering to turn around and reaching for her coat and bag that was slung over the bar.

“What the fuck do you mean, you quit? Pub opens in half an hour, clean those fucking toilets now. And what the fuck is that?” he asked, nodding towards the lamp she held clasped to her chest.

She turned round to face the bullying landlord. He was a right prick. Short, fat and obnoxious, his reputation for groping staff was legendary. Not her though, she wasn’t pretty enough for that fat bastard to touch her. She had never known if she was pleased about that, or insulted.

“Clean them yourself, you fat prick. And when you’ve done that, go fuck yourself,” she said, ignoring his question about the lamp.

His face turned a bright shade of red.

Boy, that felt good.

“How dare you talk to me like that, you good for nothing, ugly slag.”

She stalked out the dive of a pub with the shitty carpets and flat screen TVs on every wall that showed every football match known to mankind and called to him over her shoulder:

“The puke in the second cubicle from the left is mine. Enjoy cleaning it up.”

She stepped outside onto the busy London street, feeling happier than she had in years.

Her euphoria didn’t last long. She was mugged on the way home. Looking back, she knew perfectly well she had brought it upon herself when she was sat there at the bus stop, waiting for the number fifty eight. Some money had fallen out of her bra and drifted to the pavement. Hastily she had picked it up and stuffed it into her bag. When she had glanced nervously around, she noticed a couple of young guys in the small crowd gathered at the bus shelter, and when she looked at them, they quickly looked away again.

She didn’t like the look of them one bit. One was black and the other was white. They fit every stereotype going of modern disenchanted youth; designer baggy jeans with their underpants showing, hoodies pulled up over their shaved heads, trainers that probably cost more than she earned cleaning in one whole month.

Alarm bells rang when they got off at the same stop as her. But there was little she could do about it, so she had walked briskly in the direction of home, going the long way round to avoid the quiet streets.

Fat lot of good that had done her. They pounced when she was less than five minutes from home, dragging her into an alleyway between a tanning salon and a betting shop.

The white guy pushed her to the floor. She landed on her rump, the shock of it knocking her sick for a second.

“Hand over the money,” he said.

“We saw that money fall out of your jumper at the bus stop,” the black guy said. “So hand it over.”

“What money?” she asked bravely. Stupidly.

The white guy kicked her in the side of her head and she went sprawling to the floor. Everything started to spin, and she could taste the coppery tang of blood in her mouth.

“Fuck this,” he said, reaching down to yank her pullover up over her fat stomach and heavy breasts. “Christ, what are you, the living dough girl?”

His friend snorted laughter and reached down to prise the wads of money out of the cups of her bra. In doing so he dislodged the bra and her big tits spilled out.

“Fuck, she’s disgusting,” the white guy said.

But when Pam gazed up at him through blurry vision, she saw that her being so disgusting didn’t stop him from rubbing the obvious bulge in the front of his designer jeans.

“Help!” she screamed.

Her cries for help were cut short when the white guy kicked her hard in her bare, flabby stomach. She doubled over, the air whooshing out of her.

The black guy finished fishing out the last of the notes from her torn bra.

“I don’t fucking believe this, there’s fucking thousands here.”

“Check her bag, maybe there’s more,” said the other guy.

He proceeded to tug down her scruffy cleaning jeans, taking her knickers with it.

“Hey man,” his friend asked. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for more money. If she keeps it stashed in her bra, who knows where else she keeps it. Like, up her ass, or something.”

“Shit, we don’t have time for this, you dirty fucker. What you wanna fuck that dog for? Let’s get out of here.”

Pam remained doubled over on her side, the air cool against her bare buttocks.

Why is this happening to me?  Oh God, my money…

In the distance a police siren could be heard.

“See,” the black guy said, “they’re on their way already.”

“Don’t be so fucking soft. This is fucking London, there’s always police sirens.”

“I don’t care. I’m gone.”

The white guy stared longingly down at her, then sighed deeply.

“Fine. Hey man, what’s that?”

“Dunno. It was in fatty’s bag.”

Pam blanched when she saw he was holding the lamp.

“No,” she wheezed. “Please don’t take that.”

That was absolutely the wrong thing to say.

The black man smiled. It showed lots of white teeth and the coldness of it sent a shiver down her spine.

They turned to leave, leaving her half naked and beaten, sprawled out in the alleyway.

“Shit,” one of them was saying, their figures and voices retreating. “I can’t believe that fat cunt had so much money on her…”

Pam groaned softly and pulled herself into a sitting position. Her attackers had taken every last penny. The fuckers.

But the worst thing of all was the lamp. Now she would never get her remaining five wishes.

What a fucking day, she thought miserably. She had drunk shit, been beaten up, lost ten grand, lost her job and any chance of a happy future now the lamp was gone.

Could this day get any fucking worse?

She didn’t think so.

She was wrong.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

“Hello Wayne. I got mugged on the way home.”

Wayne glared at her and Pam shrivelled inside. She knew that look and it wasn’t good. She dragged her aching body over to the tatty sofa that served as a wall, dividing the kitchen from the living room and collapsed onto it.

“I couldn’t give two shits what happened to you on the way home. I meant what the fuck happened at work.”

Fuck, he knows. He knows I walked out. Now I’m really in the shit…

“I’ve just been beaten up and mugged. Can we talk about this later?”

He was on her in a flash, pinning her down with his big body against the sofa.

“I don’t think so, sweetheart. This rent don’t pay itself, you lazy, good for nothing slag.”

His breath was sour in her face, making her cringe. It wasn’t even yet midday and he’d already hit the booze.

Fucking marvellous.

“Wayne, please, have a heart. I’m really hurting right now…”

“I’ll give you hurting, you stupid fucking slut.”

One meaty hand was a dead weight on her collarbone and the other slapped her across the face. Normally it wouldn’t bother her, but her muggers had already hit her there and the inside of her mouth was bleeding where a tooth had cut her cheek.

She whimpered and clutched her throbbing face.

“Leave me alone Wayne, I mean it.”

Wayne’s face was red and his eyes bulged. She could see the way the thick, body builder veins in his neck were protruding and she quivered beneath him. That meant he was really mad. Not for the first time she wondered why she was still with him.

Because you’re too scared to be alone and you’ll never get anyone else. Ever.

“Stupid whore,” he said, sitting up and edging away from her slightly.

She breathed a sigh of relief. The threat of violence had passed. For now.

“I’m sorry baby, I’ll get another job right away, I promise. How do you know anyway?”

“Because you’re boss called and said you could forget about getting paid for last week.”

Oh my God, the complete fucking bastard, she thought angrily.

“I’m really sorry, Wayne. He was just such a bastard and I couldn’t stand it no longer.”

“We got rent to pay, you’re gonna have to get your sorry ass another job today or you’re gonna have to go out and whore yourself.”

Pam knew he wasn’t joking. She had never actually done it, she’d always managed to talk him round by telling him that he might catch some fatal STD if she did it. That had seemed to work. So far.

“I’ve still got the other cleaning gigs, and the care work, and the weekend factory job, it’s not like I’ve lost everything, and I’ll replace the job I lost today.”

“You’d better.”

Maybe you should get a fucking job, came the unbidden thought.

Immediately she felt guilty. She loved Wayne. She was lucky to have him. Women that looked like her never got guys that looked like Wayne. When he wasn’t drinking or taking drugs he worked out. And how. His midriff was maybe a little puddingy from all that beer, but he was sculpted and completely out her league in the looks department. He had that shaved heard, Bruce Willis thing going on, except Wayne was a whole lot bigger and meaner looking.

He reminded her of this every day, that she was lucky to have him. That’s when she wasn’t working or he was beating on her.

I love him, she reminded herself. If you love him so much then why do you have to remind yourself that you do?

She shrugged off the dark thoughts. It must just be because she was tired and hurting.

“Why’d you get mugged anyway? You ain’t exactly Paris Hilton, are you?”

Pam shrugged. How the hell could she possibly even begin to explain?

Oh well, you know, I meet this Jeanie in a bottle, and he offered me ten grand if I drank out of a dirty toilet. Some thugs saw the money fall out of my bra at the bus stop and I got mugged…

“Just unlucky I guess.”

Wayne got up and crossed the short distance to the fridge to retrieve a can of lager.

“You need to get yourself cleaned up. You’ve got to go to work in a few hours.”

Pam had another cleaning job this afternoon and she mentally groaned at the thought of it. She took her weary body into the mould ridden bathroom and set about the arduous task of cleaning herself up.

Work passed without incident. Another four hours of mind numbing, soul destroying crap, cleaning up other people’s shit. When she got home on the bus, weighed down by a shop in Tesco, Wayne was laid out on the sofa snoozing.

“Hey. What’s for dinner?” he asked through half closed eyes.

Pam dumped the bags of shopping in the kitchenette and proceeded to stab holes in the microwavable lasagne.

“Lasagne,” she said, casting her eye around the shambolic, filthy flat on the fifteenth floor of a tower block situated in Bethnal Green. Empty tinnies surrounded Wayne, along with Pizza crusts on dirty plates. There was crap everywhere, so much so her head hurt just looking at it all.

“Lasagne?” he asked.

Something in the tone of his voice had her on edge.

“Yeah,” she said warily.

“But you’re not working tonight.”

Four nights a week she did a twelve hour shift down a care home where she got to wipe shit fresh at the source instead of from a toilet.

“No, I’m not.”

“So therefore you’ve got plenty of time to cook a proper evening meal. My God, I’ve had nothing to eat all day apart from last night’s pizza, and now you’re gonna serve up something from a microwave?”

Pam was bone weary. She knew where this was headed, and after the day she’d had, she didn’t think she could face it.

“I’m sorry Wayne, I’m just a bit tired. I’ll make a nice salad with it.”

“A salad?” he spluttered incredulously. “You have got to be shitting me.”

He got up from the sofa and joined her in the tiny kitchen, grabbing her by her soft upper arms and violently shaking her.

“Stop it!” she protested, her teeth rattling in her head.

“Shut up, you lazy bitch.”

His face had gone that same shade of red it always went when he was mad. She noticed that his pupils were dilated. Probably speed, she reasoned. He was always cranky when he took speed.

He spun her round and bent her over the kitchen work top.

“Oh no Wayne, please, I’m too tired for this…”

“Shut up and pull down your pants.”

She heard the whiz of his belt being pulled through his jean loops and she knew she didn’t have a choice. Not unless she wanted to make it ten time worse for herself. So she pulled down her jeans and knickers and offered up her fat, pimply arse.

The belt came cracking down on her fleshy buttocks. Tears stung her eyes and the singing pain in her backside had her gasping and choking back the sobs. She gripped the work top and took her punishment like a good girl, counting the devastating blows to her arse.

He stopped after six. Her arse throbbed like it had a heartbeat of its own and she had great difficulty righting herself.

“Now get the fuck out of my sight.”

She hobbled into their bedroom which was right next door with not even a hallway dividing the two rooms. She shuffled to the bed with her jeans round her ankles and collapsed onto it face first.

She could hear the whir of the microwave as Wayne heated up the lasagne and her stomach grumbled, despite having eaten her own body weight that day in various pastries from Greggs.

She doubted that Wayne would talk to her for the remainder of the night. When he was cross with her he usually stayed up late and watched porn. Sickness and dizziness enveloped her as she lay on the bed. The sound of grunting women drifted to her through the closed door. So he was starting early tonight then. Tears stung her eyes and she eventually fell asleep to the sounds of the violent pornography he so enjoyed watching.

CHAPTER TWO.

Pam woke up at half six with Wayne snoring heavily besides her. By rights she didn’t have to get up seeing as she’d lost her cleaning job in the pub, but old habits died hard.

In the kitchen she switched on the kettle and unhooked a mug from the mug tree, absently picking at a pimple just underneath the sagging elastic leg hole of her big knickers.

“Good morning.”

Pam let out a short, sharp scream and dropped the mug she was about to spoon instant coffee into. It shattered on the floor at her bare feet. Fleetingly she thought she might have woken Wayne. But no, she could still hear him snoring through the wall. Nothing would wake that man right now, he would still be pissed from last night.

“You,” she gasped. “What, how, why?”

The entity with no face shrugged. He was still wearing the same black suit from yesterday.

“You have freed me from the lamp. I have no need for it until our deal is complete. I told you that I would appear to you every day until we are done.”

Pam was suddenly painfully self-conscious of her shapeless, night t-shirt. It only came to the top of her knickers because she was so fat and she wore nothing else. Surreptitiously she tugged it downwards, not that it helped any.

“I lost the ten grand yesterday. I was mugged. But I suppose you know that already, right?”

“Yes, Pam. I know everything about you.”

“So do I still get the other five wishes?”

“Of course you do. But I’ll tell you up front, immortality is off the cards, we cannot mess with the cyclical quality of human life. So what wish may I grant you, Pam?”

His face, or lack of it, was starting to hurt her brain and she lowered her gaze to the smashed mug.

There was the million dollar question and her heart surged in hope. Maybe, just maybe there was a way out of her miserable life after all.

“Money. But in a bank account this time. I don’t want any more nasty accidents like yesterday. I want a brand new account that Wayne can’t access.”

I don’t want Wayne getting his grubby mitts on it. Because I’m gonna take that money and run…

The thought surprised her. She wasn’t even aware that had been her plan until it had clarified in her mind in that precise moment.

“Very well. How much?”

“A million,” she said unthinkingly.

There was no way he’d go for that…

“It is not my place to influence your wishes. But why just a million? Can you not even comprehend an amount bigger than that, yet alone wish for it?”

He had a point. What were a few extra noughts between her and her magical friend? 

“A billion pounds, then.”

“Done. There is now one billion pounds sterling in your brand new bank account.”

He reached into his trouser pocket and showed her a bank card. It looked exactly the same as her old one, it even had her signature on the back of it. But it wasn’t her old card because the long number on the front was slightly different.

Pam felt dizzy. Could her life really change like that in the merest blink of an eye? There had to be a catch. There was always a catch.

“What do I have to do?” she asked with bated breath.

“Yes, your task. I am sure you are aware Pam, that everything comes at a price. When you complete your task today, I will give you your new debit card when I come to you tomorrow.”

Pam was beginning to feel distinctly uneasy.

“Go on,” she prompted when he fell silent.

“Only when you have completed the task will you be able to draw on your money. Today, I would like you to retrieve the lamp that was stolen yesterday. And when it is safely back in your possession, I would like you to kill the same two men that mugged you.”

“You want me to do what?”

“Kill the men that mugged you.”

Pam had heard him the first time. Unconsciously she clutched her chest to still her wildly beating heart.

“I can’t kill someone.”

“And I can easily retract the one billion pounds.”

“We don’t even know where they live.”

“Pam. Do I look like a normal kind of guy to you? Of course we know where they live.”

“Can’t I just go and get you back your lamp? Why do you want me to kill them?”

“Because that is just the way it has to be.”

“Jesus, I can’t, I’m sorry. The deal’s off.”

“You would forgo a life of wealth and happiness for the sake of two lowlife scumbags? For a pair of boys that would stab their own mother in the back for a paltry sum?”

“I am not a killer.”

“And I am running out of patience. It is your obligation to complete the deal.”

Pam’s blood turned cold in her veins.

“What if I don’t want to?”

His face, or lack of it, seemed brighter than before. The glow had spread to the rest of his body, illuminating him as if he stood in a pool of bright sunlight. Except there was no window in this sorry excuse for a kitchen.

“The moment your first wish was granted, I owned your soul. A deal is a deal, Pam. You made your choice, now you must honour it.”

“But what if I refuse to kill for you?”

“If you are adamant on such a trifling matter, then I will claim you soul early.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think?”

“You will kill me if I don’t do it?” she asked, her heart suddenly pounding extra hard. “You lied to me. You said that if I failed to complete a task, I would just go back to how I was at the beginning.”

“I wouldn’t call it a lie. More of a little fib to get you to agree to partake. If you do as I ask then you will live a long and happy life of your choosing. It is entirely up to you. Oh, come now Pam,” he said on seeing her stricken expression. “Those two have it coming, you will be doing the world a favour, ridding the earth of such vermin.”

One billion pounds and a way out of my shitty life. He’s right, they’re scum, I’ll be doing future innocent victims a favour. Better them than me…

Pam was horrified at the direction her thoughts were taking. But God, the money. That, and the fact she didn’t want to fucking die.

“What if I’m caught?”

He shrugged. “Then you know what to use your next wish on.”

“Jesus.”

Her mind whirred with the possibilities. Even if she was caught, and she used up her third wish on not being locked up, she still would have three wishes left. And three more wishes really wasn’t so shabby. She could be rich beyond her wildest imaginings. She could be beautiful. And still she would have one wish left.

“OK, I’ll do it.”

“Good girl.” He reached into his pocket and handed her a small sheet of paper with an address printed on it. “You’ll find them there this morning. Get there before midday.”

Her hand trembled when she took the offered piece of paper.

“Who the fuck are you talking to?”

Pam whirled around and saw Wayne behind her in just his boxers, scratching his balls. Her head snapped back round to stare at the empty spot where the Djinn had stood just seconds before.

He’s vanished into the thin air?

She had no idea why that, of all things, should surprise her.

“You’re up early,” Pam stammered.

“I heard ya talking. Who the fuck were you talking to?”

“Just myself.”

She kept her arm behind her back and discreetly scrunched up the piece of paper and tucked it into her knickers, sliding it between her ample arse cheeks.

“What are you hiding behind your back?”

“Nothing!”

Wayne grabbed her arm and twisted it in front of her, prising open her hand to reveal her empty palm.

“I’ll ask you one more time. Who the fuck were you talking to?”

“No one, I was just talking to myself while I made the coffee and then I dropped the mug and got angry. I’m sorry I woke you.”

He glared at her angrily, the indecision stamped on his face. After a moment or two he dismissively waved his hand and turned to leave.

“Whatever, just keep it down you nutty bitch, I’m trying to sleep.”

He left her alone in the kitchen and her shoulders sagged in relief. She retrieved the piece of paper out of her arse crack and flattened it out as best she could. There were two addresses, both in Elephant And Castle and both ‘Prince’s Tower,’ but with different numbers. Pam figured they must live in a high rise, much like the one she lived in herself. It was only half an hour away on the tube, and she could go on the computer now and pull up a street map too see what it was.

She realised that she was shaking violently. Here she was, planning a murder. And not just one murder, but two.

Quietly, so she didn’t wake up Wayne again, she switched on the laptop and set about her second task.

A few hours later she was on the tube, just one stop away from the London borough of Elephant And Castle. She was wearing a black, baggy pullover and an old pair of black trousers. Blood wouldn’t show so much on black. The rucksack she had with her was so old and dirty she figured that any blood stains wouldn’t show on that either.

Inside it was a couple of knives from the kitchen and a pair of black woolly gloves to stop her leaving fingerprints. Not that her fingerprints were on file, but if she ever became a suspect, then she guessed she would be well and truly fucked if they did fingerprint her.

By the time the train pulled into her station, Pam was all set for her killing spree. Once outside, she examined her piece of paper with the scribbled down instructions as the people flowed around her stationary, fat, black clad figure like water streaming around a rock.

It was easy to find. She stood at the foot of the tower block, gazing up at the impossible height of it. Now she was here, she vaguely remembered seeing it on the news, or reading about it somewhere. It was notorious for being a crime hotspot.

And I’m about to bump up the stats…

She thought her tower block was rough. It was nothing compared to this concrete jungle. Her block was a paltry sixteen floors, this had to be over forty. Graffiti was everywhere. ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here,’ was scrawled on the wall next to the double fronted, glass and concrete door. The greyness of it all was suffocating.

No time to dwell, she told herself. She had a job to do. Her gaze latched onto the maze of doorbells. Now what was she supposed to do? Ring the doorbell?

Hi, remember me? The woman you mugged yesterday? Can I come in?

Yeah, right. Like that was going to work.

She was saved from her own indecision when a woman with a pram appeared the other side of the glass. Their eyes locked through the glass for a second before she opened the door.

“Hi,” she said, holding the door open for her. “You going in?”

She was a young Indian woman, minus the burka. Her dark brown eyes were world weary and held a fierce looking intelligence. The woman put Pam instantly on edge. It was like she could read her mind and was peering into her very soul.

“Yeah, thanks.”

The woman hesitated for a second and Pam thought she was about to say something more. She didn’t, and at last Pam was alone in the piss scented foyer. A narrow corridor snaked off ahead, and the lift and stairs were to her right. She glanced quickly at the steel framed plan of the place nailed to the wall. She wanted apartments fifty six and one hundred and seventy three. There were forty two floors with between three and five apartments on each level. She needed floors twelve and thirty six.

Shit, how am I going to do this? Do I take top or bottom first?

She decided on top. At least when she did the second one she would be that much nearer the exit.

The lift stunk of piss and she gagged when the steel door slid across, sealing her in. She pressed five and held her breath.

The door opened onto a dingy, narrow hallway that also smelled of piss, complete with yellowing, white paint peeling off the concrete walls.

Jesus, she thought. She might live in squalor and deprivation but this was taking it to a whole new level. The fluorescent tube lighting flickered ominously above her head and the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prickled.

I can’t believe I’m doing this…

She pushed away the thought. She pushed away all thoughts of right and wrong. Of good and evil. Of her eternal soul, whatever the fuck that was.

Was there CCTV in this place?

She glanced around herself but couldn’t see any mounted camera anywhere. But that wasn’t to say there was no CCTV.

Besides, she could just wish the whole fucking lot away if it went wrong, couldn’t she? She shrugged of the misgivings as she approached her target, counting off the door number backwards as she did so.

Fifty eight, fifty seven…

Fifty six.

What if he recognises me when he looks through the spyhole and doesn’t open the door? What if he’s out?

She knocked on the door and stepped back, turning sideways so she was in profile and sweeping her hair over the side of her face.

After what felt like an age, when in reality it was probably less than twenty seconds, the door creaked inwards.

“Yeah? Who are you?”

She kept her face turned sideways, peeping at him through the curtain of lank, shoulder length hair. It was the black guy. He was wearing grey tracksuit bottoms and a tight, white sleeveless t-shirt that showed off his wiry, muscular torso.

“It’s me, Marjorie.”

“Who?”

“Marjorie. From number forty three.” The door began to close. “Wait!”

“What the fuck do you want lady?”

She pulled off the rucksack which was slung over one shoulder, and unzipped it.

“I have something for you.”

Her fingers wrapped around the hard rubber handle of the smaller kitchen knife.

“What?”

He sounded bored, not scared.

“This.”

She lunged for him, the knife held out straight in front of her. He didn’t know what had hit him. Or in his case, stabbed him. The four inch, flat blade of the knife which she mainly used for peeling potatoes because she didn’t get on so well with the potato peeler, went all the way in. The black handle protruded just above the waistband of his tracksuit bottoms and quivered slightly.

She seized her moment and pushed him back into his apartment, slamming the door shut behind them. He staggered backwards, his hands hovering over the knife but not actually touching it, his eyes wide in disbelief.

Pam pushed him to the floor. He landed on his backside with a thunk that she felt sure the people in the downstairs apartment might hear. Still, never mind. She doubted very much that anyone in this tower block reacted to much of anything that went crash bang wallop.

“Who are you?” he gasped through a grimace of pain.

“Don’t you recognise me?” she asked pleasantly.

Pam was shocked to find she was rather enjoying herself. Ever so slowly, the man shook his head.

She sighed deeply. “Where’s my lamp?”

She saw the light dawn in his eyes.

“How did you find me?”

“Never mind that. Just give me back my lamp you sorry piece of shit.”

The man groaned through gritted teeth, beads of sweat shining on his dark forehead.

“I’m bleeding out here, you gotta help me.”

“Like you helped me yesterday, you mean?” The man screamed and she nudged the knife with the tip of her black plimsoll, which only made him scream some more. “Shut up, you fucker, or I swear to God I’ll twist the knife and gut you like a fish.”

The man fell onto his side and curled up in the foetal position. His hands fluttered over the handle of the knife but he was blatantly scared to touch it lest he made it worse.

She found she was really getting into it. For the first time in a long time, she felt like she had some sort of control over her life. She was so used to being treated like crap by everyone she came into contact with in her day to day existence that it was amazingly cathartic to be the one in charge.

“Please, take what you want, just don’t kill me.”

“Then tell me where the fucking lamp is.”

“Robbie has it. Jesus Christ, it hurts so much.”

Pam didn’t doubt him. Blood pooled around his midriff, soaking into the dingy grey carpet. It was a lot of blood. She vaguely wondered if it would drip through the ceiling of the apartment below.

She smiled to herself. Now she was just being silly.

“Are you sure Robbie has it? And what apartment does Robbie live in?”

“One hundred and seventy three,” he said without hesitation.

He’s not lying about the apartment number so he’s probably not lying about the lamp either…

“And where is my ten grand?”

“I have five, Robbie has the rest. Jesus fucking Christ! Stop, please! It’s in the War Zone disk case by the TV.”

Pam quit nudging the knife with her foot and went over to his mini library of games for his Xbox, or whatever the hell it was. Sure enough, the money was in the plastic case. She tucked it into the front compartment of her rucksack and zipped it up.

“One last chance, lover boy. Are you quite sure you don’t have my lamp?”

“Yes.” He began to cry. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so, sorry. Please don’t kill me.”

In that moment he looked just like a little kid who couldn’t find his mummy in a busy shop and she almost bottled it.

Almost. She leaned down and did exactly as she had threatened; in one swift movement she pulled the knife upwards. It wasn’t easy going, it met with surprising resistance, but it sure did make him scream a lot.

The screaming was hurting her ears and she was worried the neighbours would call the police so she yanked out the knife and slit his throat.

Just like that, her assailant was dead. She stared impassively down at him.

“One down, one to go,” she said to his corpse.

The blood continued to pour out of the gaping cut in his neck and the odour of shit hit her nostrils. The bastard had crapped himself before he died.

“I’m coming for you Robbie,” she said, wiping the blood off the knife on a small, still white patch of the man’s t-shirt.

Pam left the apartment, closing the door quietly behind her.

Five minutes later she was on the thirty sixth floor. She was calm to the point of serene, her mind a blank when she stood before the door for apartment one hundred and seventy three. She rapped her knuckles on the door, and, like before, she stood back slightly and in profile with her hair over one side of her face.

The door swung inwards a few inches.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

She couldn’t see him but she recognised the voice from yesterday.

“Hello Robbie. I have something for you.”

This time she had the knife tucked into the waistband of her trousers at the small of her back. She was just waiting for her opportune moment, waiting for him to open the door a little bit more…

It all happened so fast. As she stood there readying herself for attack, a blazing pain ripped through her foot. She cried out and crumpled to the floor.

What the fuck happened, she thought through her haze of agony. The narrow hallway swam in and out of focus and took on a grainy, black and white quality.

Strong hands hooked under her armpits and she felt herself being dragged along the floor on her back.

She opened her mouth to scream but fresh pain ricocheted through her face, making her head spin. She was dimly aware that he had stomped on her face but all she cared about right then was the pain.

“Please,” she said, but it came out as an incomprehensible gurgle.

She could taste blood on her words as she fought to stay awake. The distant sound of a door slamming pierced her brain before the darkness claimed her.

She had no idea how long she had been out. Groggily, she opened her eyes. Her eyelids felt heavy and sticky, and when she went to move her arms which were unfathomably stretched high above her head, she found she couldn’t. The events leading up to this moment in her life crashed through her mind and she groaned in misery.

The pain in her left foot was the worst. Tentatively she wriggled her toe and lightning bolts of pain coursed up her leg. He must’ve shot her through the half closed door, and his gun must’ve had a silencer.

Her moans of despair sounded muffled, and she noticed then that she couldn’t move her mouth. When she peered down her nose she could just glimpse thick, brown tape covering her mouth.

Once she had sufficiently gathered her thoughts, and forced herself to breathe through the pain, she properly noticed her surroundings for the first time. She couldn’t move her arms because they were handcuffed to the headboard of the double bed on which she lay.

She was in a neat, tidy and very small bedroom. Robbie’s bedroom.

The bastard’s only gone and kidnapped me. Now what the hell am I supposed to do?

She lifted up her head to peer down the length of her body and her neck trembled with the effort. To her utter horror, she saw that she was naked. Her big breasts, the colour of uncooked pastry, flopped into her armpits and her ankles were separated by some kind of long, thin spreader bar of around a metre in length. Her mangled, bloody foot poked pathetically through the metal hoop, and was at least twice the size of the other one. Despite the pain she was in, she stared in disgust down at her thick wedge of dark pubic hair and the way the thick lips of her fleshy vagina were exposed for all to see.

She began to cry. Her humiliation at her nudity was, in that moment, far worse than the pain and the threat of death.

Her chest rapidly rose and fell with her panicked panting as she tugged with all her strength at the handcuffs binding her wrists. Her tits jerked and her flabby stomach wobbled with the effort.

“Now there’s a sight. What a pig you are.”

When she lifted her head she saw Robbie standing in the bedroom doorway. She groaned into her gag and thrashed her head from side to side. He approached the bed and sat down near her face. He was wearing baggy blue jeans and a tight white t-shirt with a sport’s logo emblazoned across the front.

Inside she shrivelled in mortification at him seeing her like this, and even though it hurt her foot like holy fuck, she drew her legs up and together so that her knees touched. But that was no better, now her arsehole as well as her pussy was on display so she dropped her legs back down to the bed again.

“How did you find me? Who sent you?” he barked at her.

He leaned over to rip the tape free from her mouth, taking with it some of the not so tiny hairs that adorned her upper lip.

“Let me go,” she panted to his question.

He slapped her hard across her already sore face. Her head snapped sideways and she cried some more, snot bubbling in her nose.

“How did you find me? Did Kilburn send you?”

Pam had no idea what he was talking about and that scared her even more.

“Who’s Kilburn?”

He glared down at her, a myriad of emotions flowing over his face. Anger. Fear. Agitation.

She noticed how his knee was bouncing up and down and she wondered if he was a druggie due for a fix. Even if he wasn’t, this guy was seriously wrong in the head and she was in the deepest shit possible.

“Who’s Kilburn,” he repeated to himself, his leg bobbing manically up and down. “Who’s Kilburn, who’s Kilburn, who’s Kilburn.”

Pam stared helplessly up at him.

“I’ll tell you who Kilburn is,” he shouted at her. “He’s the head of the gang I don’t want nothin’ to do with no more. But you know that already, don’t you? Because when me and Vince mugged you yesterday, you described me to him and he instantly knew it was me so he sent you to kill me. He’d like that crazy shit, sending you to bump me off like that chick out of the 70s flick, I Spit On Your Grave  because we used to watch that movie together all the time, and this is like, a message from him.”

“No,” Pam said when he paused to draw breath. “I don’t know who Kilburn is.”

“Oh yeah? How’d you find me then?”

Because a genie in a bottle gave me your address…

Her pause told him everything he thought he already knew, she could see it in his eyes.

Shit, I’ve got to tell him something, anything…

“I recognised you. I’ve seen you go into your apartment. I live here too, I live at one seventy.”

Now that was really fucking stupid…

She sobbed slightly at her own idiocy. The lie was stupid. She was stupid. And now she was going to die for being so fucking stupid.

“What’s your name, bitch?”

“Jane,” she said, not even sure why she was bothering to lie.

Wordlessly, he got up and left the bedroom. It didn’t take a genius to work out where he was going.

He’s gonna knock on one seventy’s door and ask if Jane’s in, and then he’s gonna come back here and kill me. Unless there actually is someone called Jane living there, and her husband opens the door and by some stroke of luck he says that Jane’s at work…

The tears rolled down her cheeks at her farfetched flight of fancy.

Wildly she looked around the pokey room for anything that might help her whilst tugging violently at her restraints. A wave of hopelessness so intense washed over her that for a moment she couldn’t even breathe. There was nothing she could do, she was doomed.

She lay there staring up at the ceiling, her head throbbing and her shot away foot singing in agony.

After an agonising, five minute wait, the shaven headed figure of her captor reappeared.

“You’re a lying slag, ain’t cha?” he said by way of greeting.

All Pam could do was sniffle and gurgle on the tears and snot that ran down the back of her throat.

This was it. This was how she was gonna die. There would be no happy ending for her. As if there ever could’ve been.

He came over to her and sat back down by her head. She flinched when he reached out to lightly trail his fingertips over one saucer sized, fear hardened nipple.

“You do know you’re gonna die in this bedroom, don’t you?” he said conversationally.

The gentleness of his touch was somehow more terrifying than the threat of violence. Her mountainous breast quivered at his touch, along with every other last inch of her. His fingers grew firmer, squeezing and kneading the squidgy flesh like dough.

“I was gonna fuck you in the alleyway, but Vince stopped me, remember? I’ve always had this weird thing for ugly birds, you know?”

Pam didn’t.

“Please don’t kill me.”

He kneaded her breast harder, making her flinch.

“I’m gonna fuck you real good. And then I’m gonna fuck you over. And when I’ve done that I’m gonna go downstairs and get Vince and he’s gonna help me kill you.”

I somehow doubt that.

“Please, don’t kill me,” she managed to choke out. “I’ll do anything you want.”

“You’re damn right you will.”

He let go of her breast and climbed between her spread, fat thighs. To her horror he grinned up at her before burying his face in her pussy.

“Mmm, you smell bad. I love it when they’re ugly and fat and stinkin’.”

Instinctively Pam tried to shuffle sideways away from his probing mouth and tongue, but the movement sent a fresh jolt of fiery agony shooting through her foot as he was kneeling on the spreader bar.

She cried out through gritted teeth, digging her fingernails so hard into the fleshy meat of her palms that thin slivers of blood ran down her wrists.

“Relax, baby,” he said through a mouthful of her pussy. “Robbie’s gonna make you feel real good.”

He lapped between her legs, sucking on her fleshy labia and sinking his teeth into them. She squirmed beneath him, sure he was about to bite off her pussy folds.

Instead he homed in on her clit, which he began to tongue in earnest. Her vagina felt slimy with his slobber and she inside she recoiled in disgust.

What have I done to deserve this?

He sat up suddenly, kneeling between her legs and leaning over to grab her mammoth breasts. She cried out when he slapped one, then the other. Then the blows rained down on her chest in earnest.  Red palm prints streaked her pale flesh, and she involuntarily jerked with each slap so that her busted foot pulled against the spreader, sending new jolts of agony pulsing through her. It came as no surprise to her when Robbie stopped abusing her breasts to unbutton the fly of his designer jeans.

His entirely average sized, hard cock sprung free through the gap, sticking out at a right angle from his body.

As scared and disgusted as she was, it was still nothing she wasn’t used to. More than anything, she just felt weary of such debasement. She was accustomed to being treated like a human punch bag and a bunch of orifices in which Wayne could dump his sperm. She smiled humourlessly. If there was one thing she was good at, it was taking a beating and a rough fucking.

He shuffled forward slightly so that he was no longer kneeling on the spreader bar and bent her knees, cocooning himself within the circular shape her legs made. He remained upright on his knees and positioned his cock at the entrance to her vagina.

He pushed in, and Pam saw red. She’d had enough of men using her. Even though the pain in her foot was excruciating, it was temporarily blotted out by an all-consuming rage. The stupid boy, gripped by lust, didn’t think for a second that she would use the spreader bar as a weapon given the state of her foot.

But use it she did. She lifted up her feet and brought the bar crashing down across the middle of his back. He toppled forward on her with a cry, crushing her and knocking the air out of both of them. Again and again, Pam brought her feet crashing down onto his back, the bar bouncing repeatedly off his spine.

“You fucker,” she screamed.

Now he was a dead weight on her torso, his head heavy on her chest. He was still alive because she could hear him groaning and making funny little gurgling sounds. She brought her feet up as high as she could and rocked her torso backwards, lifting up her flabby arse off the bed a few times before she had gained enough momentum to swoop the bar over his head and hook it under his chin.

With a final, almighty shove she kicked her legs out straight and swivelled to the side slightly so he tumbled onto the floor with a heavy thump. There was a nasty crack that sounded to Pam much like the noise a head might make bouncing off the unforgiving floorboards.

He made no sound on impact and Pam let out a loud cry of victory.

Yes! I’ve killed the fucker, she thought in jubilation.

Now that the adrenalin had eased, the pain gripped her foot in earnest.

“Mother fucker,” she howled up at the ceiling.

She took deep breaths but the pain was intolerable, it was far beyond anything she had ever before experienced. She whimpered and sobbed, but it was like the sounds weren’t coming from her anymore. The ceiling turned a grainy black and white and she felt like was in the bowels of a ship on rough sea.

I’ll just close my eyes for a second, breathe through the pain...

The blissful, numbing blackness claimed her, wiping out all further thought.

When she opened her eyes again, it was dark in the bedroom. She was deeply disorientated, she was sure she had only closed her eyes for a second, but how could that be when it was dark? Ever so gently, she tried to wriggle the toes of her left foot. This was met with a blast of agonising pain that shot up her leg, followed by a reawakened throbbing. She had to try not to move, that was the only way she could control the pain.

Slowly, her eyes grew accustomed to the dark. The curtains were thin and cheap, and even though she was on the thirty sixth floor, London was never truly in darkness. Weak, watery light filtered in through the window so she was able to make out the various objects in the room.

She realised she was shivering. It was cold in here, and she was naked, not to mention probably in shock too. Being careful to keep her foot as relaxed as possible, she lifted up her head and listened, concentrating hard on the sounds of the night. She couldn’t hear the sound of her would-be rapist breathing. Not that she even knew if he was still in the room, seeing as the bed obscured the view of the spot on the floor on which he had fallen.

A chill crept through her. What if he was still alive and had left the room when she was out of it and he was going to come back and torture her to death?

No. Not possible. You heard the noise his head made when it hit the floor. He’s deader than dead…

She shuddered. This was seriously fucked up. Her foot wasn’t the only thing that hurt. Her head throbbed merrily with the numerous bashings it had received and her breasts ached too. She wondered what time it was, how long she had until morning when the Djinn would come and save her and she could wish all her aches and pains away.

If he even comes.

He has to come.

No, you don’t have the lamp in your possession, Robbie might not even be dead… Maybe the Djinn doesn’t come if you fail a task.

She whimpered. She could die right here on this bed, her rotting corpse remaining undiscovered for weeks on end.

And fuck, was she thirsty. The inside of her mouth felt like sandpaper and her throat was constricted and sore. What she would give for a glass of water right now…

She forced her mind off liquid. She should try to sleep through this nightmare and then in the morning the Djinn would come and everything would be fine.

She closed her eyes and tried to banish all thoughts from her fevered brain.

The night passed slowly, and most of the time she couldn’t tell if she was asleep or awake. Dreams that made no sense plagued her. Flashbacks from her childhood; her long dead father beating her, her long dead mother, drunk. Getting her head flushed down the toilet at school. All the boyfriends that had abused her over the years. Voices in her head, whispering, all the bad people that had done bad things to her, laughing at her now that she was broken and tied to the bed.

She ached all over, running both hot and cold in turn. Horrible nightmares flooded her brain. At one point, she was convinced that Robbie had sat upright on the floor and was trying to drag his body up onto the bed. She had screamed, and then she was aware of her eyes opening. There was no Robbie on the edge of the bed.

All night the whispering voices flowed and ebbed, mocking her, as they always had.

CHAPTER THREE.

“Good morning Pam.”

Pam opened her eyes to a morning that was not quite yet broken. She wasn’t even aware that she had fallen asleep, but obviously she had, for the faceless Djinn towered over her in the half light.

“Thank God,” she croaked.

She felt like shit and her head was swimming, the pain in her foot unspeakable.

Maybe he’s a hallucination, maybe you’re so near death you’re seeing things. Oh God, please make him real…

“This is the point where I would, under normal circumstances, grant you your third wish. But I am afraid I am not entirely convinced you have completed your second task to my satisfaction.”

“I have done what you asked. The muggers are dead and the lamp is in this apartment somewhere. Just please, untie me and I’ll get it for you.”

The Djinn sighed. “This is all rather unorthodox. The deal is you complete your task before you get your wish.”

“I’ll get you your lamp. Please! Just give me a chance to find it.”

It hurt to speak and she was so thirsty, every word felt as if she were expelling razors through her constricted throat. She was shivering uncontrollably too, her body gripped by fever.

“OK, fine, seeing as you’ve made such a genuine effort to finish your task, I’ll give you this one chance to redeem yourself. You have ten minutes to find the lamp. And if you don’t, you fail.”

She understood him all too well. Failure was certain death.

It took a moment for her to realise that her wrists and ankles were no longer shackled. The cuffs and bar had disappeared as if they had never been. If she wasn’t in such a sorry state, then she might have thought that that was a pretty neat trick.

She screamed out in blazing agony when she hauled herself into an upright position. She swung her good foot onto the floor, no longer giving a shit that she was naked. Her bad foot remained sticking out on the bed in front of her, grotesquely swollen, bent, and laid out in a tacky puddle of red.

I can’t fucking move it.

You have to, you stupid bitch. If you don’t he’s going to kill you.

In just a few short minutes she would be well again if only she could find that lamp…

A steely resolve overtook her, the strong survival instinct that lies buried in every human being, that, until this moment, she had no reason to call upon.

Ignoring the body on the floor, she limped over to the wardrobe. It seemed as good a place as any to look first. The inside of the wardrobe was as neat as the rest of the bedroom and yielded nothing.

Where next?

Ignoring the agony she was in that made her want to curl up on the floor and die, she proceeded to systematically open up every cupboard and drawer.

Still nothing. Just neatly folded clothes and underwear.

Fuck.

She limped through the bedroom door, aware of the faceless, but still watchful gaze of the Djinn. She found herself in a living room with a kitchen tacked onto the far wall much like the one she had killed his friend in.

How long did she have left?

Get a fucking move on.

She made a beeline for the cupboard under the sink, figuring that was where she usually ended up dumping unwanted vases and container type objects that she didn’t use.

“Thank God,” she sobbed in relief, her gaze immediately settling on the dull bronze of the lamp.

She grabbed it with trembling hands and hugged it to her naked chest, the tears of relief falling freely.

“Congratulations Pam,” the Djinn said from behind her, making her jump. “Today appears to be your lucky day. Pray tell me, what is your third wish?”

Her wish, in that moment, was a no brainer. All she wanted was to be pain free. There was no way on earth she would be able to carry out whatever task he might chuck at her today feeling like this.

Because it was bound to be gruelling and ugly.

“Make me well,” she rasped through dry, cracked lips.

“Done,” he said, without a second’s hesitation.

The effect was so sudden, so extreme, that a shrill cry escaped her no longer dry lips. Her scrunched up, clenched tight body unfurled and the lack of pain was such a rush she almost toppled over. Intense relief and joy washed through her and she felt like she was soaring high. She had never experimented with drugs before, not even pot, but she could imagine that this feeling was on a par with what a junkie might experience from a shot of heroin. Even her raging thirst had gone.

Right at that second, she felt able to take on the world.

“It is time for you to hear your next task,” the Djinn intoned, effectively injecting a sense of foreboding into her euphoric bubble. “It will arguably be your biggest challenge yet, but once you have completed it, I believe that everything else I ask of you will be plain sailing. And as you are obviously now aware, I will grant your wishes before you complete the task, if I deem it appropriate.”

Pam was staring down in fascination at her repaired foot. It was as good as new. It was a miracle. She lifted her head to briefly gaze upon his shimmering, faceless face before it got too much and she was forced to look away.

“What must I do then?” she asked when he fell silent.

“You must debase yourself, Pam. You must engage in six acts of sexual depravity. My list is quite specific. Number one. Perform fellatio on a tramp, swallow his sperm and lick his arsehole clean. Number two, solicit for sex on a street corner and allow the person to fuck you for cash. Number three, engage in a gangbang with three or more men whereby each man involved in the gangbang must come. Four, have sex with a dog where you are obliged to get the dog to fuck you. Five, a man or men must piss and shit on you, and six, you must swallow the ejaculation of sperm a total of at least six times, not including your incident with the tramp but if you swallow sperm during your gangbang, that may be counted.”

“What? You can’t be fucking serious?”

“Deadly.”

“I can’t do those things. That’s just so, so…”

“Sick? Depraved? Debauched? That is the whole point.”

“But I can’t.”

What he was asking of her was outrageous. It was preposterous, it was wrong, it was…

The answer to all my problems. I can be rich, I can be beautiful. I can live the life I’ve always wanted to lead...

But Christ, could she really do those things?

Deep down, she knew the answer. Men had never been nice to her, what difference would one more day make?

“I can give you a moment to think about it. Perhaps you would like the pain back in your foot to remind you of the alternative. The pain, of course, will only be short lived because you know the alternative if you fail to complete your tasks.”

Pam didn’t want to die. She wanted the life he dangled before her nose. She thought of her shitty life and her resolve hardened.

“I need more details. Like, can these tasks overlap? I mean, if I have to get a guy to piss on me, can it be during the gangbang or is this a separate task?”

I can’t believe I even asked that, yet alone intend to actually do it.

“The tasks can be performed in any sequence and in any combination. All you have to do is make sure you complete them all by midnight tonight. You can have this now, too,” he said handing her the new bankcard. “You can draw money out at any cashpoint or use it as plastic, whatever you wish. The number is six, six, three, three. Don’t forget to keep the lamp safe at all times. If you lose it again, you fail.”

“Wait,” she said, taking the offered card and turning her back for a second to retrieve a ballpoint pen and an old supermarket receipt from the top of the fridge. “I need to write this down, I don’t want to screw it up… Fuck!” The Djinn was gone. “No!” she cried to the empty spot where he had been just a second before. “Don’t go. Fuck!”

Hastily, she scribbled down everything she could remember on the old receipt.

6633.

No. 1. Suck off tramp. Swallow sperm. Clean arse with tongue.

2. Be prostitute, fuck one person for cash.

3. Get gangbanged by three or more men.

She panicked for a moment when her mind went black, then breathed a sigh of relief when his voice came to her clearly and she hastily scribbled down the disgusting words as he said them in her head…

4. Have sex with a dog where you are obliged to get the dog to fuck you.

5. A man or men must piss and shit on you.

6. Swallow sperm six times.

There, she was pretty sure that was it. She double checked her list, knowing it was more than her life was worth to get even the smallest detail wrong.

My God, she thought, not for the first time. I really can’t do this shit.

But you have to…

Before she did anything else, she needed clothes so she could get the hell out of here. She wasn’t thrilled going back into the bedroom with the dead body and she kept her eyes averted while she looked around for her clothes. She found them shoved under the bed. They were ruined and they hung in shreds from her hands where they had been cut from her body with scissors or a knife.

Now what?

She went to the drawer where she had seen some neatly folded t-shirts and took out the darkest one with the least obvious logo she could find. He hadn’t been much taller than her, and even though she was a lot fatter than him, the t-shirt fit just fine. Her bra was ruined, which upset her more than anything. It meant her big tits bounced and swayed inside the t-shirt which made her painfully self-conscious, but there was nothing she could do about it. Next she found a pair of jeans. They were fashionably baggy, so she was able to get her fat legs inside them but when she went to do them up the two ends of the waistband were inches apart. It wasn’t too much of a problem however, the t-shirt obscured that fact and she just looked an ordinary, if unattractively dressed young woman.

Her shoes were still OK to wear, which was a relief. Her rucksack was also still fine and had escaped getting splattered with blood so she shoved the bankcard and lamp in it along with the five grand. Unconsciously she hugged it to her chest. This time she would guard this bag with her life. A dark hoody hanging on the back of the door completed her new outfit and she was set.

She left the apartment feeling fitter and healthier than she had done for years.

Bring it on. I’m going to complete these tasks if it kills me.

I can’t believe I’ve got over a billion quid in my rucksack.

Pam walked the streets of Elephant And Castle, her head reeling with that fact. That, and what she knew she had to do.

What the fuck should I do first?

She stopped in the street and pulled out the macabre list she had stuffed into the pocket of her jeans. She examined it for a second, shaking her head at the sickening magnitude of her tasks. Part of her wanted to get started straight away and get it over and done with. A tramp with a filthy grey beard and a bottle of what looked like vodka lay sleeping in the doorway of a nightclub.

Her stomach lurched and clenched in disapproval when she thought about pulling down his holey trousers and sucking him off.

No. Not yet. Not with a billion pounds in her rucksack, and, more importantly, the lamp. She couldn’t risk losing her bag, she had to keep it somewhere safe whilst she went about business. For the first time in a very long time, she smiled. She knew exactly where to safely stash her bag and with that thought in her mind, she headed for the tube station.

“I’d like to book a room for the night, please.”

The immaculate young blonde behind the reception desk of The Ritz Hotel eyed her up in obvious distaste.

“I’m sorry, we’re full.”

“Bollocks. I heard you on the phone just now. You said to whoever you were speaking to that they were in luck, that you only had two rooms that were vacant tonight. That means you still have one room going spare.”

“I’m sorry Madam, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“But that’s not fair! I have money. Fuck it, I’ll even pay double.”

“Please leave Madam, or I will be forced to call security.”

Pam glared at the beautiful woman. She knew she was beat. Beat and humiliated. She glanced around at the opulent surroundings and cursed herself for her bright idea of coming to The Ritz. Was it so wrong of her to want to inject a little bit of glamour into her life? To try to make this day even a fraction more bearable to soften the blow of all the disgusting things she had to do?

Apparently it was.

“Fuck you, lady,” she hissed, leaning over the gleaming marble reception desk. “Ever heard of Karma? You’ll get yours, bitch.”

The girl visibly paled, and Pam saw her hand dart forward towards an unseen spot under the desk.

Pam got it. She had pressed the panic button for her to be escorted out.

Or arrested.

Pam quickly turned heal and walked down the padded carpet of the huge entrance foyer with the chandeliers glinting overhead. She had to get of there, and fast, she would never complete the day’s jobs if the police took her.

Once she was out on the broad street in Westminster, she ran, bumping into people as she careered along the pavement.

When she could physically run no more, she hunched over her knees panting.

I look like shit, she thought miserably. I wouldn’t let me stay in a five star hotel either.

The morning was creeping on and so far she had achieved nothing. Dressed as she was and being more worried about the contents of her rucksack than anything else certainly wasn’t helping matters either.

I need to buy clothes, right now. When I look proper I’ll be able to book into a hotel and then I can get on with what I have to do. You’ve got work to do Pam, stop being so shallow and get on with it.

Two hours later she stood at the reception desk of another hotel, this one quite ordinary and in Clapham South, situated opposite the Common. It was a massive place and cheap, and a large number of its clientele were foreign tourists here to see London on the cheap. Big, anonymous and non-discriminating. The kind of hotel she should have picked in the first place.

Earlier she’d hit Oxford Street and chosen a handful of outfits for the day. Currently she was wearing a pair of well cut, blue jeans that was way outside her usual budget and a plain white blouse. She’d even stopped off at Boots and had a makeover from one of the dolly birds at a makeup counter.

Who are you kidding, you can’t polish a turd, she thought, when she caught her reflection in a mirror behind reception.

Still, at least she looked almost normal, and the equally ordinary woman behind the desk didn’t seem to be taking offence at her, not like the other snotty cow.

“Just the two nights?” the woman asked her, dividing her gaze between her and the computer screen in front of her.

“Yeah.”

“No problem. Room five one four, third floor, here’s your key,” she said, after putting Pam’s card through the machine.

She tried to hide her look of surprise that the card actually worked. But then, why wouldn’t it? It was magic, after all.

Magic. A truly magical day lies in wait for me.

Once in her room, she dumped all five shopping bags on the double bed and swiftly sorted through her stuff as she munched on a large pie from Greggs. She pulled out the slutty outfit she had bought, complete with the type of shoes she never normally wore for fear of breaking her neck, and laid them out on the bed. She planned on popping back to the hotel later to change into it.

The lamp and her bank card should be safe locked away in the room while she did what she had to do. The remainder of the five grand she divided between the pockets of her jeans and the compartment in her posh, new leather shoulder bag.

She finished her pie, drank her coke, used the bathroom, and with a final, worried look in the direction of her rucksack, she left the room, locking it behind her.

She had chosen Clapham purely because of its vibrant, mixed atmosphere. Lots of pubs, lots of drunk men in the party spirit, a big park where she might find a dog or two, and, of course, tramps.

She was hoping that she could get everything done here so she wouldn’t have to stray too far from the hotel.

She had already decided what she was going to do first. She was going to look for the cleanest looking tramp she could find, fulfil the disgusting task and then go back to her hotel room and scrub herself clean.

The Common was vast, and plenty of people were out enjoying the unseasonably warm September weather. A poodle pranced past her and she eyed it warily.

How in God’s name am I going to get a dog to fuck me?

“Come, Rufus,” a young woman in the distance called to the dog, and it threw her a disdainful look as it passed her again, as if the damn thing could read her mind.

She shuddered and pushed all thoughts of that task out her head. First things first, one disgusting thing at a time.

Up ahead, a possible candidate caught her eye. A shambolic figure sprawled out on a park bench next to the duck pond. There was an empty space all around him, an invisible force field keeping the families feeding the ducks at bay.

On shaking legs Pam approached him.

“Hi,” she said, stopping a few feet in front of him, blocking his view of the pond.

He didn’t look as old close up. Maybe late thirties as opposed to her original guess of sixty plus. Neither did he look as dirty as some she’d seen loitering on the streets of London.

It took him a moment to focus on her, as if he didn’t quite believe that another human being was talking to him. He muttered something unintelligible, his eyes clouded with madness and booze.

“How would you like to earn two thousand pounds?” she asked him.

He sat upright on the bench he had been lying on, clutching the bottle of booze in the brown paper bag in his fingerless gloved hands.

“Spare some change for the homeless, lady?” he asked, his speech slurred.

“No, no, you’re not hearing me, I’ll give you two thousand pounds if you do a few things for me. Here,” she said, fishing in the pocket of her jeans for the wad of cash and handing him it. “Take it, there’s just over five hundred there.”

That seemed to sober the man up. He reached out to take her money, staring down at the thick wad of notes in disbelief.

“What the fuck?”

“Come with me into the trees and if you let me seduce you I’ll give you more.”

“What the fuck?”

“Please, can we just do this?”

“Fuck off.”

“I’ve just given you five hundred pounds! And I want to give you more if you’ll just come with me.”

The man lurched to his feet, waving his bottle in front of him.

“They’re coming for you lady, they’re everywhere, no one’s safe.”

Oh shit, I’ve picked a good one here. Well done Pam.

“Fucking whore, fucking slag, I fucking hate ducks, quack quack, fucking bread in the fucking water.”

Now the man was waving his arms wildly above his head, making strange noises deep in his throat. It might have been an impersonation of a duck quacking, but she wasn’t sure.

And neither did she care.

“Keep the money,” she muttered, turning abruptly to leave.

“Fucking slag!” he called after her. “Fucking whore! It’s all lies lady! Don’t believe a word he says, he’s going to trick you, he will fuck you over.”

She broke into a sprint, eager to put some distance between them.

She slowed down when the pond was no longer in sight, his words echoing in her head.

He will fuck you over…

Just the ramblings of a mad man, a sad derelict who had lost everything, including his mind. Even so, she shivered, unable to shake the feeling that his words were somehow prophetic. She found she was trembling, and she knew it had little to do with the fact she was panting and out of breath from her short jog through the park.

Come on Pam, get yourself together. You have to do this.

OK, fine, so she had picked a lunatic, it was no big deal. Plenty more where he came from. She would walk back into the main part of town and see who else was available.

She was walking back up through the park towards the main road when the sound of male laughter made her snap her head round. Three young lads of around twenty were sprawled out on the grass, smoking cigarettes. Like the tramp from the duck pond, there was plenty of space surrounding them as if passers-by were too scared to enter their territory. They didn’t look totally dissimilar to the two guys that had mugged her. They wore the same uniform of hoodies and baggy jeans and trainers that probably cost more than she earned in a month.

“What are you looking at, dogface?” one of the boys called out.

His words were met by raucous laughter from his mates.

Ordinarily, she would’ve walked on, head down and humiliated.

But these weren’t ordinary times. She stopped in her tracks and turned to stare at them. Instantly, the laughter died down.

“I’m looking at you, pretty boy,” she called back.

This time the resulting guffaws of laughter sounded distinctly uneasy.

“Oh yeah? Then why don’t you come over here and suck my cock, dogface?”

How many women had he verbally abused in this way? She wondered. And more importantly, how many women had actually taken him up on his crass offer?

She smiled humourlessly to herself and walked over to the group, figuring that the poor boy was about to get the shock of his life.

“Get it out, then,” she said, standing over them with her hand on her hip. “And I’ll give you the best fucking blowjob you ever had.”

“What the fuck is your problem?” one of the others asked.

Pam detected the note of fear in his voice and it made her uneasy. Scared young men were liable to act rashly and lash out. She didn’t want to get beaten up, she just wanted to cross ‘gangbang with three or more men’ off her list. Or at least get a few blowjobs under her belt if nothing else.

“I don’t have a problem. Like your friend said, I’m a dog. Ugly birds don’t get much cock.”

“I oughta fucking knock you out,” he replied.

“Wait,” his friend said, the one who had made the offer in the first place. “You heard what the ugly bitch said. Let’s see if she puts her money where her mouth is.”

More uneasy laughter rippled through the group.

The lad sprawled backwards on one elbow and freed his cock. He held his flaccid member in the palm of his hand, pointing it at her.

“Come on then, bitch.”

Well, it’s now or never.

Pam sunk down to her knees before him and leaned over to take his cock in her mouth.

“Jesus,” her target said, sucking in a sharp intake of breath.

Pam got to work, sucking the thing into almost full stiffness.

“I can’t believe she’s actually fucking do it!” the third lad said. “Shit, what if someone sees?”

The lad who had his cock in her mouth abruptly pushed her off him and she toppled backwards.

“Come on, let’s take this bitch into the trees and see what else she does.”

The three guys got to their feet and Pam followed. No one on the Commons paid them the blindest bit of attention.

“You don’t have to do this,” the shorter of the three said to her.

“What the fuck you saying that for?” the guy whose cock she had just been sucking said.

Pam looked at him. Physically he looked much the same as the other two; buzz cut hair, designer hoody, skinny build. But there was genuine concern in his eyes that was lacking in the other two.

“I want to.”

He regarded her for a second, then nodded his thin, ratty looking face with the dark brown eyes.

“Whatever,” he replied.

“Come on,” the ringleader said, “what is this, a fucking mother’s meeting?”

Pam followed the three younger men into the wooded area. Once they were shrouded by trees the ringleader pulled her behind the nearest, fattest tree trunk. He pushed her roughly to her knees by her shoulders and in one swift movement freed his cock, shoving it unceremoniously past the startled O of her lips. The other two stood in front of them, blocking the view if anyone should pass by. Not that there was anyone here amongst the trees with them. Not yet anyway.

He proceeded to fuck her face with abandon. Pam was no stranger to deep throat but he was too rough and she was frightened. Her throat constricted around his hard shaft and her gag reflex went into overdrive, each of his hard thrusts pushing the rise of vomit back down again. Her head felt fuzzy, like it was screwed on too tight. The cock was cutting off her airways and she bit down the rise of panic, forcing her throat to relax.

I have to get them to fuck me, she thought in desperation. This would be a wasted opportunity otherwise. She didn’t want to have to go through another encounter with a group of men, she would rather get her blow job count up by finding lone men and doing each one individually.

But she couldn’t voice her desire to be fucked because of the cock slamming down her throat. She felt the damn thing swell in her mouth, a sure sign that he was on the brink of climax.

She tried to pull away from him, but his fingers dug into her shoulders. Pam squirmed in earnest, desperately trying to wiggle out his grip.

“Fuck me,” she said, but it came out more like uhh eee.

“I think she said fuck me,” the other lad said, the one that didn’t look remotely kind in any way, shape or form.

“Did she now?” the ringleader said. “We’ve got ourselves a real horny fucking slag here, haven’t we?”

His cock popped out of her mouth, red and shiny, glistening in the dappled sunlight that streamed through the thick, green canopy.

“I want you all to fuck me.”

Oh God, I really can’t believe those words just came out my mouth.

Suddenly she was scared. It hadn’t felt completely real until this point, not even with the cock choking her. But now, surrounded by three adrenalin and testosterone fuelled young men, she realised fully for the first time she was in a whole heap of potential trouble.

Calm down, it’s not like they’re gonna murder you on Clapham Common in broad daylight.

“You heard the whore,” the ringleader barked with his still hard cock sticking out of his jeans. “Let’s fucking bang her.”

“What about diseases and stuff?” said the one with the ratty face whom Pam had thought she had glimpsed compassion in.

Yeah, what about diseases, she thought glumly. I ‘spose I could always wish AIDS away. At least she was on the pill. Not that she had taken it since yesterday, she remembered suddenly. A chill coursed through her. This was all so wrong, she couldn’t do it, she just couldn’t…

Too late. The leader of the gang grabbed her from behind in a headlock.

“Strip her,” he ordered.

One lad pulled down her jeans, taking her knickers with them. The other ripped the blouse clean down the front, scattering the buttons in all directions. In a matter of seconds, she was completely naked. The three boys circled her.

“My God, what a dog, look at the state of her,” said one.

“Get a load of those tits, they’re like fucking sandbags.”

As he said it, the gang leader reached out and grabbed them. She winced when he pulled on them, shaking and jiggling the fleshy lumps like a rabid dog with a bone.

Pam resisted the strong urge to squirm away and hide her flabby body. This wasn’t rape, she had to remind herself. She was here of her own choosing. Defiantly she stood there, staring at each one of them when they came into her line of vision.

The leader of the little gang picked up a stick off the mossy ground and poked her in the rump with it.

He guffawed laughter when she flinched.

“Look at the pig. Oink oink,” he said, doing a pretty good impersonation of a pig.

The other two joined in.

“Hey!” she protested when he poked her with the stick again, harder this time.

“Get on your knees, whore,” he ordered.

She sunk to her knees amidst a cacophony of pig sounds. Twigs and stone bit into her knees and some of the sprouting leaves amidst the mossy carpet were stinging nettles, which alarmed her.

One of them, she didn’t see who, kicked her in the lower back, not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to send her sprawling to her hands.

“You wanna get fucked, slag?” said the ringleader, kneeling behind her. “Well, you are gonna get it.”

She felt his cock probing the deep crack of her arse, guided by his hand. She braced herself for impact, fully expecting him to drive into her vagina.

Instead he went for her arsehole.

“No,” she gasped.

She hated taking it up the arse. Luckily, Wayne didn’t have much of a taste for it either, but he had done her that way before when he deemed her ‘out of line.’ But mostly he said he didn’t like his cock smelling of shit.

The guy rammed into her, sending her sprawling to the ground with her arse in the air. Stinging nettles brushed against her face and she cried out, the kiss of the leaves setting her nerve endings on fire.

Her lower abdomen cramped up with having a cock in her rectum and she shuddered with pain. It felt like a red hot poker excavating her arsehole and she howled into the dirt.

“Fuck, for a fatty, this bitch has one hell of a tight arsehole.”

Pam failed to see what the size of her bottom had to do with the width of her rectum, but it was a thought she had no desire to voice.

He wasn’t in her for long before he pulled out. Her arsehole throbbed with the banging it had received and she yelped in surprise when he pulled her to her knees by her lank hair.

“Suck me clean, bitch.”

Yes, she thought. Even though she didn’t relish the idea of sucking the remnants of her own faeces off his cock, it still meant she would be one blowjob down and with any luck she would be able to tick ‘gangbang’ off the list as well, so long as the other two cooperated.

She was right, his cock did taste of shit; shit with a distinct odour of Greggs’ meat and potato pie about it. She tried to hold her breath as she sucked, which proved difficult.

“Oh yeah, you dirty fucking whore,” he said, thrusting jerkily in her mouth whilst fisting her hair.

At least she didn’t have to suck him for long. His come pulsed in hard jets straight down her throat and she gulped it down, eager not to let it linger in her mouth.

He continued to hold her upright by her hair after he had pulled out, holding her head as if it was no longer attached to her body, like some kind of macabre trophy.

“Who’s next?” he asked his two friends.

“Fuck it,” said one of them, the one that hadn’t asked if she was sure about this. “A hole’s a hole, right?”

The lad holding her head laughed and pushed her face down into the ground. Twigs stabbed her eyes and the taste of dirt mixed in with the bitter salt of ejaculation.

This boy’s orifice of choice was her vagina. The pain was nothing and she took it gladly as he pounded her.

“Fuck, I’m gonna blow,” he panted behind her.

“Come in her mouth,” the ringleader suggested helpfully. “You don’t wanna be responsible for a mongrel kid with that inbred.”

The cock withdrew from her pussy and she felt hands tugging on her hair once more. She was forced to kneel before the man and another cock was shoved in her face.

This one didn’t taste as good as the other one, even if that one had been up her arse. It was musky, with a bitter, pungent tang that flooded her mouth every time the foreskin tugged downwards.

Cock cheese, she thought with a sinking heart. Just please, hurry up and come.

Her request was granted, and the foul tasting, watery ejaculation pumped into her mouth. She gagged, forcing herself to swallow.

A sense of elation flowed through her when he pulled out.

Now I just have to get the other one to fuck me.

“C’mon then big boy,” she said to the third lad. “Come here and fuck me.”

The lad eyed her with something close to disgust. Or perhaps it was pity.

“No, you’re alright.”

“What’s the matter,” the gang leader asked. “Stick your cock in her for God’s sake.”

“Yeah,” Pam added, “you scared of pussy? Are you gay?”

The other two boys laughed.

“Just do it, you useless prick. We have, so you have to, too.”

Pam watched the exchange with bated breath. The boy was being tested. If he didn’t do the dirty, she was pretty sure the other two thugs would make his life a living hell.

Thank God, she thought, her shoulders sagging in relief when he came over to her.

“Just suck me off then,” he said, without much conviction.

Pam undid his trousers and freed his flaccid penis before stuffing it in her mouth. It was like sucking on a worm. Nothing was happening.

Shit, he has to come, if he doesn’t I’ve failed the task. Each man partaking in the gangbang has to come…

She used all her sexual knowhow to try to get him hard. She might not have been much in the looks stakes, but she knew her way around a cock. In her case, she believed that the age old adage held true; ugly girls had to work harder to please a man.

She sucked him and tongued him, varying the pressure but still nothing was happening.

Shit! I’m gonna fail.

She looked up at him and popped his penis out of her mouth to lick along the short length of his concertinaed shaft.

“Just think of something else,” she said between licks. “Please, I’m good at blowjobs, you’ll never in your life have one as good as this again. Close your eyes and go with it, pretend I’m someone else.”

That seemed to work. Her stomach somersaulted in relief when he swelled in her mouth. Her jaw was being stretched wider and wider and she swallowed down the length of him. Her throat hugged his glans, and all the while she gently massaged his balls, which she gratefully noted were tightening.

Now all he had to do was fuck her. Her mouth slid off his cock and she got down all fours.

“Fuck me,” she called over her shoulder to him. “Close your eyes and think of someone else.”

“Just do it, you useless fuck,” the ringleader added. “Fuck her good then come in the bitch’s mouth.”

The unspoken threat in the man’s words seemed to spur him on. She felt him behind her, then his hard cock slip inside her used cunt.

He pounded her a few times before pulling out.

Tears of relief stung her eyes when she took his penis back into her mouth.

Come on, come on, she silently willed. You can do it, come for me…

He groaned above her and twitched his hips slightly. Greedily she drank down every last drop of the pulsing jets of come. He tasted sweeter than the other two, which was something to be thankful for.

As soon as he had finished coming, he zipped himself up and turned to leave without so much as glance down at her.

“Wait, I ain’t finished.”

The gang leader whipped out his cock and kicked her hard just above her left breast. She landed flat on her back, the wind knocked out of her. Fiery heat spread across her back like a million insects bites and she cried out. To her chagrin, she had landed on a patch of thistles and stinging nettles, adding further insult to injury.

The boy proceeded to piss on her. Her humiliation was underpinned by elation.

I didn’t even have to ask. How lucky can one girl get?

His urine splashed her square in the face and she turned her head sideways. The second lad joined in, alternating his flow between her tits and mouth. She caught a mouthful of piss and coughed and retched, tears stinging her eyes.

At last, the pissing party stopped. Dimly she noticed that the third lad who had been reluctant to fuck her hadn’t joined in. It hardly mattered, she knew she could now safely cross the pissing and the gangbang tasks off her list.

All three of them turned to leave.

“One second,” her main tormentor said, stopping to pick up her new shoulder bag. He located the money and his eyes bulged in disbelief.

“Fuck me,” he exclaimed, “there’s fucking thousands here. Where the hell did she get all that money from? She can’t be a hooker, no one in their right mind would pay that much to fuck her.”

Take it, I don’t care. Plenty more where that came from, you miserable wanker.

“Who gives a shit,” said the one who had elected not to piss on her. “We need to get the fuck outa here, we’ve pushed our luck too far already.”

The three lads walked away without a backward glance, leaving her lying there naked on the ground.

Pam smiled to herself, figuring she had got off lightly. She was well into her tasks and it wasn’t even yet midday. She hauled her aching body to her feet and set about finding her scattered clothes.

CHAPTER FOUR.

Pam was safely back in the hotel room, sitting on the edge of the bed and contemplating her list, ballpoint pen in hand.

She drew a line through number two; gangbanged by three or more men.

Next to task number six, the blowjob task, she drew three little vertical lines.

Three blowjobs down, three more to go.

Number five she also scratched out; must be pissed or shit on.

Great. So far, so good.

Thoughtfully she chewed the tip of the ballpoint pen. The dog task was going to be the hardest, so she would leave that for now. Besides, it would probably be easier to accomplish that one under the cover of darkness.

That just left three more blowjobs, picking up someone as a prostitute and the tramp.

She shuddered.

She glanced at the bedside alarm. It blinked 11.46. Twelve hours left to achieve her day’s objectives. She stripped off her clothes and headed for the ensuite bathroom. A quick wash and change and she would get back out there and get on with it.

Pam was back out on the streets of Clapham. It wasn’t going to start getting dark until eight, which worried her. That meant only four hours of darkness before midnight struck and her time ran out.

She badly wanted it to be dark. The type of things she wanted to do weren’t exactly conducive to daylight hours, but time was precious and she simply had to.

She was dressed in another pair of nicely cut jeans, and a plain black, stretch jersey top which went some way to disguising her flabby belly that spilled over her jeans.

Her face however, was beyond disguising. She had troweled on the makeup, but the angry red nettle rash and various cuts from the twigs and brambles had proved near impossible to cover.

‘The Black Hen’ pub on the corner of Winston Street caught her eye. It looked busy with early afternoon drinkers. Bland pop music drifted out to her on the street and she stopped to look and listen. The distant roar of male laughter coming from inside sealed her decision. Boldly she strode up to the swing door, and pushed it open.

No one so much as glanced at her.  Why would they? Londoners typically ignored most things. When people lived so tightly packed together on such a relatively small patch of land, they learned to tolerate the nearness of people with an offhand indifference.

At this precise moment, she was grateful for that. She ordered a G and T at the bar, happy that no one was studying her closely in case they might read in her eyes what her true intentions might be.

The interior of the pub was dark and old fashioned. A long mirror lined the far wall behind the bar and she locked eyes with her reflection.

Jesus, what a mess.

The blotchy, scratched skin of her face was beginning to peek through the thick layer of foundation. She was just contemplating whether to pay a visit to the ladies to fix it, when a deep male voice spoke to her, making her jump.

“Ain’t seen you in here before.”

She turned to face the man sat next to her at the bar. He was old, like, over seventy. Obviously a barfly, he looked quite at home on his stool. His sparse white hair stuck out in tufts from his liver spotted skull and his sunken, watery blue eyes were not especially friendly.

“I’ve never been in here before.”

“You’re a bit of an ugly one, aren’t you. What happened to your face?”

“Are you always so rude?”

He shrugged. “Do you see anybody else talking to me?”

Despite herself, Pam couldn’t help but smile. “I ‘spose not.”

“So what happened to your face?”

I had a fight with some stinging nettles and brambles.”

“If you lost weight and got some teeth put back in yer gob, you wouldn’t be so ugly.”

“Gee, thanks for that.”

“Gee? Are you American?”

“No.”

“Then don’t speak like one, you sound like a fucking idiot.”

Under normal circumstances, Pam, like most people, would have moved away. The man was blatantly suffering from dementia or something.

But all Pam saw was a potential cock to suck.

“Thanks, I’ll bare that in mind. What’s your name?”

“Why do you want to know my name? Why are you still here, ugly girl?”

“My name’s Pam, and I would like to suck your cock.”

The old man sprayed his beer across the bar. He wiped his mouth and stared at her incredulously.

“Who are you?” he asked, sounding the most sane he had since this whole preposterous conversation had begun.

“Just a girl, wanting to suck some cock.”

The old man glanced around them, but no one was paying them any attention. The loud music drowned out their conversation and everybody went about their own business.

“Are you a prostitute? You can fuck off if you are.”

“I’m not a prostitute. Do you want a blowjob or not?”

The old man looked wistful for a second, his watery blue eyes glazed over and staring vacantly into the middle distance.

“I ain’t had myself a blowjob since the nineteen eighties.” He snapped his head round and glared at her sharply. “What is this, you got AIDs or something and want to infect innocent people? Or did Jimmy put you up to this?”

“I don’t know who Jimmy is.” She downed her drink and turned to leave. “But that’s fine, I’ll find someone else. Good day to you.”

“Wait! OK crazy bitch, if that’s what you want. There’s an alleyway round the back.”

“Fine. Then let’s go.”

The old man followed her through the pub. Once outside, he hobbled up next to her. He looked even older in the daylight and had a marked stoop, making him even shorter than he already was. He barely came up to her chin.

She followed him round the side of the pub. The narrow alleyway was sandwiched between the pub and the next door building, at the end of which was a dead end. Clattering sounds and brisk voices from the kitchen could be heard drifting through the air vent, along with the smell of cooking food mingled with the stench of stale fat clogging up the dirty vent. The claustrophobic space was stuffed full of overflowing, smelly wheelie bins, adding to the overall stink.

The old man leaned against the wall between two bins with flies buzzing around the opened lids resting atop the rubbish bags. He undid the belt at his thick waist, and Pam expected to see his penis pop out through the zipper of his fly.

Instead, his grey, old man trousers fell to his ankles with the pulled up tight, grey argyle socks. His legs were spindly, hairless and white. He wore baggy, light blue boxers with the voluminous leg holes flapping around his flagpole thin thighs.

“C’mon then, ugly girl, come and suck Granddad’s willy.”

Pam felt her bile rise. She didn’t know whether it was because of the sight of the old man, or the stink in the alleyway. Probably a bit of both, she thought hazily.

You can do this. This is blowjob number four, you’re doing really well…

She crouched down on her knees before him and tugged his underpants down his legs.

She almost threw up on the spot.

I can’t put that in my mouth, I just can’t…

His cock looked as though it had gangrene. The stench emitting from it was appalling, far worse than the stink from the bins. Yellow flakes and drying, orange ooze rimmed the head. The shaft had a grey tinge, like he was dead already. The tip of the thing wept a thick looking, greenish yellow fluid. It was small as well, maybe four inches long at the most, complete with erection.

“It ain’t gonna suck itself, ugly girl. What’s the matter? You don’t look the type to get bothered by a little bit of cock cheese.”

Fuck!

She turned her head and squeezed her eyes shut, fighting down the wave of nausea. Taking a deep breath, she wrapped her lips around it.

And promptly threw up. Hot sick consisting of pies and semen erupted up from her stomach. After two or three heaves she was able to get a hold of herself.

“Well, if that’s the way you feel about it, you can fuck off,” he said bending down with obvious physical discomfort to pull up his trousers.

“No, wait,” she said, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “Please, just let me try again.”

She didn’t wait for his reply and pulled the trousers out of his grip, latching her lips around the foul shaft for the second time.

This time around it wasn’t quite as vile. Her saliva from the first attempt had cleaned away some of the putrid gunge, and the main taste in her mouth right now was her own vomit. Which was a million times better than his cock. She held her breath and sucked him all the way down. The thing barely even touched her tonsils. She felt something tacky dislodge beneath the foreskin and slip down the back of her throat. She gagged again, her nostrils flaring.

No! Don’t throw up.

Resolutely, she worked through it, her head bobbing up and down at speed. She forced herself not to think about the slimy tastes that coated the inside of her mouth.

After what felt like an age, although it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, his cock swelled to a rock hard state and exploded in her mouth. His ejaculate was bitter and fishy, sending her reeling when it swamped her mouth. She gulped it down as quickly as possible but there was no escaping the disgusting taste.

When he had finished squirting in her mouth she fell backwards, retching and gagging.

I’ve done it! Oh thank God.

Pam lurched her to her feet, holding onto the smelly bin for support. When she had sufficiently composed herself and she was reasonably sure she wasn’t going to chuck up, she made her way on trembling legs down the alleyway.

“That was some blowjob, ugly girl,” he called after her.

She stopped in her tracks, a thought suddenly occurring to her.

“Do you have a dog?”

“What?”

“Never mind. Goodbye old man.”

Pam smiled to herself as she stepped back out onto the street. She should be proud of herself, she was doing really well. A swig of coke was all she needed now, and then she would be as right as rain.

She hadn’t got far down the road when she eyed her next potential victim. She intended to wait until sundown to complete this particular task, but it would surely be bad karma to look this gift horse in the mouth.

“Hi,” she said to the tramp.

The tramp with a dog. A potential double whammy.

He was sitting in a derelict shop doorway, his manky looking, malnourished Labrador curled up next to his upturned cap filled with pennies.

The homeless man looked up at her with glazed, dark brown eyes. It was impossible to tell his age as a wild looking beard obscured the lower half of his face. It was dark though, so he might have been young. Not that it mattered.

“Spare a quid for a cup of tea, Miss?”

“I can do better than that. I’ll spare you five thousand if you do as I ask and loan me your dog.”

His eyes instantly lost the glazed look.

“I’m sorry, you’ll do what if I what?”

Pam realised in that moment that this guy was in full possession of his marbles, not like the other one she’d met by the duck pond.

“Five thousand pounds. It’s yours if you come with me to the common and let me suck you off and get your dog to fuck me.”

“Lady, I might be homeless but that doesn’t give you the right to come over and fucking abuse me. Go wind someone else up you crazy bitch.”

“I’m not winding you up. Do you want the money or not?”

The fact that he wasn’t insane made her pause. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Does it matter?” She pulled a wad of notes out of her jeans pocket and handed it to him. “Here, take it.”

His eyes widened in utter disbelief.

“You cannot be fucking serious.”

“I am. Deadly. If you don’t want to do it, then fine, you can keep the money. There’s a thousand pounds there. But if you do, after we’re done, we’ll go the cashpoint and draw out the rest.”

The dog cocked its head and looked beseechingly up at its owner with Bambi-esque brown eyes.

“OK, fine, we’ll play along with your sick little games lady. But I swear to God, if this is a trick I’ll fucking kill you.”

Pam smiled humourlessly. “No trick.”

Just magic.

Clapham Common was even busier than it had been this morning with people enjoying the warm autumn weather. Half of her expected to see the boys that had gangbanged her this morning. But the Common was a big place and they were probably long gone. Her new companion shuffled shambolically along next to her as she led him into the wooded area. Neither of them spoke, each locked in their own thoughts with the dog sticking close to his owner. London being London, no one even so much as glanced at them. She was really beginning to love this city.

Once they were amongst the trees in a secluded spot, Pam took the tramp by the hand and led him to a broad tree. She pushed him up against it and sunk to her knees before him.

“This is wrong,” he said, as she pulled his cock out through the trousers that were stiff with filth and therefore of unidentifiable material.

She silenced his protest by sucking down his flaccid penis.

It wasn’t completely dissimilar to the old man’s.

How much cock cheese can one girl eat in a day?

On reflection, she decided that this cock wasn’t quite as bad as the other. It tasted strongly of piss and sweat, but it wasn’t crusted up with as much crap as the old man’s. Or maybe she was just getting hardened to the taste of rotten cock. To her relief, his penis swelled in her mouth. It would be just awful if he couldn’t get it up and she would have to go about the arduous task of finding another tramp.

It was the odour of shit emanating from below his balls that worried her the most.

Oh God, I really can’t do that…

Do it now, before he comes. He’s less likely to let you afterwards.

She licked down to his balls. They too tasted of salt and piss. The smell of shit grew stronger.

She shuddered.

I can’t.

You can.

Oh God, here goes…

Gently she lifted up his balls slightly with her fingertips and the tip of her tongue probed behind his ball sacks.

Her stomach heaved.

No, not again. Suck it up princess…

God only knew how, but she managed to get her violently clenching stomach under control. The flesh she glimpsed between his arsehole and scrotum was swollen and pin prick tight beneath the wiry pubic hair and coated in a thin layer of brown.

Against her better judgment, her tongue skated over the offending area.

“What the fuck are you doing,” he gasped, trying to wiggle away from her.

“Relax,” she managed to say without throwing up. “I’m gonna make you feel real good.”

She worked quickly, lapping up his shit and gulping it down.

The bitter, grungy taste was indescribable, it flooded her mouth and her senses. Her tongue rasped over the matted pubic hair and it took every last drop of her willpower to persevere with the disgusting task.

She was overwhelmed by dizziness and her body trembled uncontrollably when the shit slipped down her throat. It was just so strong, so pungent, like a well ripened camembert left in a kitchen cupboard to mature for a week.

Except this wasn’t camembert. It was shit. The savoury taste of it was not something she ever wished to experience again.

When she was sufficiently happy that she had fulfilled the task to the best of her abilities, she slid the cock back into her mouth. He was still half hard, and it didn’t take much effort to suck him into his full, stiff glory.

A horrible thought suddenly occurred to her and she stopped sucking. What if he got his rocks off, and then he wouldn’t be quite so willing to get the dog to fuck her? Maybe she should try with the dog now while the tramp was horny, not sated.

Her mouth slid off the cock with a loud pop.

“Why you stop?” the tramp panted above her.

Pam stood up and kicked off her new, tan ankle boots. The jeans and knickers followed.

“Because your dog has to fuck me, remember? Can you make him fuck me?”

The tramp laughed but there was little humour in the sound. He tucked his spit-shined penis back in his crusty old trousers and squared his shoulders.

“You’re a crazy fucking bitch.”

“Maybe. Just, please, will you help? If you don’t you can forget the four grand. And me finishing you off.”

“Come here boy,” he said to the placid creature that had been watching them nearby. “Do you want to play?”

The dog didn’t look convinced. It came over to its master, the golden, matted tail stuck firmly between its legs.

Pam just stood there, naked from the waist down. What was she supposed to do? Get down on all fours and wait for the dog to fuck her? Was that even possible?

“Lie on your back and open your legs,” the tramp ordered. “Let Fido nuzzle you, get to know your smells.”

Fido, she thought humourlessly. I’m about to let a dog called Fido eat my pussy.

As she lay down and spread her spotty white thighs, she didn’t think that anything could, or would ever come close to matching the sheer depravity of this moment.

“That’s it, there’s a good boy,” the tramp cooed, “come and have a sniff of this rotten meat.”

Pam propped herself up on her elbows and shuddered in revulsion when the dog’s cold nose buried into her gash. He snorted air on her vagina, hot and wet and tickly. She cringed when she felt a rough tongue lapping at her sensitive folds.

“I think he likes you,” the tramp said. “There’s a good boy.”

Pam closed her eyes for a second as the dog made a meal of her pussy. Snuffling, snorting, licking, the dog was having a great time. Her mind drifted to Wayne as the involuntary sexual reaction to having her clit massaged by a firm tongue took hold. Wayne had never liked going down on her. He said she smelled of old fish and that he always broke out in mouth ulcers and got a sore throat on the rare occasions he bothered.

Pam had kind of missed it. And quite a lot too, judging from her body’s treacherous reaction.

“You might want to return the favour, lady,” the tramp suggested helpfully. “Give Fido’s cock a little rub.”

Pam sat upright some more and the dog’s nose followed the movements of her body. He was definitely keen. She couldn’t remember the last time a male had shown so much interest in her pussy juices.

How am I supposed to do this?

From this position, it was impossible for her to reach the dog’s penis.

“Help me out, here,” she snapped at the tramp. “That’s what I’m paying for. Would you please get your dog to fuck me?”

This was even more difficult and horrible than she thought it was going to be. And that was really saying something.

“Fine,” the tramp said, not sounding at all happy about helping. “Come here boy, good dog. Clever Fido.” He swivelled the dog around so its torso was angled slightly and its nether regions were in easier reach. “Touch it then, I ain’t doing it, this is your party, lady.”

The grotesque reality of the situation smacked her full in the face and the rasping tongue no longer inspired warm and fuzzy feelings.

Wincing, she reached out to touch the dog’s penis. Fido yelped, not at all happy about a human touching his doggy privates. If it hadn’t of been for his master holding him firmly in place, he would have squirmed away.

Pam felt sick as she fumbled around for the dog’s penis. It was still inside the dog’s body, encased by the hairy, tubular covering with the little black balls at the base.

Ah ha! There we go…

She felt something spongy but hard pop out of the top of it. Shuddering in revulsion, she massaged it with her fingertips. When she glimpsed between the dog’s hindquarters, she saw the bright pink worm that was the dog’s penis.

Oh my God, this is disgusting, I really can’t do this…

But she persevered. Pam was nothing if not a trooper.

The dog’s movements grew more frantic, and to her joy and revulsion, he began to hump her leg.

“Get on all fours quick,” the tramp instructed. “I think he’s ready.”

Pam did as he asked, just pleased in that moment that she no longer had to look at the bloody dog.

She couldn’t see what the tramp was doing, but she could tell he was manhandling the dog into position. She felt fur on her bare rump and the backs of her thighs, and the scratch of paws on her exposed flesh.

She winced in physical pain and mental torment, but steadfastly she held her ground.

It’s almost over. You’ve come so far, you’re doing really well.

“Your arse is too fat,” the tramp complained, “Fido doesn’t exactly have a long cock and he can’t get inside. You’re gonna have to spread your cheeks for him so he can get in.”

“But I can’t,” she moaned, close to breaking down in tears. “I’ll lose my balance if I have my hands behind my back.”

“Christ, you’re a useless fat bitch, aren’t you? You’ll just have to hold open one cheek and balance on the other hand. I’ll hold open the other half and help Fido in.”

Holding herself up with her right hand, she pulled on her flabby left arse cheek, exposing her stretched, brown stained rectum.

The tramp pushed the other cheek to one side and her humiliation was complete. It was uncomfortable too, it felt like her crack was about to rip open.

“Come on Fido, there’s a good boy, stick your little willy in here.”

To Pam’s horror, the dog went for the nearest hole. Her crack, drenched with dog slobber, made Fido’s entry into her rectum easier. The pain was minimal, and didn’t bother her. But the very idea of what she was doing made her mind turn in on itself. She actually felt something snap in her mind, a horrible moment of clarity when she realised that she was no better than the animal fucking her; a self-serving, ruthless, heartless, amoral, whore.

She was a bitch and she deserved to die. She knew this. Instead she stuck her arse further out, allowing the dog better access.

The animal didn’t last long. She felt it hammering its little prick into her at speed, the canine semen shooting way up inside her lower colon.

At last, the horrific ordeal was over. The tramp gave her little time to recover.

“My turn,” he said, pulling her up onto to her knees with his dirty hands in her armpits.

His cock shoved into her mouth once more. She didn’t protest, she hadn’t come so far on this hellish journey to fall at the last hurdle. As she sucked off the tramp, the dog rammed its cold nose up her arsehole, hovering up the spunk it had expelled. She didn’t dare push the damn thing away because the tramp was on the brink of coming, which meant that she was mere seconds away from completing her task.

She almost sobbed in relief when the tramp emptied his load in her mouth. Gratefully she gulped down the toe curlingly bitter ejaculate.

When she was done she flopped onto her back, openly sobbing and panting and laughing a little too.

“I want my money, bitch,” the tramp said. “Get your ugly cunt dressed and take me to a cashpoint, like you promised.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, stumbling slightly as she stepped into her jeans.

The walk to the nearest ATM seemed to take forever. All she wanted now was the tramp and his mutt to piss off and leave her alone. But as much as she hated it, she was stuck with them.

Back in town, she stuck her card in the ATM.

Maximum withdrawl, £500.00 blared the screen.

Fuck!

With trembling fingers she tapped in her number and withdrew five hundred.

“It’s all it would give me,” she said, handing him the wad of notes.

The tramp snatched them. “You said five thousand.”

“I know. I’m sorry, this is the maximum I can draw out. Look, I’ve just given you one thousand, five hundred pounds. Can’t we leave it at that?”

“No.”

He was beginning to irk her. “What do you expect me to do? It’s Saturday afternoon, all the banks are shut. It’s that or nothing.”

“You said five thousand.”

His eyes flashed angrily and his mucky hands balled into fists.

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.”

“Give me your card.”

“What? No!”

“Give it. Now.”

“No! What would be the point? I’ll only report it as stolen straight away and you won’t be able to use it.”

“You won’t be able to report nothing if you’re lying dead in a ditch.”

Pam glanced around herself. This was a busy street, even if every single passer by ignored them.

“What are you going to do?” she asked with more bravado than she felt. “Attack me in the street in broad daylight in front of all these people?”

His shoulders visibly slumped. “After everything you made me do.”

Everything I made you do? What about what I had to do? Jesus.

“I’m walking away from you, right now. Take your money and leave me alone.”

She turned her back to him and walked away.

He’s going to come flying after me. He’s going to stab me in the back with a knife, I’m as good as dead.

“You’re gonna get everything you deserve, bitch,” he called after her instead. “Everything.”

Yeah, you’re right. I am.

CHAPTER FIVE.

It was gone four by the time Pam was back out on the streets. She’d been back to the hotel for her second shower of the day, and to change into her final outfit. She wore a short black dress and high heeled black shoes with black stockings. On an attractive woman the look might have fallen just on the right side of slutty. But on Pam, it looked ridiculous and comically trashy.

She knew perfectly well she didn’t have the figure for what she wearing, but she didn’t care. She no longer gave a shit what people thought about her appearance, because come tomorrow she was going to wish herself beautiful. She fancied herself as a caterpillar that was soon to emerge as a beautiful butterfly.

So fuck everyone that had ever called her a dog. She would show them. She would show them all.

Pam had taken a black cab to Whitechapel for the last round up of the day’s tasks. All she had left to do was two blowjobs, and to pick up a man for money. Whitechapel was supposed to be teeming with prostitutes. But so far, she could see no one that even remotely resembled a prostitute.

Maybe they only come out after dark.

Which made a whole lot of sense. She looked completely out of place on the main high street. The place was teeming with burkas and Indians. A few students from the neighbouring Aldgate University wandered down the broad street, perhaps on their way to their digs in Bethnal Green on the other side of Whitechapel.

She was certainly the only person dressed as a slapper.

Perhaps I should go to Bethnal Green for a few hours, there’s a ton of pubs there, maybe I can get a couple of blowjobs in before I come back here.

She decided to walk rather than take the tube as it was less than a quarter of a mile hike. Her feet were in agony though, and she regretted her decision pretty quickly.

She didn’t notice the shiny, black car that had pulled in parallel to her as she waked the street; the flow of traffic in London was so constant she had learned to mostly block it out.

“Hey baby,” called out a deep male voice from the wound down window.

She didn’t know what kind of car it was, although the shape looked vaguely familiar. It looked expensive anyway. Seriously expensive.

“Hey,” she called back, stopping in her tracks.

“Get in the car baby, I’ve got money, lots of it, just name your price.”

His face was partly obscured by the shadowy interior of the car, and something in the tone of his voice gave her pause.

Don’t get in the car. That’s a really bad idea…

But God, did she ever want to get this shit over with. The rate she was going, with any luck she’d be tucked up in her hotel bed by nine and this day would fade away and become a long forgotten, sleazy nightmare.

She sighed deeply, torn over what to do.

Fuck it, she thought, walking around the parked car and opening the passenger door. I’m sure this guy can’t do anything worse to me than what I’ve been through already today.

She got into the scrupulously clean car with the black leather interior.

How was a prostitute supposed to act? Give him her price list up front like they did in the movies?

The guy was younger than she had first thought; his deep voice was misleading and made him sound a lot older than he really was. He was blonde, about her age, slim. He was wearing a well cut, dark suit that made her think of her Djinn.

Good looking too, she noticed in surprise. No, scrap that, make that drop dead gorgeous. What the hell is a guy that looks like him doing picking up prostitutes? Never mind a prostitute that looks like me….

She figured that maybe he was just wired up that way, like the actor Hugh Grant. Why a man as rich and handsome as Hugh Grant felt the need to pick up a hooker was beyond her. But whatever the reason, this guy was obviously suffering from the same affliction.

Pam wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Doing this guy would be a pleasure, not a chore. She smiled to herself, she had really struck lucky.

“What can I do you for?” she said to his handsome profile.

His full lips curled up in a grin.

“How about we go back to mine for a few hours? I meant what I said about paying. And I’m talking thousands.”

Alarm bells went off in her head. This was just way too good to be true. Pam had a pretty good bullshit detector. No man wanted to fuck her out of choice. Not unless there was something seriously wrong with said man, or he was desperate, or there was something in it for him. She thought briefly of Wayne, who fit all those categories. He was only with her because she was willing to graft hard and give him all her money. Not only that, he liked to beat women and she was stupid enough to let him.

She felt a rise of anger. Why oh why had she let him treat her like shit for so long?

Because you’re a desperate fat slag and you’ll never get anyone else.

Well, that was about to change. She would show him when she was beautiful.

“Why?” she asked. “You’re a gorgeous looking guy, you could have any woman you want, why pick up a prostitute?”

They stopped at some traffic lights and he turned to smile at her.

Fuck, he’s dazzling.

His eyes were a glittering pale blue and his blonde hair flopped onto his forehead. He kind of reminded her of a young Leonardo Decaprio and her stomach gave an appreciative little lurch.

“Because I don’t want any emotional complications. Women are just so clingy, you spend one night with them and in the morning they’re setting a date for the wedding.”

Yeah, with this guy she could well believe it. She could easily imagine he would have that effect on most women.

“I wouldn’t have pegged myself as your type.”

“Look… Wait, what’s your name?”

“Pam,” she replied, seeing no point in lying. “What’s your name?”

“It’s James.  I’ll level with you, Pam. I don’t care about you, or why you do what you do. I don’t want to talk to you, apart from to discuss terms. I want to fuck you, I want to be rough, and I’ll pay handsomely for the privilege.”

As on edge as she was, a little part of her couldn’t help but be taken in by the whole, ‘Pretty Woman’ fantasy. A cold man incapable of affection, taught to love by the woman he had bought precisely for that reason, to avoid emotional attachment…

She shook her head in disbelief. Where the hell were these ridiculous, romantic notions coming from? She was in a stranger’s car about to whore herself.

“Whatever you want. Where are we going? I would like to know that.”

“My place. It isn’t far, just in Soho.”

“You must be rich to live there. What do you do for a living?”

“I thought I was clear that I’m paying you not to ask stupid questions.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t often go back to a client’s place.” No shit. “I just want to know what I’m getting myself in for.”

He sighed. “Fine. I inherited a shit load through the family line, we got rich through property. Right place at the right time, and all that. Like I say, I’m quite the catch. I would like to fuck a woman without her picking out a diamond ring afterwards.”

Conceited. But then, I suppose he has every reason to be.

They drove the rest of the way in silence. Pam didn’t want to piss him off anymore by prying so she kept her trap shut. She snuck glances at him as he drove, marvelling at his perfectly straight nose and square jaw.

Half an hour later they reached their destination.

“You live here?” she gasped, unable to stop herself. “Fuck me.”

“I intend too,” he said with a disarming, boyish grin.

They had pulled into the driveway of a terraced town house on a side street in the heart of Soho. She gazed up at the big, square façade and guessed that it had to be worth upward of least five million.

The garage door before them glided smoothly upwards, revealing a plain, concrete interior which James drove into.

The engine died and the garage door clicked shut behind them. A small tremor of fear coursed through her. For some reason she was deeply on edge, the garage door closing putting her in mind of coffin lid being nailed in place.

“Come on,” he said, opening the driver’s door. “there’s a side door in the garage that takes you straight into the kitchen.”

Yeah, she thought, also getting out of the car. Don’t want the neighbours to see your bringing an ugly slag like me into your beautiful home.

She closed her eyes for a second and dreamed of the day when guys like James would take her through the front door and be proud to show her off.

“Home sweet home,” he said, shrugging off his jacket as soon as they were in the kitchen.

By London standards, the kitchen was massive, done out in the style of a country kitchen. The room screamed money, and she supposed the style of it was what might be described as ‘retro,’ considering a young man lived here. Modern oils hung on the stone walls, one depicting a faceless man in a suit carrying a beautiful, naked woman in his arms like a baby. The painting made her shiver. It was just so… soulless. Like the room itself, for all its bright colours and fussy décor, there was no disguising the coldness.

He removed his bulging wallet from an inside pocket and draped his jacket over a wooden, kitchen chair. He pulled out a wad of notes and casually slung them on the table top. The notes fanned out prettily.

“There’s ten grand there. Take it, it’s yours.”

Ordinarily she would have been impressed. Ten grand was a lot of money, but with one billion in her bank account? Not so much.

“All I ask of you in return is that you no longer ask me questions. You are to do everything I say and not complain, is that understood?”

She nodded dumbly and picked up the money because she knew that’s what she should do, and stuffed it into her shoulder bag.

“Good. I’m glad we understand each other.”

He rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt as he spoke, like he didn’t want to get dirty or something.

I hope he lets me suck his cock, then this will be the second to last task of the day instead of the third.

“Please remove your clothes and hop up onto the table.”

OK… Weirder and weirder.

But there was something incredibly compelling about him. He was just so handsome, in all her life she hadn’t even so much as seen a man that looked like him in the flesh, yet alone been with one.

Beneath those electric blue eyes that seemed to fizzle with pent up energy, she stripped off her clothes and perched on the edge of the table.

Her painful self-consciousness was mixed in with something else. Lust.

This man isn’t right…

This man is gorgeous….

“My God, you are so ugly,” James said, running his fingers down a saggy, oversized breast. “So perfect.”

His hand travelled lower down her flabby, stretch marked belly, brushing the top of her thick wedge of pubic hair.

“Lie on you back and open your legs.”

A little tremble of fear and excitement rippled through her lower gut. Part of her wanted to grab her clothes and get the hell out, the other part wanted to see what he would do.

Stop thinking about what you want and don’t want. Just do as he says. Finish the God damn task.

She shuffled her fat rump back a little, and lay down on the long, pine table.

“Do you mind if I tie you up?” he asked with boyish grin.

Yeah, she did mind, as it happened.

“I don’t know…” she began.

“Come now, I have just given you ten grand. I want to tie you down, which is why I’m paying you. Most of the girls I’ve been with get all squeamish about my sexual preferences. But you’re not most girls. You’re a street walker.”

His voice was so deep and seductive, and if she bailed out now, who’s to say what lowlife would pick her up instead?

“OK, OK, do what you must.”

“Thank you.”

He left her there on the table and reappeared a moment later with a long length of thin rope draped over a shoulder. He proceeded to tie the rope around the table leg and pulled it tight across her torso, wrapping it over and under the table many times until the rope covered her from neck to ankle, pinning her arms to her sides.

Pam was frightened. She comforted herself with the knowledge that if she really wanted out of the binds, it was possible. All she would have to do was wiggle upwards and the rope should, in theory, slide down her body enough for her to be able to sit up and escape.

He finished off his handiwork by securing the end of the rope around the table leg at her left foot.

“This is only so you don’t wiggle too much when I chop off your toes.”

“What?”

“You heard. Are you deaf as well as ugly?”

Oh no, this can’t be happening. Not again…

“Let me go,” she said, hating how those words felt all too familiar on her lips.

She felt a sudden urge of anger. It was all just so unfair. Why couldn’t these bastards just leave her the fuck alone?

“I thought you might say that so I suggest you shut. The. Fuck. Up.”

Each time he said one of those words he lifted her head by her hair and brought the back of her skull crashing down on the table top as if he were using her head as a punctuation mark.

She groaned, her head exploding in pain. Stars flashed, and she sobbed in a mix of agony and shame and anger.

Not again, was all she could think. Just please, not again.

“I’ve never done this before,” he said, his voice seeming to drift to her from very far away. “You’re my first. I’ve thought about it, of course. I’ve thought about it a lot. I’d love to do one of the high society bitches that are constantly sniffing around me. I don’t know, I expect I will one day. I’ve heard these things are kind of a slippery slope. Wait there a second.”

As if she could do much else. She lay there groaning, concentrating on focusing her vision on one of the spotlights in the high ceiling above her. His boyishly handsome face leaned over her, blocking out the view of the ceiling, that healthy blonde hair hanging downwards in a glossy curtain.

“Open wide,” he said in a friendly voice, before shoving a red rubber ball gag with leather straps either side of it into her mouth.

Her cries of protest were cut short by the ball which filled her mouth and flattened her tongue.

Stupidly enough, all she could think for a second was; how am I supposed to give him a blowjob now?

The thing felt horrible in her mouth, slimy and nasty and her jaw was stretched wide around it. He lifted up her head to tighten the strap and then carelessly let it drop back down to the table, sending a fresh jolt of pain firing through her.

“Now, where were we,” he asked, rubbing his hands together. “Yes, that’s right, I was about to chop off your toesiewoesies.”

He retrieved a knife from a kitchen drawer and resumed his place by her side.

“Eenie, meenie, miny moe,” he said in a sing song voice, lightly tapping each of her toes on her right foot. “Catch a tiger by the toe. If he hollers, let him go, eeny, meeny, miny, moe. This one.”

The knife sliced through her little toe. Pain exploded through her foot and she tried to jerk upright, but the rope held her down, viciously cutting into her.

“No!” she screamed, but the sound was forced back down into her body and came out as an incomprehensible, muffled sob.

“So much blood,” he said wistfully, wiping his brow with the hand that held the knife.

A streak of red smeared his forehead, but he didn’t seem to notice. Or perhaps care.

“I’ve read up on this stuff,” he said conversationally, “and I really don’t want you bleeding out and dying on me too soon, that would be such a shame, because we’re going to have such fun together.”

She shook her head from side to side and screamed into the gag.

“Hush now, don’t cry. You’re going to choke on your own snot at this rate.”

Agony billowed out from her little toe. Or lack of one.

In that moment she wished with all her heart that the stupid Djinn had never come into her life. Then there were no more thoughts when he lightly traced the knife over one puddingy breast that stuck out through a gap in the rope.

“I’ve never chopped off a tit before,” he said thoughtfully. “Jack the Ripper was fond of that. He’s the only reason I chose Whitechapel to pick up a whore.” He laughed softly. “Isn’t that predictable?”

Yeah. Lucky me.

He stopped talking for a moment to study her missing toe, twisting her foot from side to side as he did so which had her squirming in fresh agony.

“I have no idea how much pain a human body can endure before the person blacks out, or snuffs out completely. I’m guessing that everybody is different. Let’s find out, shall we?”

Agony shot through her, locking tight every muscle in her body. All she could hear was her own screams, deafening to her own ears, if not to his. She could feel him severing her toes from her foot with the knife, one by one from the outside in.

The pain was excruciating. It was indescribable. It consumed her like wildfire and she stared up at the ceiling, just praying for it to stop.

When she first heard the whooshing noise that sounded like a gas oven being lit, she thought it was the blood pumping in her own ears. Then she felt heat at her mutilated foot. The heat turned into a full on burning and the smell of cooking meat assaulted her nostrils.

It took a moment for her pain addled brain to work out that it was she who was on the menu. She managed to lift her swimming head, and saw he had a chef’s blowtorch trained on her foot. The sight was too horrific, too disgusting. The smell, burnt and sweet like a forgotten pork joint in the oven, crawled into her brain and smothered the last vestiges of her sanity. Her head flopped backwards and she felt herself falling into a welcome blackness.

When she felt herself coming too, she did everything she could to fight consciousness. She didn’t know how long she’d been out, all she knew was she wanted to stay there in the darkness and never have to face the grim reality of where she was.

Unfortunately for Pam, that wasn’t to be. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing unconsciousness to claim her, when she was hit full in the face with a torrent of cold water.

Some of the water went up her nose and she coughed and spluttered, convinced for a moment that she was going to drown. Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself gazing up into the handsome face of her captor.

“Did you sleep well?”

He emptied the rest of the washing up bowl filled with water over her head. She turned her face to one side and coughed some more.

“Bastard,” she sobbed, but of course it came out as an incoherent groan.

The smell of cooked meat hung in the air, albeit fainter than before.

My cooked flesh, she thought, her mind caving in on itself.

Then she thought of her Djinn and the tiniest spark of hope ignited within her. If she could just survive the night, then maybe she was in with a chance.

I don’t like you passing out,” James said. “Try and stay awake, it’s boring when you’re out cold.”

He sounded like a spoiled pubescent and in a moment of clarity Pam realised that was pretty much all he was. A rich boy who was used to getting anything and everything his little heart desired. Maybe this was what all rich kids did when they had run out of the regular kind of fun things to do. The desensitized little shit.

The pain in her foot came flooding back in all its glory as she awoke fully, blocking out all further thought. James switched on the blowtorch and lowered it over her sweat sheened, blood smeared stomach.

The heat prickled her skin, edging up her body to her breasts. The long blue flame hovered over her nipple, heating it up to the point that was just shy of a burn.

“Mmmmrrghhh,” she wailed into the gag, thrashing her head from side to side.

James chuckled.

“I want to see what happens to your nipple if I burn it off.”

Pam’s eyes were wild over the red rubber ball. Her chest heaved, and each rise of her ribcage brought her wobbling breast closer to the flame.

“Don’t close your eyes or I’ll cut off the lids.”

She opened her eyes, not disbelieving him for a second. Just when she thought it would be bye bye nipple, the flame disappeared completely. James lowered his hand.

“I don’t know, this just isn’t as fun as I’d thought it would be. It was so much better in my head. Maybe you’re just not pretty enough. There’s not one part of you that’s attractive, I should never have picked you.”

Through her haze of pain, she realised he was beginning to sound more and more like a petulant little boy.

“Oh, fuck it, let’s just see if it gets any more exciting.”

Without further warning the blowtorch sprang back into life and the tip of the blue flame bent sideways against her nipple. In a matter of seconds her nipple began to bubble then turn black. The pain was too much, it sent her careering into madness and tumbling back down into the blissful black.

When she came to for the second time, James was red faced and mad. Pam was having difficulty focusing on his face, nothing felt wired together properly, like her eyes were no longer part of her.

And the pain. It was different now though, it had morphed into something else, a dead weight that pressed down on her body and mind, suffocating and immobilising her more surely than the ropes could ever do. The pain was no longer confined to specific places, like her nipple or foot, but rather if felt as if she was wallowing in it. Or drowning in it.

She looked beyond James’ face, up at the ceiling, refusing to so much as glance at the blackened mess that used to be her nipple.

“Stop passing out. I want to see your eyes when I do things to you.”

She couldn’t hear him properly, it felt like her head was stuck in an invisible bucket and her ears were plugged with cotton wool.

His face continued to swim in and out of focus and she closed her eyes again, praying for unconscious to sweep her up once more.

But James was having none of it. She felt her double chin pressing into her neck and his fingers at the back of her head.  She sucked in a great lungfull of air through her mouth and only then realised that he had removed the ball gag.

Her head dropped back down to the table with a resounding thump that made her teeth clash together.

“Stop passing out, it’s no fun. I’ll just fucking kill you and find a girl who will cooperate.”

That brought her round a fraction. She had to survive until morning and then the Djinn would save her.

“And don’t even think about screaming either. This house is totally sound proofed. World War 3 could break out in this kitchen and the neighbours would be completely oblivious. Here, drink this.”

He lifted up her head and shoved a glass of water to her cracked lips. She hadn’t realised how thirsty she was until the water slipped down her neck. Despite her awkward position, she downed the glass.

But now she was more with it, the pain took hold with a vengeance.

“Drugs,” she managed to get out.

“Excuse me? Is a prostitute seriously lying on my kitchen table, asking me for drugs?”

All Pam knew was that she had to survive the night, by whatever means possible. It didn’t really matter what he did to her, so long as she was alive at the end of it. And if she could minimize the pain, so much the better.

“Pain killers. If you keep the pain down, I’ll stop passing out.”

He looked like her was considering what she was saying. His cocked to one side and he regarded her thoughtfully.

“That makes sense, sort of. It could work. If the pain was knocked back, we could have loads of fun with you watching and stuff. Yeah, OK, let’s do it, I’ll see what I’ve got.”

She watched him walk over to the sink and open a cupboard to the left of it. Everything was blurry and she was having great difficulty in focusing. She watched the back of his broad shouldered figure and for a moment she couldn’t tell which one of them was lying down.

Come on Pam, focus. You have to stay with it.

She concentrated on his back. He was still wearing the dark suit pants and the blood streaked, white shirt.

“I have Tramadol here from when I put my back out last summer. Oh, and we could do a line of coke each too, that could be fun.”

Fun. Fun, fun, fuckety fun.

He came back over to her and palmed a couple of pills into mouth like he was feeding a horse a polo mint.

She forced herself to swallow and the pills got jammed for a second in her dry, fear constricted throat.

Oh God, please let the painkillers work. Please let me get through the night.

He reached into the back pocket of his suit pants and pulled out a small, clear bag filled with white powder. He dabbed a little on his finger, stuck it to a nostril, and snorted. The remaining powder he rubbed around his gums.

“Here,” he said, dipping his finger back inside the bag and shoving it under her nose.

“No,” she said reflexively.

Pam didn’t do drugs. She didn’t like them and she didn’t see the point in them. But then she caught herself just in time. She would stick anything up her nose if it meant surviving.

The cocaine felt like sandpaper scraping her nasal passage and ordinarily she would have been deeply disturbed by the sensation. But right now she welcomed it. The effect was instantaneous. Warmth spread her, going some way to numbing the terrible pain.

“How you feeling?” he asked.

The question struck her as entirely moronic.

“Just dandy.”

Her sarcasm was not lost on him.

“Good. Then you’re going to enjoy this next part.”

He went over to a kitchen drawer and came back with a corkscrew. When Pam saw it, something inside of her shrivelled up and died.

“No,” she whispered when he placed the point of the metal spiral directly over her pupil.

“This may sting a bit.”

The corkscrew drove home. Pam screamed hard, the pain exploding in her eye socket all-consuming and terrible.

She felt her eyeball pop as the point drove in. Horrible squelching sounds filled her ears, inexorably loud as it was coming from inside her own head.

She couldn’t stop screaming. She had never before even dreamt that something could feel so fucking awful. A tugging sensation followed, and then with a wet pop the eyeball was wrenched from her head.

Blood and fluid sprayed from the empty eye socket. Her face was soaked, and the bitter tasting fluid ran into her gaping mouth, turning her screams into miserable retching.

Pam was out of her mind with her pain. Or simply out of her mind. She felt herself slipping back into unconsciousness, and gladly welcomed it.

“Your eye looks like a jellyfish,” he said jovially.

The eyeball, skewered on the corkscrew with the optic nerves dangling did indeed look like a jelly flesh. She glimpsed it through her rapidly dimming good eye in the seconds before she passed out for the second time.

“Wake up Pam, wake up, wake up.”

Pam opened her eyes. Or rather, her eye. She remembered what he had done and she opened her mouth to scream. All the pain, all the madness fell out of her mouth.

She felt hands at her neck, choking off the scream.

“Shut up bitch, you’re giving me a headache.”

The screams turned into choking sounds and her head grew tighter and tighter. She felt herself slipping into the blissful dark again and he seemed to know this, for he let up strangling her.

Her chest rose and fell rapidly with her shallow breathing, she just couldn’t catch her breath. She was a mess of agony, both physical and mental.

When she had sufficiently collected herself to focus her eye on her captor, she saw that he was naked. The sight of him defied comprehension. He was tanned and without an ounce of fat on him. His body was sculpted in the way only hours of gym time could produce. In short, he had the body of a God. His magnificent cock was erect and pointing right at her.

But it wasn’t his nudity that had her shrinking in a fresh bout of fear. It was the fact that he held a chainsaw in his hands.

And that the rounded edge of the circular saw was positioned at the top of her left thigh.

“No, please don’t, please, please, please…”

The gabbled pleading gave way to screams when the chainsaw jerked into life in a cloud of petrol fumes. His biceps rippled when he revved up the engine and he smiled down at her.

The rotating teeth tore into her skin, easily cutting through flesh, muscle and bone.

She tilted back her head and screamed up at the ceiling. It took mere seconds for her leg to be severed from her body.

The pain was there, but Pam had a feeling that the concoction of drugs had gone some way to dimming it. By rights, she didn’t think she should still be conscious.

She knew she had to ask him the most important question of her life so far, if only she could find the words and she could stop making those horrible sounds that she had no control over, sounds that were wrenched up from deep down in her tortured soul.

“What’s the time?” she managed to get out through the horrible wailing sounds she made.

He looked at her blankly, like he hadn’t understood the question. She noticed that he was sprayed in blood. Her blood. It looked as though he had been hosed down in the stuff and his eyes were a piercing blue amidst the red.

He shrugged, as if deciding to humour her.

“Just gone eleven.”

Just gone eleven. All I  have to do is survive less than one hour…

Now the blowtorch was out again, and the smell of her cooking flesh filled the air when he seared the stump. That was too much, and she slipped into the blackness once more.

Pam opened her eye and saw she was alone. She had no idea how long she’d been out. Truth be told, she didn’t know much of anything anymore. The bright lights of the kitchen pierced her retina and sent shards of pain into her fevered brain. The blinds to the kitchen were pulled down tight and there was no clock in the room. She had no idea what time it was. She didn’t know where James had gone. She didn’t know anything.

The room was spinning so she closed her eye. She figured that the drugs had definitely done their job because she could tell that the pain had been knocked back. Her spine felt warm and fuzzy and the pain was suitably shrouded by a numbness that left her floppy.

“Hello Pam.”

Her eye snapped open. The Djinn was here. She sobbed in relief. He stood to her right, and she twisted her head to look at the faceless face.

“Are you going to let me die?” she asked him.

“Why would I do that?”

“You know I didn’t finish my task today.”

“Indeed. You were two blowjobs short. And your client didn’t fuck you.”

“I would say he fucked me over pretty good. Doesn’t that count?”

“It would seem you didn’t lose your sense of humour along with your leg and your eye.”

“Yeah. Only because you’re here now,” she said. “Where is he?”

His shimmering face was hurting her eye and she had to stare up at the ceiling.

“He’s in the shower. Your blood was making him feel sticky.”

“Do I still get my wish?”

“Technically, you did fail the task. But I’m feeling generous, which is why I’ve come to you extra early. I couldn’t leave it much longer because he’s pretty close killing you.”

“You don’t say.”

“I can’t say I appreciate your sarcastic tone, Pam.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not really feeling myself here.”

“I can see that. I’ll grant you your fourth wish, providing you carry over your failed tasks into the next task. So that means two blowjobs and still having to pick up a client. Your fourth task is to kill Wayne.”

“Kill Wayne? My boyfriend Wayne?”

“You don’t love him. He treats you like shit. I know for a fact you haven’t spared him more than a second’s though since you’ve met me. Well, apart from when the dog was licking your cunt that is.”

If Pam hadn’t been in such unspeakable pain, she might have blushed.

“How do you know these things?”

“I know everything about you Pam. I am you and you are me.”

Pam didn’t understand what he meant and she didn’t think about it too deeply either.

“Why must I kill Wayne? That’s just sick.”

She could hear herself speaking but it was like her voice wasn’t coming from inside of her. It seemed to float all around her, as disconnected as her own feelings were about murdering her boyfriend.

“It is just the way it has to be, Pam. In order to begin your new life you must do away with the old. Lucky for you that you have no family or friends, otherwise you would have to dispatch all of them.”

“Yes, fine. God, I’ll do anything, I’ll kill Wayne, just please, make the pain go away.”

Pam sobbed, a new thought occurring to her. What good would being better be if she was still stuck here, tied to the table? But then she figured she would have a fighting chance. It would be easy to wiggle free from the ropes if she was in one piece and she could probably escape before the bastard got out of the shower.

“Can I wish myself away from here?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“The Djinn cannot move you through time and space.”

Great.

“But I can do better than that, Pam. How would you like to be better and beautiful?”

Normally, that would have been music to her ears. But right then she could not give a shit. All she wanted was to be pain free. And to have her leg and eye back.

“I don’t care, I just want to not hurt. Please hurry, he’ll be back soon.”

“Don’t you want to be beautiful?”

“I want to be alive.”

“I am offering you a double wish, Pam. I’ll make you better if you kill Wayne. Your pain for his. And I can make you beautiful too. If you set yourself on fire Pam, you will be reborn into beauty. That can be your fifth task and wish.”

Set myself on fire? What is this shit?

“I can’t do that. And I don’t care, just make me well.”

“It is the specification of the inevitable, I want to be beautiful wish. In order to become so, one must set themselves alight. Burn themselves to the ground in order to be reassembled as a thing of beauty. It is just the way of the Djinn, an idiosyncrasy, if you will.”

She felt him place something small in the palm of her hand and she lifted up her trembling head to see what it was.

“I can’t set myself on fire with a lighter, that’s just stupid.”

“It shows you’re willing. The rest is down to the magic of the Djinn.”

The magic of the Djinn, she repeated numbly in her mind.

Through the haze of pain and drugs, his words resonated within her. She was going to ask for beauty at some point. Of course she was.

Fuck it, what have I got to lose? I’ll be beautiful and in full health again.

Without further thought, she thumbed the lighter into life. She held the meagre flame to her hip and her flesh instantly heated, then burnt.

“That’s my girl,” the Djinn said with a hefty dose of warmth injected into his voice.

She screamed. Despite the pickle she was in, it still hurt like merry fuck, and her natural instinct was to drop the offending lighter.

The moment of weakness was short lived, for within seconds her entire self was a roaring inferno. She could feel the skin melting off her body, her blood heating and boiling in her veins. The agony of it was as bright and as sudden as the fire that consumed her. The experience was short lived because the intense heat caused her to lose consciousness almost instantaneously. As she passed out she felt her remaining eyeball fizzle and pop and her brain catch fire.

CHAPTER SIX.

When Pam came back to herself, the Djinn was gone. She lay on her back on the kitchen table and stared up at the ceiling, too confused for the moment to think or to move.

It took her a second to realise that she felt fine. Better than fine. She felt fantastic. She sat up, not so much as a twinge anywhere in her body.

Then came the thought; I’m sitting up, swiftly followed by I have my leg back! And my eye!

The ropes that had bound her in place were no more. She guessed that the smears of ash that clung to her flawless flesh must be the remains of the rope.

My flawless flesh, she thought in excitement and confusion. For the first time she properly looked at the leg that had miraculously grown back after being lopped off. Except this leg was nothing like her previous leg. It was slender, long and shapely. It was the most beautiful leg she had ever seen in her life. It looked a thousand times better than any photo-shopped picture of a leg on a hosiery packet. It was…perfect.

The realisation fully hit her that she had a whole new body and she staggered away from the table, paying little heed to the black, human shaped scorch mark on the table top. She was dizzy with elation, she was delirious with it.

Oh my god, oh my God, I’m beautiful, my body is beautiful, I am perfect.

She grabbed a lid off a saucepan on the country kitchen style AGA cooker and held it up to her face. A half laugh, half sob escaped her lips. Despite the fact her reflection was distorted, she could clearly see she was beautiful. She still looked like her, but her face had been subtly rearranged into a composition of symmetrical perfection. Still the same dark eyes, but now wider set and larger, the dark bags of fatigue and crow’s feet disappeared. The nose smaller, the lips fuller, the jaw more defined and the double chin gone.

She replaced the saucepan lid and unconsciously her hands travelled to her breasts. Her perfect, big breasts. Breasts that would put a playboy centrefold to shame because these babies were silicone free. She marvelled at their shape, slightly conical without a trace of sag. Her hands travelled lower to her ironing board flat stomach with the tiny little belly button, down to the narrow patch of pubic hair above the tight little cleft of her vagina…

A creaking noise from somewhere beyond the kitchen made her jump and the reality of her situation smacked her full in the face. She had been so busy vainly wallowing in her own physical beauty that she had temporarily forgotten about the madman intent on torturing her to death.

Well, fuck him. She grabbed the blowtorch he had left on a kitchen bench and made sure she knew how to work it.

Pam positioned herself next to the closed kitchen door, brandishing the blowtorch before her. The fucker was gonna get it.

Less than five minutes later, James re-entered the kitchen. He was still naked and damp from his shower. He didn’t stand a chance. One second he was opening the kitchen door, the next there was an open flame in his face.

The smell of seared flesh filled the room and she grinned in triumph because this time it wasn’t hers.

She towered over the crouched man who was holding his ruined face and mewling like a run over cat, dying by the roadside.

“You like that, fucker? Now you know what it feels like to be set on fire.”

The blow torch hissed into life again, and she kissed his shoulder blade with the blue flame. He squealed and jerked away from her, rolling onto his side. She glimpsed his face through his splayed fingers as he howled in pain.

“Not so handsome now, are we? You look like Freddy Kruger.”

Even though what she had done to him pleased her, she didn’t like the screaming. It gave her a headache.

“Who are you?” he sobbed in a high pitched wail that sounded nothing like the deep voiced man that had picked her up.

“What do you mean, who am I? It’s me.”

He gazed up at her. Pam saw she had only melted one side of his face. There was no blood, the wound had been instantly cauterised.  It was a mass of blisters and blackened skin and his eyelid looked as if it had melted over his eyeball, sealing it shut. The blank confusion in his eye was laughable.

“It’s me Dumbo, Pam. The prostitute you picked up. I’m not really a prostitute you see, I’m a cleaner. I met this Djinn the other day, and I get six wishes if I do six things. Nasty things, mainly. So anyway, I wished to be beautiful just now and so I am. Beautiful. And whole again.”

She smiled down at him. She could only imagine how beautiful she looked right then, and it made her smile all the harder.

The man edged backwards away from her on his bare backside. Pam noticed how shrivelled his penis was, like a walnut whip.

“How did you get in?”

She sighed in exasperation. “It’s me.”

“Keep away from me. I’m sorry I hurt your friend, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t hurt me.”

“What’s the matter James? I thought you liked to play rough?”

She took a step closer.

“Get away from me.”

“Why? What are you going to do about it?”

He whimpered and cowered from her like a beaten dog. Pam had had just about enough of him. He was pathetic, he didn’t deserve to live.

She aimed a kick at his head, her bare, shapely foot connecting with the ruined side of his face. He screeched like a banshee.

“Oh, shut up you pathetic little shit.”

She aimed the blowtorch at his head. His beautiful blonde hair blackened and smoked, then caught fire. He fell to the floor, uselessly throwing his hands in front of his face to protect his burning head. Pam followed him with the blowtorch, burning the backs of his hands until they too were blistered and black. He tried to crawl away from her, but she was relentless.

“Nooo,” he screamed.

Or at least, she thought that was what he was screaming, it was hard to tell, it sounded curdled, like he was gargling with his own heated blood. He lay on his side twitching, curled up in the foetal position. She took that opportunity to train the blowtorch on his throat. His scream faded away and turned into an odd, rattling sound.

Not surprising really, seeing as she was burning a hole right through his Adam’s apple. She watched in fascination as the flame ate away at his flesh and blood and a gaping black hole appeared. She continued with the blowtorch after he had died because she was fascinated by the hole she was making in his neck.

“You fucker,” she said, finally switching off the blowtorch.

This is the third person I’ve killed in the space of twenty four hours.

She knew she should have been horrified by that fact. She wasn’t. They deserved it.

Does Wayne deserve it?

She didn’t know how she felt about that. The Djinn was right. She hadn’t loved that man for a long time. But still. Could she kill him?

Yes, came the unbidden answer. It’s a small price to pay. He deserves it too.

Smiling to herself, she stepped over the bastard’s body on the way to fetch her clothes. Thankfully he hadn’t touched those, they still lay in a heap in the corner of the room along with her shoulder bag.

To her dismay, they no longer fit. The little black dress was about six sizes too big. She was pretty sure she had gotten taller too, because even though the dress hung off her like a sack, it seemed to be shorter. It was now an A-line tunic that barely covered her bum. Even the shoes were too big, or certainly too wide, her feet rattled around inside of them. The length of them was OK, but she figured she must have lost a shit load of weight off her feet too.

She giggled. This was just crazy. She stuffed the high heels in her bag, along with the money he had given her, unconsciously she touched the lamp for reassurance as she did so.

Thanks mate, I’m sure I’ll make use of it.

She didn’t even bother with the tights. What was the point, unless she wanted to look like Nora Batty.

She reached the front door, feeling anxious for the first time that someone would see her leaving the house. At least it was still night. The grandfather clock in the gloomy hallway proclaimed it to be four fifteen. Not that she was tired in any way. Whenever the Djinn fixed her up it was like he bunged in nine hours of restful sleep in the process.

Opening the door a crack, she peered out. The street was silent. Which she supposed it would be. It was no man’s time; a shade too late for most party revellers and too early for the majority of workers.

And the perfect time for her. She slipped unnoticed out onto the street and kept to the shadows with her beautiful face lowered. A sense of elation washed through her. She felt on top of the world, like she owned the night. She knew, in that moment, that she was capable of anything. She also knew that she should be getting back to her hotel. She looked ridiculous dressed as she was, she didn’t want to get into anymore shit.

Pam padded down the dark street on bare feet. She knew of a twenty four hour taxi rank in Soho, and she was able to head in the vague direction of it. She walked swiftly, head bowed, determined not to get into any more trouble.

Not tonight anyway.

Pam reached the safety of the hotel without incident. The taxi man had leered at her, which was indeed something she was unused to. It pleased her though, she could not have been happier to be so beautiful.

Once in the privacy of the hotel she stripped off her baggy dress and examined herself in awe in the full length mirror in the bathroom.

Her reflection had her crying in joy. Even though her body was perfect in every single possible way, it was her face that made her breakdown sobbing. She thought she had looked beautiful in the saucepan lid. She hadn’t seen the half of it. Her face was exquisite, as good as any Hollywood starlet’s or supermodel’s. Even her hair, un-styled as it was, hung in a glossy dark curtain halfway down her back.

I can get a job as a model, she thought in elation. I’ve always dreamed about being a supermodel…

Pam smiled through her tears of gratitude. She was rich. She was beautiful. She was very, very happy. She was damn sure she wasn’t going to let anything or anybody take it away from her.

When the night turned into day, Pam realised she had a few problems. Number one was that she had booked into the hotel looking the way she had used to look, so she couldn’t stay here anymore. Still, she figured that as she had paid for a few nights, she could just sneak out today and not come back.

Problem number two was that none of her clothes fit her anymore. They looked like clown clothes.

As she thought these things she was staring at her reflection. That was all she had been doing for the past few hours, just staring and staring and staring at herself in the mirror hanging opposite the bed on which she sat. Narcissus had nothing on her. It was with great difficulty that she finally managed to wrench herself away from her perfect nude beauty and pulled on a pair of far too big jeans and a baggy t-shirt that was supposed to be fitted.

She snuck out of the hotel without incident. It was a different girl behind the reception desk whom threw Pam only the most cursory of glances.

By eight a.m. she was out on the street. It was busy with Londoners on their way to work and Pam strode purposely along with the fast moving flow of the crowd although she had no idea where she was going or what she was doing.

It was a shock to be stared at. Even dressed as she was, heads swivelled. Male heads, mainly. She found it intoxicating and couldn’t suppress a smirk. Pam decided to hit the clothes shops. Shit, she had a God damn, mother fucking billion pounds in her shoulder bag plus ten grand in loose change and a body to die for. That had to be a recipe for some seriously hardcore shopping action.

She was painfully aware of the lamp in her shoulder bag, but overall decided she was happier carrying it on her then leaving it behind anywhere. She would just have to guard it with her life and kill anyone that went near it…

A few hours later Pam was sipping coffee in a trendy coffee house off Bond Street. Over one hundred thousand pounds worth of designer clothes in bulging bags rested against her Jimmy Choo clad feet. She had changed into a beautifully cut, knee length red dress that made her look and feel like a catwalk queen. She was just contemplating blowing another thousand quid on the hairdresser down the road when a shadow fell over her little wooden table.

She looked up at the good looking man standing over her.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” she replied.

He looked young, like, early twenties or so. His whole persona screamed of privilege and wealth, from his immaculately coiffed, highlighted hair down to his deceptively casual jeans and loafers.

He was the type of guy that wouldn’t of pissed on her if she was on fire a few days ago and she took an immediate dislike to him. She reminded herself that she had been on fire last night, and the thought made her smirk.

“You have a lovely smile. I haven’t seen you in here before.”

“That’s because I haven’t been in here before.”

“Are you model? You’ve been doing a bit of shopping I see. Do you mind if I sit?” he asked, pulling out the wooden chair opposite hers before she had a chance to answer.

“Whatever.”

Her dismissive attitude obviously didn’t deter him.

“I’m sorry, I just had to come over, it’s just that, well, you’re the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life. Would you come out for a drink with me tonight?”

Pam was taken aback. This was the first time in her life that she had actually been asked out on a real date. Wayne had just sort of happened. But she was beautiful now, she supposed that this was something she was going to have to get used to.

Oh, the hardship of it all…

“You think I’m a jerk, don’t you,” he said to her silence. “You must get asked out all the time. I just thought that, you know, people like us should stick together, it’s not like I’d want you for your money or anything.”

People like us should stick together... If only the prick knew.

Then she remembered some of what she had to do today and her mind shifted gear.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but you and me are not alike in any way, shape or form.”

He looked taken aback.

“We’re not? Why not?”

She leaned in closer to the arrogant young man across the little table and spoke in a low voice.

“Because I’m a prostitute. A very, very high class call girl. Men pay thousands just to glimpse me naked.”

His eyebrows shot up into his carefully styled hair.

“You are?”

“I am.”

“But you’re so, so, beautiful,” he finished lamely. “OK then, fine. I’ll pay. Why don’t we go back to mine, I only live round the corner.”

Pam thought of last night.

“I don’t think so. I always use hotels. The client pays of course.”

The young man checked his watch.

“I don’t have to be anywhere for a few hours, so shall we go?”

“Fine.” Let’s get this over with. “In actual fact, why don’t we skip the hotel? I’m in the mood for roughing it.”

“How’d you mean?”

“I mean, does this place have a bathroom? I’m so horny, I’ll even give you a special discount. But there’s one condition.”

The young lad’s expression was priceless. His face had turned red and his mouth hung open slightly. Pam had him hook, line and sinker, and she knew it. The power of it was intoxicating.

“Just name it, baby.”

“I want to give you a blowjob and I want you to cum in my mouth. And then I want you to fuck me.”

“Is this a windup? Where’s the camera? You can’t be for real.”

“Oh, but I am. Deadly.”

She got up from her seat and brushed past him. She felt him shiver. Smiling softly to herself she picked up her bulging bags and walked the length of the mirrored, opulent coffee house towards the toilet sign above the far door.

I hope they have mirrors in the toilet too, came the unbidden thought. Her pussy felt hot and achy when she walked and she realised she was wet.

My God, being beautiful has turned me into a real kinky bitch.

Pam supposed it was because this was the first time in her life she had ever been desirable. She was drunk on her own hotness, she was positively delirious with it.

The bathroom shared the same décor with the rest of the place. Soft lighting complimented the dark, shiny wood. The floor to ceiling, tinted mirrors lining the walls brought a smile to her beautifully curved lips. There were three stalls, and she pushed open the first of the heavy wood doors, propping up her bags against the toilet.

Less than five seconds later, her target had joined her in the bathroom.

“What if someone comes in?” he said, his voice shaky.

Pam laughed. “Oh come on, where’s your sense of adventure? I want paying up front.”

“Fine,” he said, pulling out a wallet from the back pocket of his designer jeans. “How much?”

“Twenty should cover it.”

The blood drained from his face.

“Twenty thousand, right? I don’t have that much on me.”

“No, silly. Twenty quid.”

“Twenty pounds? I thought you were high class.”

“Baby, I am. I’m doing this for fun.”

And she sure as hell didn’t want to fail the task. If he didn’t have enough change on him to cover it, then she would have to go through all of this again with some other prick. So she was going to make damn sure she was paid upfront.

It doesn’t matter how much he pays you, so long as he pays you.

He fished out a twenty pound note and handed it to her. Wordlessly she accepted it and stuffed it in her shoulder bag.

“This is crazy.”

“You bet your ass it is,” she giggled, reaching out from the stall where she was stood, pulling him in by the arm.

He went to close the door behind them and she stopped him.

“What if someone comes in?”

“Then we’ll shut the door.”

She stood with her back pressed into him, facing outwards so he had a clear view over her head of her entire body and face in the mirror opposite. She lifted up his hands and pressed them to her incredible breasts, squirming her backside against his groin as she did so. Immediately she felt his cock spring into life and a rush of warm air against her neck when he groaned softly in longing.

“You’re fucking amazing.”

“I know.”

Damply he nuzzled her neck. For a fleeting moment she thought of the tramp’s dog from yesterday, snuffling and snorting and licking…

She pushed the thought away, but was unable to supress the shudder. That was then. This was now. In one swift movement she pulled down the front of her dress to dispel the grotesque image.

Pam stared at her topless self in the mirror, drinking in the sight of her own beauty and the lustful man pawing her. Reluctantly, she tore her gaze away and spun round, sinking to her knees.

She took his rock hard cock into her mouth and sucked.

Maybe I should just fuck him, he’s not likely to be able to come twice in the space of as many minutes…

Too late. The boy was already coming. He fisted her hair and his hot sperm pulsed in hard jets straight down her throat. Greedily she gulped down every last job, mentally ticking off the task in her head.

“Fuck,” he groaned, his cock twitching in her mouth.

Pam had never had such an effect on a man. It was intoxicating.

“Fuck me,” she said, lifting up her skirt to her waist and sliding her silk knickers down her slender legs.

He was still hard. Maybe he could come again.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Or a willy…

She smirked at her own pathetic joke, and turned her back to him so she was facing the mirror. She bent over at the waist and rested her hands either side of the doorframe, offering up her shapely arse to him.

He didn’t have to be asked twice.

“Fuck, you’re amazing,” he grunted as he shoved into her wet channel.

Pam tilted up her head and smiled at her reflection, watching the way her perfect tits bounced and swayed with his hard thrusts. This was just too easy…

“I’m going to fucking come again, I don’t believe it.”

Pam couldn’t either. It took Wayne a day to get another hard on after the previous one.

That’s because you were such a fucking dog…

Sure enough, he came. Panic splintered her brain.

I should’ve made him use a condom…

With a final groan, his hands went slack on her hips and his spunk dribbled down her inner thighs.

She wiggled out from under, straightening her dress and smoothing her hair.

“Don’t worry ‘bout getting preggers, I got the snip. I hate kids.”

Pam inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Didn’t stop any STDs though. Still. Nothing she could do about it now.

She gathered up her bags and made for the door.

“Wait,” the boy called after her. “Can I have your number?”

She turned around.

He looked so pathetic standing there with his still stiff cock sticking out of his jeans, his eyes wide and pleading like a love sick puppy . What a rush it was to have a man look at her in such a way. She was saved from answering when the door to the toilets swung inward and a young woman appeared. The stranger glanced from one to the other, and the boy hastily shoved his cock back in his jeans seconds too late.

Pam laughed at the woman’s shocked expression and strolled out of the coffee house without a care in the world.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

A few hours and another hotel later, Pam was ready. Despite her newfound wealth, she had opted for a less than ostentatious establishment in which to stay. Dirty business demanded dirty digs. Or at least, a two star place in Hackney. This way she was just the next borough away after she had killed Wayne.

After I’ve killed Wayne.

Maybe the full magnitude of her situation hadn’t sunk in yet, but the thought of it had no effect on her whatsoever.

She checked herself again for misgivings.

Nope. Nothing.

She patted the lamp that she now always kept on her in her shoulder bag. Casting a final glance around the simple and small hotel room, she shut the door behind her.

Pam pressed the buzzer of the flat she used to share with Wayne. She looked nervously around herself and pulled the hoody she wore tighter around her exquisite face. Thankfully there was no one around. Not that anyone would recognise her anyway.

“Yes?” came Wayne’s voice over the intercom.

“Hello Wayne, I’m a friend of Pam’s, she asked me to give you a message. Can I come up?”

“Pam? Is that you?”

Shit! She hadn’t even given her voice a thought. Of course it was still the same as it had always been. She smacked her forehead with her palm.

“Who’s Pam?” she asked, lowering her voice an octave.

“What the fuck is this? Where the fuck have you been Pam? Get up here now.”

The door buzzed and clicked, inviting her entry.

She was in.

A minute later she was back in her old flat. She had only been here a few days ago but it may as well have been a million years.

The place was a shambles. Empty beer cans, takeaway pizza boxes and dirty clothes littered the filthy carpet.

Wayne stood before her, staring at her in confusion. He was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and jogging pants. One side of his face was creased, like he had just got out of bed.

Which, she conceded, he probably had. It was only just gone noon, after all. A wave of contempt washed through her. Why oh why had she ever stayed with the lazy, good for nothing son of a bitch?

“Where’s Pam? Who are you?”

“Pam asked me to come and see you. I’m a friend.”

The confusion stamped on his face only amplified. Her voice was obviously troubling him, despite her attempts at lowering it. That, and perhaps he detected something familiar in her features. It wasn’t like she had changed into another person. She was still her, only beautiful, her features rearranged and moulded into perfection.

“Who are you?”

Pam merely smiled beatifically and unzipped her hoody, taking a step towards him. She noted that she must have gained a couple of inches in height in her transformation because now she was eye level with him where she had never been before. She wasn’t wearing heels either, just a pair of trainers and a baggy tracksuit so as not to draw attention to herself from anyone she might meet during her final mission of the day.

“I told you. I’m a friend of Pam’s.”

Pam was naked beneath the hoody. It was with a mix of anger and elation when she saw how his eyes bulged at the sight of her perfect tits. Anger that, technically, he was being unfaithful. Elation that the look in his eyes right now was the one she had always dreamed of seeing.

Wayne licked his lips as if they were suddenly dry and she watched the way his Adam’s apple bobbed rapidly up and down.

“What is this? Why are you showing me your tits? Where’s Pam?”

“Pam’s never coming back, but she asked me to suck your cock on her behalf.”

“Wh…what?”

“You heard, lover boy.”

“Now hang on just a minute. I don’t like being taken the piss out of. Where is she…”

His voice trailed off when she kicked off her trainers and stepped out of the rest of her clothes. She stood naked before him, hand on hip, defiant and proud.

The bulge in his tracksuit bottoms was all too obvious, and in that moment she hated him. She went to him and fell gracefully to her knees.

She pulled down his tracksuit and his cock filled her mouth, bitter tasting and sweaty. It was probably still coated with spunk from the porn he was bound to have watched last night.

Pam sucked him down, effortlessly deep throating him.

“Fuck,” he grunted from somewhere above her.

She got to work, holding herself steady against his bare hips and bobbing her head up and down the hard shaft.

It didn’t take him long.

Twat, she thought. It usually takes him fucking forever to come.

His cum pulsed in hard jets, hitting the back of her throat in its familiar, slightly fishy saltiness.

Bastard.

“Oh baby, that was so good. I can’t believe that just happened.”

She remained crouched where she was, holding his still hard cock in her hands.

“Believe it, sugarplum.”

She had planned to tie him to the bed, fuck him, and slit his throat. She had brought the handcuffs in her bag. She had thought that would be the kindest way to do it. He did so love his violent, BDSM pornography, at least that way he would die happy with a goddess fucking him to death.

But right then, compassion for him wasn’t at the top of her priority list. He had just let a strange woman into his home, watch her strip naked and let her suck his cock. And all the while he had no idea where or how his girlfriend was.

I could be dead for all that prick cares.

So screw him. He didn’t deserve to die in such a nice way. What she did next was spontaneous, born of pure instinct and hurt anger.

Wayne howled in agony when she inserted the tip of his still stiff cock into her mouth and chomped down hard with her molars. Her jaw clamped around his flesh like a rabid dog and she twisted and pulled, a guttural growl wrenched up from deep inside her, from a dark place she didn’t know existed. There was an eruption of blood in her mouth, coppery and hot. It was surprisingly easy to sever the tip of his penis, it came away in her mouth like an unchewable piece of gristly steak. She spat it out, her mouth swimming with blood.

Wayne howled. Pam was getting quite used to the sound of men howling. He lay on the ground in the foetal position, sobbing and screaming and making sounds that could’ve been words but it was hard to tell. Maybe he was talking in tongues.

The entirety of his front was one big, red stain. Bloody hands cupped his severed penis while he gibbered incoherently.

Pam kneeled down next to him, cocking her head to one side and thoughtfully examining him.

“You’re a bastard Wayne, I cannot believe you would be such a man whore. How many other women have you fucked behind my back?”

He looked up at her blankly, his eyes glazed, like he wasn’t really seeing her. His breath came in ragged little gasps and she continued to eye him dispassionately. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.

“Christ Wayne, you taste like shit.” She let out a little laugh. “Just what you used to say when you went down on me, isn’t it Wayne?”

He was trying to say something, there were definite words there amidst the pathetic mewling.

“What was that, sweetheart? Speak up for God’s sake.”

“Ambulance. Call an ambulance.”

Or at least, that was what she thought he said. She shrugged.

“I don’t think so darling. As a matter of fact,” she said, getting to her feet to cover the short distance to the kitchen, “I need to finish you off once and for all.”

She opened the cutlery drawer and pulled out a bread knife, running her forefinger lightly over the serrated edge.

“I’m sorry Wayne,” she said, not feeling sorry at all. “It’s just the way it has to be. The Djinn says I have to kill everybody in my life, and unfortunately for you, you are my everybody. So, goodbye Wayne.”

One hand remained pressed to his groin, the other splayed in front of his face as if that would protect him from the knife.

It didn’t. The knife came down in a long arc, stabbing him in the chest. Pam grunted with the effort. This wasn’t the best knife she had chosen, the tip of the blade was blunt before it curved under into the serrated edge. It wasn’t designed for stabbing, just sawing. It took a bit of elbow grease and going in at an angle but she managed to drive the knife home.

He was on the way out now. Blood pooled around the blade of the knife, and she pushed it in deeper. Strange gurgling sounds escaped his lips, and blood dripped from his mouth along with his moans.

“Fuck you, Wayne, I hope you rot in hell.”

She watched him twitch and the life drain out of him. All she felt was a sense of elation at his demise.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Who’d have thought killing would be so easy.

So that was it for the day. Chores complete. And it wasn’t even yet two o’clock.

She left the knife in his chest and went over to the sink to wash her hands and stick her head under the tap to rinse out her mouth. That done, she took a damp cloth to the knife and wiped down the handle of the knife.

She wondered if she could be done for his murder. Obviously, her fingerprints would be all over the flat because she lived here. But would Wayne have her fingerprints on him in such a way that would indicate that she murdered him? And if that was the case, would they match up her prints here with the other three men she had killed?

Immediately she broke out in a cold sweat.

Shit. This isn’t good.

Hurriedly she got dressed, doing her best to quash the rise of panic. Well, at least she knew what her final wish was going to be.

To get away with murder. She smiled grimly to herself.

Once dressed, she left her old flat with the hood pulled up over her face. Best thing she could do for the rest of the day was to lie low. At least she’d had the foresight to pay for her hotel in Hackney with cash and had used a false name.

She would just go back to the hotel and wait for the Djinn.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

She was dozing lightly in her hotel bed when the Djinn appeared. Sleep had not come easy, she was as excited as a kid at Christmas Eve and wasn’t even aware that she had fallen asleep. Since yesterday afternoon, she had spent her time divided between pacing the tiny hotel room, reading trashy magazines with women in it that weren’t even half as pretty as her and gazing at her reflection for hours on end. She had also enjoyed a little masturbatory session in front of the mirror.

“Wake up Pam,” the sexless voice said, penetrating her dream.

In her dream she was murdering Wayne, except she was a spectator, watching herself do it. She was also more concerned with how hot she looked when naked and blood splattered, and paid little heed to her ex-boyfriend dying in a pool of his own blood, clutching his chewed off cock.

“Mmm,” she said, struggling to the surface of sleep, stretching slightly and luxuriating in her own beauty.

She had slept naked and was aware that the sheet had tugged down her body with her stretch, revealing a bare breast. She didn’t bother to hide herself and sat upright, squinting in the half-light at the bedside clock. The glowing digits clicked over to 6.00.

The Djinn towered over her and she blinked myopically up at him.

“Did you sleep well, beautiful? Are you all set for the final hurdle?”

“More than ready.”

“Good. Tell me Pam, what is your final wish?”

Pam had been thinking about this. A lot. On the face of it she had everything she needed. Looks and money.

But she hadn’t forgotten the possible, multiple murder charges to boot.

“When you made me beautiful, did you change me in any other way? Like, do I still have the same basic DNA? Do I still have the same fingerprints?”

“Yes Pam, you do.”

She thought about this.

“So technically I could be done for the murders I committed?”

“Yes.”

“Even though I look completely different?”

“Yes. Your appearance is just your appearance. Physiologically you are still the same woman.”

“Then my wish is to get away with the murders. Like, can you change my name? And alter my fingerprints so I’m untraceable?”

“Yes, of course. And a wise wish, might I add. Although, if that is your wish it might be policy to wait until after you’ve completed your final task before I grant it. There is a chance it could get very messy.”

Pam knew this wasn’t going to be pretty and she sat up straighter in the bed.

“What do you mean, messy?”

“I want you to kill for me, Pam.”

Her heart tripped that little bit faster.

“I’ve already killed for you. You can’t want more.”

“The blood must flow, Pam. The innocent must suffer.”

“Innocent? I would hardly call the men I killed innocent.”

“Wayne was.”

“No, he wasn’t,” she replied, knowing in her heart he spoke the truth.

He was a violent prick, but did he deserve to be murdered in cold blood?

No, of course he didn’t.

“You have killed Pam, and you have killed well. All you have to is take it to the next level. Six innocent lives must be taken.”

Pam discovered she was shaking.

“I can’t do that.”

“But you must.”

“I can’t,” she whispered, drawing the sheet around her goose bumped body.

“You have no choice. It’s them or you. Do you want to die, or do you want to live a long, happy life with your wealth and your beauty?”

I’ve got this far...

“What do you want me to do?” she asked in resignation.

Even though he hadn’t asked her yet, she knew she would say yes, whatever it might be.

“You must take the lives of six innocents, Pam. The only criteria they must fill is that they have to be strangers to you. Young, old, male, female, the strong, the vulnerable, it matters not.”

“But you say innocent? What do you mean by innocent? How am I supposed to know what kind of people they are?”

“I don’t mean innocent in the true sense of the word, I mean innocent in that they are innocent of ever having crossed you. They have to have done nothing to you to warrant being killed by you.”

“You’re sick.”

“And you are on the brink of the life you have always dreamed off. Don’t throw all your hard work away now.”

Pam only realised she was crying when the salty tears slipped past her parted lips. She was crying for the girl she had been and the monster she had become.

“Just leave me,” she said quietly.

“I will come to you tonight at midnight for final time, or when you have killed the sixth person, whichever is sooner. And then it will be over, either way.”

She closed her eyes for a brief second and when she opened them again he was gone.

Six people. I have to kill six people…

The thought churned in her guts and fucked with her head. It was nine o’clock and she was out on the streets of London. She was dressed in an understated outfit of blue jeans and a black pullover that went some way to disguising her eye popping figure. All the clothes she had bought yesterday she had left behind in the hotel room with no idea if she would ever retrieve them. She didn’t even know why she had bought all that shit in the first place.

Because I can. Because I’m a shallow bitch.

Her shoulder bag housed the debit card with the billion pounds, along with the Djinn’s lamp, which she clutched close to her body for grim life.

People streamed around her on the busy Hackney street. People in suits. Women in burkas. Women pushing prams. An old man with a walking stick. A gaggle of pubescent girls in school uniforms that looked like they had been pulled off the rack in a sex shop. Her head swam with the life that was teeming all around her. Of the lives she had to end.

What the fuck am I supposed to do, she thought, mentally going through her options. Steal a car and mow down a few people? Buy a gun and hit a shopping centre? Stick a knife in random people’s guts as I pass them in the street? Knock on the doors of a few homes and slaughter the families within?

A sob escaped her lips. Yes, she had killed three men in as many days, but this was different.

Maybe I can kill a few tramps or something. Find some homeless guy that’s harassing people. I could be like a vigilante, cleaning up the streets of London…

But that would mean approaching someone potentially violent. It would mean putting her own life at risk.

I should wait until it gets dark, then it will be easier.

But dark would mean midnight was not too far away. She didn’t want to rush this. She didn’t want to fuck it up and ruin everything.

I need a gun. If I go around knifing people I’ll get blood on my clothes. But where the fuck am I supposed to get a gun?

She supposed it would be relatively easy to find a gun shop, but then she would need a licence to buy the damn thing in the first place. And she had no idea of where to even begin to look to get one illegally.

A hard knock to her shoulder jolted her out of her worried musings and made her stagger sideways.

“I’m so sorry,” said a deep male voice.

When Pam looked up she found herself staring into the brown eyes of a tall, good looking guy. He was around her age, maybe a little older, and dressed in jeans and a simple, long sleeved black t-shirt.

“Forgive me, I wasn’t looking where I was going. Hey, can I buy you a coffee to make it up to you?”

Pam had temporarily forgotten that she was beautiful. It would seem that men would go to any lengths to get her attention, and the ploy of walking into her didn’t fool her for a second. Maybe your average beautiful woman would have bought it, but not Pam.

“Sure,” she said with a bright, breezy smile. “That sounds lovely.”

In a heartbeat she decided that he was an obnoxious bastard and he deserved to die. He should never have crossed her path. It was all his fault.

“So what’s your name?” he asked.

“Pam.”

“Pam. That’s a pretty name. I’m Josh.”

“It’s nice to meet you Josh.”

She stopped in the street and lightly touched his arm. He stopped too and looked expectantly down at her. Pam had cleaned the public toilets in Hackney in her previous life and she knew that they were just around the corner.

“So,” she said, in her best fuck me voice. “I’d really like to take you somewhere. I’d like us to get to know each other much better.”

His face darkened to red and his lips moved for a moment without any sounds coming out. What she had just offered him was obviously all his sexual fantasies come true; a chance encounter with a beautiful woman in the street that would lead to sex.

Fuck, this was just too easy.

The poor bastard. She almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“Whatever you want Pam,” he managed to get out eventually.

They turned the corner of the street and walked in silence to the red brick, circular building in the middle of a concrete island.

Taking him by the hand, she led him into the ladies, casting a quick glance around to make sure no eyes were watching. She knew they would be caught going in on CCTV but as long as she could escape the clutches of the police until midnight tonight, she didn’t suppose it mattered.

“This is crazy,” he breathed into her lips when she locked her mouth against his.

“Yeah,” she whispered, dragging him into the cubicle and shutting the door and locking it behind them.

They embraced in a passionate kiss, the man’s hands all over her. As they kissed she slipped the bag off her shoulder and draped her hands behind his neck, discreetly unzipping the top of it.

A hand slipped inside and her fingers curled around the handle of a small kitchen knife.

Shit, I’m going to get sprayed in blood…

Just as his hand began to fumble with the front of her jeans, she stabbed him in the back in what she hoped was the rough area of his heart. She felt the knife scraping against bone, and she had to wiggle it a bit to get it in.

He wailed into her mouth, a funny sound like an inverted scream. He fell against her and she dodged to one side, causing him to crash face first into the locked door and slump to his knees.

He began to scream in earnest.

“Shut the fuck up,” she said, fisting his hair with one hand and yanking his head violently back. In one swift movement she slit his throat. Blood instantly flowed from the wide gash, soaking her hand and spraying the door. He gurgled and gargled on his own blood, his limbs twitching, then he went slack, his body heavy against the door.

“Fuck,” she complained when she saw how much blood had soaked her hand and the sleeve of her jumper.

The toilet door was completely blood splattered. It dripped down in big globules of red and when she glanced at her feet she saw the growing puddle of red he was slumped in, edging ever closer to her trainers.

She had to get out of here.

She strained her ears listening, but it was hard to hear anything over her own frantic heartbeat and shallow breathing.

It sounded like the coast was clear so she crouched down next to him and shouldered him backwards. The back of his head cracked against the porcelain bowl and she winced at the sound that was somehow even more horrific than the gurgling noises he’d made with a slit throat.

She pressed her ear to the door, mindful to make sure she arched her body away from the blood. She heard footsteps, and she froze, her heart crashing against her ribcage.

Waiting for the stranger to finish using the cubicle a few doors down from hers was excruciating. The agonizing five minutes felt like an hour, and when the hand drier finally clicked off, all was quiet.

It was now or never. Pam stood atop the tank of the toilet and hoisted herself up and over the top of the cubicle wall, bag over one shoulder and bloody knife in hand. She swung herself over into the adjoining cubicle, dropping easily to the floor.

She found she was shaking violently.

Boy, what a rush.

Hurriedly she rinsed off the knife and her hands as best she could, dried the knife with a wad of tissue paper and popped it back into her bag. Luckily, the blood was invisible on her black pullover and her jeans were splatter free.

She left the public toilet like nothing had happened, even smiling at a girl who passed her on the way in. The man wasn’t likely to be discovered for a while yet. She knew the cleaning rota of the place and the cleaners weren’t due in again until early afternoon. He wasn’t likely to leak out under the door because the foot of the door touched the ground in the council’s attempt to prevent bag theft when women were pissing. With any luck, he wouldn’t be discovered for hours.

One down, five to go.

CHAPTER NINE.

Maybe I can just off horny men, she thought as she sipped coffee in a trendy café off Whitechapel’s main street. I could be like Eileen Wuornos, didn’t she kill six men before she was caught?

The idea wasn’t altogether unappealing. She hated men, none had ever been nice to her. And now she was a babe she hated them even more.

She decided that she really needed to get her hands on a gun.

But how the fuck am I supposed to do that?

Hackney was murder mile. Lots of black men driving around shooting each other.

Yeah, great. What am I supposed to do? Go up to the nearest black guy in Hackney and say, ‘hey dude, you got a gun?’ How racist would that be? If that doesn’t land me in hot water, nothing will.

She cradled her head in her hands on the table. Five more people. Jesus. How the hell was she supposed to pull this off?

She lifted up her weary head, a new resolve hardening in her heart. Yes, she would stick to the men. As it stood, she was experiencing no guilt whatsoever, just a fear of getting caught. She wasn’t sure how she would feel about killing woman and children. Not too good, she suspected.

She thought of her drunken father. Of Wayne. Of all the men that had ever treated her like shit.

Hey guys, this is all for you. And here comes the next one now.

“Hi,” the stranger said to her. “I haven’t seen you in here before. Do you mind if I sit?”

She smiled warmly up at him.

“Not at all.”

Pam was doing really well. She had done away with five so far. The guy in the café in Whitechapel she had lured into the toilet and stabbed to death. The third guy she had met on the tube and when they had got off she had stabbed him in a back alley in Liverpool Street, after which she had cleaned off her hands with wet wipes and a bottle of water. The fourth was a suit she had approached outside Liverpool Street Station whom she had lured into an alleyway behind McDonald’s where he had met a similar fate. The fifth was a lone guy in Hyde Park; she had done him in the bushes. He had been too easy.

In fact, they were all too easy. Pam discovered that she was beginning to enjoy the moment that they died. The look of surprise in their eyes was priceless. She just wished she could prolong it a little more.

So for the final guy she had decided to treat herself. She was going to get away with murder, right? She might as well enjoy it, she didn’t know if she would ever get the opportunity to do it again.

She wanted the last one to be special and she had spent the afternoon browsing hardware stores for tools, as well as sex shops in Soho for a few fun toys. Once everything was in place back in the same hotel room in Hackney, Pam went out on the hunt.

It was dusk by the time she found victim number six. His name was Greg, he was forty three, in London on business and married. She had found all of this out as they sipped cocktails together in an upmarket bar in Kensington where a single drink cost more than she used to make in a day.

It hadn’t taken much persuasion on her part when she had invited him back to her hotel room. She explained that she was here in London on a modelling job and she preferred to stay in Hackney because it was near her best friend whom she used to go to school with. The lies tripped easily off her tongue and even she found herself believing them.

They had caught a black cab to Hackney, and now here they were in her hotel room. It wasn’t yet nine, so she had three hours to have a bit of fun before she ended it.

“This isn’t what I was expecting,” Greg was saying. “We should have gone back to my hotel.”

“What’s the matter Greg? Don’t you like roughing it now and again?”

“Baby, I would hardly call an evening with you roughing it.”

As he spoke he closed the distance between them and took her in his arms, kissing her firmly on the mouth. Pam almost allowed herself to get swept up in the moment, he was just so good looking, by far the most attractive man she had seen, (and killed) all day. He sort of reminded her of George Clooney. Even though he didn’t really ever have anything that interesting to say, it looked as though he did. His deep brown eyes sparkled like he was the wittiest man on the planet and he was always on the point of spewing forth some fabulously funny one liner.

He was wearing a white shirt and suit pants, the tie and jacket long discarded when she had met him in the bar. She was wearing a little black dress and she knew that they looked amazing together, like they had stepped out of some pretentious Christmas commercial for aftershave or something.

They were such a hot couple, it would almost be a shame to kill the handsome yin to her gorgeous yang.

Almost.

His kisses burnt a trail down to her collar bone and her head tipped back. Her eyelids fluttered at the intensity of her longing and her heart beat extra fast. Of all the men she had met today, he was the first one she was genuinely attracted to.

He walked her backwards to the bed, and she let him. Expertly, his hands unzipped the back of her dress and it pooled at her feet in a puddle of expensive silk. She wasn’t wearing any underwear.

His husky groan of appreciation reverberated through her and she sighed in pleasure. He pushed her back onto the double bed and kissed down her body, paying particular attention to her perky pink nipples. When his mouth latched onto her already wet pussy she entwined her fingers in his dark hair and decided she would grant him the honour of giving her an orgasm.

It didn’t take long. Never before had a man shown such interest in pleasing her. Using his fingers and his tongue he induced the most intense orgasm she had ever experienced. Waves of pleasure hotly flooded her body, leaving her trembling and weak in its wake.

“That was amazing,” she purred, stretching her arms luxuriously over her head.

“My turn,” he said, hastily pulling the shirt over his head without unbuttoning it.

A few seconds later he stood before her, completely naked. His body was really quite something to behold. Tall and broad shouldered without a trace of fat on him, yet still big boned and bulky. His chest was covered with dark hair and his cock was big and hard, sticking out a perfect right angle from his body, demanding her attention. He was all man and she couldn’t wait to get stuck in.

“Wait,” she said, when he dived on top of her. “I know a game that will make this really interesting.”

His eyes flickered. Desire?  Apprehension? Full on fear? It was hard to tell.

“What do you mean?”

There was a definite edge to his voice.

“I would like to tie you up.”

“I’m more of a vanilla kind of guy,” he said, cupping a breast and flickering his tongue over her distended nipple whilst rubbing his hard cock against her hip.

“Oh, come now Greg, you only live once. I promise it will be the most exciting night of your life.”

She wiggled out from beneath him and leaned over the side of the bed, retrieving two pairs of sturdy metal handcuffs she had picked up from one of the sex shops she had visited. She didn’t get out the ball of super sturdy twine, or any number of the little ‘toys’ she had stashed away under the bed. Softly softly catchy monkey... she didn’t want him running screaming from the room.

He hesitated and she thought she had lost him. But then, to her utmost relief, he ever so slightly nodded his head. In her mind she breathed a sigh of relief.

“OK then beautiful, do what you must, I can take it. Just promise me you won’t tie me up then bugger off and leave me.”

“Baby, I promise. Lie down, there’s a good boy.”

He did as he was told and smiled wolfishly up at her, his cock twitching in anticipation.

“Arms up,” she said, clicking first one wrist to the conveniently carved out headboard, then the other.

When she was satisfied his arms were firmly secured, she dropped light kisses all over his chest, enjoying the way he writhed helplessly at her touch.

“God woman, you are amazing.”

She didn’t answer and locked eyes with his as she lightly grazed his nipple with her teeth. He groaned and threw back his head when she kissed all the way down to his rock hard cock that glistened with pre-come.

He was a pleasure to suck on. She brought him right to the brink and then withdrew her mouth.

“You are such a tease,” he panted.

“I know,” she said, leaning over him, her tit swaying in his face as she reached underneath the pillow his head rested on where she had stored the blindfold.

He took her nipple in his mouth for a second while he had the chance, moaning softly.

She sat upright, straddling his hips. His penis nudged at her wet folds and she squirmed a little, teasing the hell out of him.

He bucked his hips, but tied as he was it was impossible for him to penetrate her. Ever so gently, she secured the black silk blindfold over his eyes.

“Tell me,” she purred, “does your wife know about your extra martial activities?”

“Huh?” he said, confusion penetrating his haze of lust.

“Because it’s not very nice now is it, fucking around behind her back.”

“What is this?”

He sounded alarmed. Good. So he should be.

“Do you want to fuck me up the arse? I just love being perverse.”

She gripped his hard on and guided it to her rectum, slowly skewering herself upon him. His entry was smooth, thanks to the extreme state of her arousal that had lubricated her arsehole.

“Take the blindfold off,” he begged, his alarm obviously having passed. “Oh God, I need to see you.”

“Is that so, lover boy?”

She stopped rocking on him for a moment to slip her hand under the mattress. Her fingers located the knife and curled around the handle. She began to fuck him once more, running the tip of the knife gently around each nipple, before following the thin line of dark hair that ran down the centre of his stomach to his groin.

“God,” he moaned, “your fingernails are so erotic. Please let me look at you.”

Pam pressed harder with the knife, just below the sternum.

“Hey, you’re digging your fingernails in too hard.”

For a second she sat still on top of him with his cock buried deep inside her rectum, just staring at the rapid rise and fall of his chest and the way the knife had made a dent in his flesh.

How far would she have to push before the skin broke?

I guess I’ll just have to find out.

She applied more pressure to the little hunting knife that was mainly designed for gutting fish and small animals. The tip of the sharp blade broke the barrier of the skin and a miniature puddle of blood pooled around the knife.

He bellowed out and she slapped him hard across the face. That stunned him into silence for a moment. She dismounted him and picked up his discarded underpants from the floor.

“What the fuck’s going on?” he shouted, finding his voice once more. “Untie me right now. What the fuck did you do to my chest? Did you draw fucking blood with your talons? Jesus Christ!”

She balled up his underpants and stuffed them into his opened mouth.

He bucked and writhed, wildly kicking his legs and screaming into the gag which was doing a stellar job of muffling his cries of terror.

“Hey, relax, don’t be such a baby. It was just a tiny little nick.”

She stroked the hair off his sweaty forehead, careful to avoid his kicking legs. Instantly he calmed down and his screams turned into moans. She could see that he was unsure. He was obviously as turned on as he was scared, for his erection showed no signs of diminishing. She doubted that the cut had hurt that much. It was just the idea of what she might do to him that had him recoiling in terror. He was completely in her power and he knew it.

She smiled.

“That’s better. I’m going to make you feel real good baby, I promise.”

She impaled herself on his cock once more, up her back passage, knife in hand. Ever so lightly she pressed the tip of the knife to just below the spot she had just penetrated.

She dug the blade in, deeper this time.

Greg screamed, a muffled howl of terror.

Now that’s really gotta hurt...

Fascinated, she drew the blade downwards, following the enchanting line of hair. She split him open from sternum to groin, the knife buried all the way in up to the hilt. It cut through his flesh easily, the blade obviously designed for such a task. Well, maybe it wasn’t designed for splitting open humans, but flesh was flesh…

Gutted like a fish, she thought happily.

She drew the knife diagonally across for good measure so the incision was cross shaped.

Blood didn’t so much spurt as pump and gush. It ran off his torso in rivers, flooding the bed and drenching her in red. All the while Pam continued to ride his prick, which was, remarkably, still hard.

She reached down to remove his blindfold.  She did so love to see the look in their eyes as they died…

He shook his head manically from side to side, his eyes bulging and his face red. His blood curdling cries of utter terror were pushed down by his underpants and Pam laughed at the pathetic figure he cut. Despite the agony he must have been in, he still twisted and arched his back like a bucking bronco. She rode it out, feeling every inch the glamorous cowgirl. All she needed was the hat and pigtails.

“You really should be careful of you go picking up in bars, you sad bastard. You shouldn’t treat your wife like that, she’s going to be much better off without you. Now then, what have we got in here…”

She leaned over and stuck her fingers into the centre of his deep wound. She pulled back the flaps of flesh, revealing what lay beneath.

Even with the makeshift gag, his high pitched screams made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“Oh please, men are such babies. You would not believe the shit I’ve been through, this is nothing. You should try having your eye shucked out with a corkscrew, having a leg chain sawed off and then being burnt alive. Believe me, that shit hurts.”

She didn’t think he was listening, he looked as if he was lost in his own little world of pain.

Pam dug deeper and grabbed handfuls of intestines. She pulled them out.

“My God, will you look at this shit? They are so long.”

Pam unravelled his guts, feeling like a butcher with a super long rope of sausages. She kept on pulling, staring in awe at the red ropes with the purple tinge. He smelled bad inside so she stopped pulling and slung them over his face.

He didn’t seem to like that much, although his bucking was growing decidedly weaker.

An idea occurred to her and she tugged out the knife that still protruded from his lower abdomen. Pam leaned back slightly as she rode his miraculously still hard cock and inserted the handle of the small hunting knife into the sticky canal of her vagina. It slid in easily, sending a little thrill of pleasure shooting through her.

She continued to ride him, and each time her rectum swallowed his penis the knife blade that stuck out of her vagina stabbed into his lower guts below the wound, cutting him a new hole. The irony of fucking him this way delighted her and she could feel another orgasm building each time she slammed down and the pressure of the knife handle stimulated her from the inside.

“Oh God,” she moaned, tipping over into an orgasm.

Her bloody hands reached up to cup her own breasts as she came. She closed her eyes and wallowed in the sensation of slipping and sliding in all that blood.

It was only when she was done coming did she realise that he was dead. She had been so caught up in the moment that she hadn’t noticed.

“Bugger,” she said, dismounting his still stiff cock.

She hadn’t expected him to die so soon. But then, he had lost a lot of blood.

All those toys I got for the occasion, she thought in disappointment. The hammer and nails. The screwdrivers. The pliers. The sex toys…

“I can see you’ve had a fun night. You really don’t like men much, do you?”

Pam spun round and saw the Djinn standing behind her.

“Jesus, don’t do that, you scared the life out of me.”

She sat down on the end of the bed by the corpse’s feet, blood soaked and not even bothering to hide her nudity.

“Congratulations Pam, you have successfully completed your journey. And now you have reached the end.”

“Yes. So will you change my name, and my fingerprints, and my blood type and whatever, so I can’t be linked to all these murders?”

“Oh, surely Pam, rest assured I will do that.”

“So what happens now? Do you just like, claim my soul when I die?”

“Fetch the lamp Pam. It’s time to end this.”

“You’re going back inside it now, right?”

“The Djinn will go back inside it yes.”

Pam’s heart tripped that little bit faster. Something didn’t feel right and she was scared.

“You mean you are going to go back inside it and go back to wherever the hell it is you came from.”

“Just fetch the lamp, Pam.”

Pam knew she had no choice but to obey. She went to get her bag and pulled out the lamp, sitting back down on the bed and cradling it in her lap.

“Please let me have all the things you promised me,” she said in a small voice.

“You will have all the things I promised you, only you won’t be around to enjoy them.”

“I don’t get it,” she said, biting back the tears.

“I don’t know what the Djinn really is any more than you do. All I know is that when you and me have finished the game, when you’ve completed your tasks and your soul is fully corrupt and pure evil, only then can I take your body and you go into the lamp.”

“What?”

“I was once like you, Pam. An ugly woman with a miserable life. A Djinn appeared to me from this very lamp and I fulfilled the very same tasks you have fulfilled. The Djinn took my perfect life and I’ve been stuck in the lamp, floating around in some other worldly dimension waiting for the lamp to materialise here on earth and for the right person to come along. That person was you, Pam, and now you must go into the lamp and the cycle will repeat itself.”

“I don’t understand.”

Although unfortunately for Pam, she kind of did.

“It’s really not so bad. Time has no meaning in the lamp. You will look like me when you appear to the person that summons you. This is why I have no face. The Djinn is nothing more than a vessel for the latest captured, corrupt soul. A soul looking for a body to occupy.”

“But all that stuff you said about the third realm…”

“Was a load of bull, yes. There is another realm the lamp will go to before it connects with an individual, but you will remain in the lamp.”

“Please, I don’t want this.”

“Save you tears, Pam. Once inside the lamp you will understand more. And when the right person comes along, you will know as soon as they touch the lamp and you will become as one with that person. The lamp is a magical thing beyond our understanding, Pam. You must trust in it. It will find the right person for you, then it will materialise before them and that person will summon you. Maybe this lamp is a gift from the Devil himself. Maybe it travels the earth looking for souls to corrupt and then hand over to hell when their time is up. Who knows. Goodbye Pam. Thank you for your delightful body and bank balance. I expect we’ll meet again one day soon in hell.”

Pam screamed when she felt herself being sucked into the lamp, head first.

And then there was nothing, just a cocoon of total blackness and the sensation of floating. Pam no longer had a body, it was the mere essence of her, trapped in the lamp.

She just hoped that the right person would come along soon.

THE END.

Thank you for reading, dear reader. Here is the introduction and the first chapter of SUFFER HARD: AN EXTREME HORROR NOVELLA.

DESCRIPTION:  Four university students are on holiday in Cornwall. On the recommendation of the proprietor of the B and B they’re staying at, they decide to do the fifteen mile, cliff top hike to the village of Hanow.

Unfortunately, more than a pub lunch lies in wait. The people of Hanow are seriously messed up. They like to do terrible things to tourists…

WARNING: Sam West pulls no punches. This is extreme horror in the tradition of the hardest of the hardcore authors. If you enjoy a hefty dose of sleaze, cannibalism, murder and depravity, you’re in the right place. If you don’t, DO NOT buy this book. You WILL be offended.

INTRODUCTION BY SAM WEST: I love extreme horror. The chances are you do too, seeing as you’re reading this foreword. I wanted to write a novella that played homage to a vast array of my favourite horror films that I simply don’t have the space to list here. Such as Texas Chainsaw, Hills Have Eyes, the first Wrong Turn and anything Nightmare on Elm Street, even the TV series from the 80s. Seriously, I love Freddy Kruger that much. In my humble opinion, horror should be fun. I don’t mean laugh out loud funny, I mean entertaining.

Above all, you should have a good time, morals be damned. Because good horror, be it a book or a film, is a moral waste ground. It is a shameless exploration of our deepest, darkest fears. And let’s face it, our deeply buried, sadomasochistic desires. The second a moral message is inserted  the whole thing deflates like an old party balloon and you, the reader or film goer, end up feeling dirty and cheated.

Can you remember the reasoning behind the banning of A Clockwork Orange back in the 70s? It wasn’t because the film was violent and people got murdered and women got raped, it was because the film was violent and the perpetrators were having a good time doing it. And that, to me, is what horror is all about.  Personally, when I write horror I leave my morality, my principles, and my fundamental human decency at the door. The gleefully malicious, sick and twisted side of me rocks up and do you know what? I have an absolute ball.

I love writing this shit. I relish every last drop of blood that flows through these virtual pages, I savour the snap of breaking bones and the blood curdling cries of the tortured…

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

CHAPTER ONE.

“Are you seriously fucking telling me I’ve trekked fifteen fucking miles for this?”

“Doesn’t look too bad to me,” Craig said, not believing it for a second.

Beth had a point, but all the same. He’d just about had it with her moaning. This was supposed to be fun.

Note to self, he thought. Next time I invite a girl I hardly know on holiday with me, don’t. I don’t care how fucking hot she is…

“Why don’t those two ever wait for us? They’re always like a hundred miles in front.”

Maybe it’s because they’re sick of listening to you moan, and because there are slugs that move faster than you, Craig thought, but didn’t say.

“Come on, they’ve stopped, they’re waiting for us to catch up.”

Jessie and Tim had stopped at the fork in the path. Straight ahead the winding, cliff top trail continued into the far distance. Left led down into the village of Hanow.

Above, the sky threatened rain. It had been bright sunshine five minutes ago but now the wind stirred the surrounding foliage and the sea churned angrily against the high, rocky cliff face. Jessie and Tim stood still, their bright blue, pull on macs flapping around their bodies.

“Jeez, what a dump,” Beth moaned.

Craig had to admit, the village wasn’t quite what he had been expecting. As far as he could see, it consisted of three tumbledown cottages. That was it.

Jessie threw him a smile as they approached and Craig’s stomach gave a little lurch. Even after a fifteen mile trek she still looked as fresh as when they had first set off this morning. She positively glowed with happiness at being out in the great open.

Why oh why did she have to be his best mate’s girl? Maybe, if he looked more like Tim, then he would be with her instead.  Tim was over six foot, broad shouldered, and in possession of dark, film star looks. Craig was too short, too blonde and too average.  OK, so some chicks dug his boyish charms, but Jessie wasn’t one of them.

And there he was, stuck with Beth the moaning ninny.

“Pub must be down there somewhere,” Tim said. “I could murder a pint.”

They walked in pairs down the narrow, gravel road. Of the three cottages, one was boarded up. Thick planks of wood were nailed haphazardly over the windows. But the thing that struck Craig as odd was that the planks were on the inside.

“Bit strange this,” Tim called to Craig over his shoulder. “The old guy in the B and B said it was a village. Doesn’t look much like a village to me.”

“Yeah,” Craig agreed, “I thought there’d be a shitload of holiday cottages here at least.”

“Who cares, I’m starving, and my feet are killing me. If there aren’t any buses that go from this shithole back to Penzance I’m going to fucking kill you all,” Beth moaned.

Oh, shut up, Craig thought. But Beth irritating him wasn’t at the forefront of his mind. Tim’s words were. He was right. Why would the old fart that had the B and B describe this place as a village when it blatantly wasn’t?

It was just a bit weird. It made him uneasy, but he couldn’t say why.

The road veered off to the left, taking them down into the heart of the village. If it could be called that. Craig figured it must be the centre because the pub was here. Just a pub. Nothing else. Nothing else except for wilderness, that is.

“See, there’s a pub,” he said to Beth. “How bad can it be?”

She just glared at him.

Craig noticed that her mascara had run and her foundation had settled into orange patches on her skin. He wondered why she had bothered with makeup in the first place. Jessie hadn’t. But then, Jessie didn’t wear much of the stuff in the first place. Jessie didn’t need to. Beth, on the other hand, wouldn’t be seen dead without a full face of porn-staresque  slap.

“It’s so pretty,” Jessie sighed. “I wish I lived in a place like this.”

“You’re kidding me right?” Beth grumbled. “I’d rather fucking die.”

That can be arranged, Craig thought uncharitably, then immediately felt guilty. He figured he was just tired and hungry. And fucking desperate for a pint.

They stopped in front of the pub. It was a long, squat building. The faded sign nailed to the stone wall proclaimed it to be ‘The Dirty Swallow.’

“Let’s hope they’re still doing lunch,” Tim said, pushing open the single door. “Or they serve dinner early.”

“Amen to that,” Beth said, hot on his tail.

Jessie, however, didn’t move. She stood staring up at the pub sign, her pale eyebrows drawn together in a frown.

“What’s the matter?” Craig asked.

She turned to look at him and he felt his heart kick. She really was quite beautiful, even if not in an obvious way. Her jaw was too square and her pale lashed, grey eyes were too far set above the slightly too long nose to be considered conventionally beautiful. But to Craig, she was perfect. Absently she brushed a strand of natural, pale blonde hair off her equally pale forehead that had escaped the hairband.

“It’s a funny name for a pub, don’t you think,” she said, turning her attention back to the sign.

Craig shrugged. “I guess.”

“I don’t know, it’s just, strange.” She grinned. “Hey, ignore me, shall we go in?”

Craig felt the first raindrop land in his eye.

“After you,” he said, holding open the door for her.

It was dark inside. Once Craig’s eyes adjusted he took in his new surroundings. Everything inside was wood. Black wood. The floor, the bar, the long tables and benches, even the ceiling.

Tim and Beth were already at the bar.

The four of them were the only customers in there.

“Do you have a wine list?” Beth was asking the old lady behind the chest height bar.

Craig cringed.

Oh Jeez Louise…

The old woman shook her head. When Craig drew closer he realised she wasn’t that old. She was stooped, and had obviously dyed blonde hair pulled up in a bun. On second glance she looked nearer fifty than eighty. Her mouth looked sunken from lack of front teeth, maybe that was what made her look so ancient.

“Well, I’ll have a pint of bitter. Better make that two,” Tim said, nodding towards Craig. “Jessie? What would you like?”

“Just an orange juice thanks.”

“Me too,” Beth added. “With a double vodka, seeing as the staff here wouldn’t know a decent wine if it came up and bit them on the…”

“Beth!” Craig snapped. “Come and sit down with me, let Tim bring the drinks over.”

Craig was mad at her. Why couldn’t she behave like Jessie? He hadn’t known she was this bad.

Well, he hardly knew her at all, not really. All he knew was she liked having her tits sucked when she rode him, she took her coffee black and she listened to the kind of crappy, boy band pop music that made him want to kill himself.

Shit, he should’ve dumped her for that alone, not invited her away on holiday with them. But Tim had kept on and on with the, ‘you gotta bring someone.’ So he had.

What a huge fucking mistake.

“I’ve got blisters on my fucking blisters,” she moaned, kicking off a brown walking boot to massage her foot.

He studied her face. How did he ever think she was cute? Her features were all scrunched up, kind of reminding him of a gerbil. Her nose was short and snub, her eyes small and close set and her mouth narrow. Her chin was weak and without makeup, or in this case, with smudged makeup, she was amazingly plain. Her roots needed doing too, he duly noted. There was a dark line along the parting of her long blonde hair.

She had a banging body though. She was short and slim, but she rocked the most perfect curves Craig had ever seen. Her tits were full and high, her waist tiny. All four of them wore the same bright blue, pull on rainmacs that they had picked up cheaply in a gift shop in St Ives for this hike. Yet Beth still managed to look like she should be starring in some sleazy pop video, shaking her booty.

Tim came up with the drinks.

“The lady behind the bar says they’ve stopped serving lunch but her husband is still in the kitchen and she’s gonna ask him to rustle us up some sandwiches.”

“I would hardly call that withered old thing a lady,” Beth scoffed.

“Oh come on Beth, she’ll hear you,” Craig hissed.

“I don’t care,” she said in a loud voice. “I’m hungry. I’m sure her husband hasn’t got anything better to do, we’re doing them a favour, I doubt they see much business.”

The sound of a throat clearing made them all snap round their heads.

“Michael says he’ll be happy to make you something to eat.”

All four of them stared at her. Craig almost choked on his beer when he saw that the old hag was unmistakably  pregnant. The flowing, patchwork skirt she wore billowed out from her heavily pregnant belly. It looked like she might drop at any second.

Jessie, dear, sweet Jessie was the one that knew what to say.

“Oh, you’re expecting, congratulations. You must be due soon. Is this your first?”

But she’s fucking ancient, Craig thought, how is that even possible?

“I’m due anytime now. And no my queen, it’s most definitely not my first. Are you folks here on holiday?”

Tim was the next to speak. He appeared to have sufficiently composed himself and his easy charm was back. He threw the old lady one of his special ‘Tim’ smiles, a smile that cracked open his entire face and made knickers drop.

“Yeah, we’re staying in a B and B in Penzance. Actually, we wanted to ask you something.” He rooted through his backpack as he spoke, and pulled out an old bus timetable. “Says here that the last bus leaves from Hanow to Penzance at six pm. Would you mind pointing us in the direction of the bus stop?”

The old/young woman chuckled. “There’s no busses that go from Hanow, my ‘andsome. My guess is your staying at old Jake’s Bed and Breakfast, The Jolly Sailor?”

“Er, yeah,” Tim said, “how did you know that?”

“Because he’s a bugger for handing out out of date timetables to unsuspecting tourists. I think he does it for kicks, he ain’t been right in the head since his wife passed on, God rest her soul. Did you even check the date on your timetable?”

Tim frowned, and studied the pamphlet. “Shit. It says two thousand and seven.”

“Ay. Hanow hasn’t been near a bus route for many years. Not since they built more of them fancy roads. We’re a bit off the beaten track, so to speak. Used to be that a mile hike would take you onto the main road. But the main road moved, now you walk two miles and you get to a road no one uses no more.”

“Oh my God Tim, how could you be so stupid? That timetable’s like seven fucking years old.” Beth snapped.

“Hey, it’s not my fault, I didn’t see any of you guys wanting to read the timetable. I said the last bus left at six and you all blindly took my word for it.”

“You should of bloody checked the date of the thing,” Beth went on.

Craig threw her a look and it seemed to work. She sat there sulking, her arms folded across her chest.

“Tim’s right, it’s not his fault, we all should have checked,” Jessie said, ever the peace keeper. “What’s your name?” she asked the woman.

“Margaret.”

“Margaret. It’s a pleasure to meet you, and thank you so much for going out of your way to feed us. My name’s Jessie, and this is Tim, Craig and Beth,” she said, nodding to each of them in turn.

“You’re more than welcome, my ‘andsome, and it’s a pleasure to meet y’all too. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, and all.”

“It doesn’t matter, we’ll just call for a taxi,” Craig said, thinking aloud.

“You do that,” the woman called Margaret said. “But if you want to, there are two double rooms going free above the pub. I used to have a B and B, but I gave it up when the family started growing. You folks are welcome to stay here for the night. You can even stay for free.”

“We couldn’t possibly take advantage of you like that,” Jessie said.

But Craig got it. Jessie didn’t want to stay in Hanow anymore than he did. Seems like he wasn’t the only one to be creeped out big time by this pregnant old hag.

“I’ll make that call, I’ve still got that local firm’s number on my phone from yesterday,” Craig said, swinging a leg over the long bench to retrieve his mobile in the front pocket of his rucksack that was propped behind him. “No signal in here, I’ll try outside.”

It was a relief to be outside. The threat of rain had passed and Craig closed his eyes for a second, lifting his face to the watery, late afternoon, September sun.

“Shit,” he cursed under his breath.

No signal out here either. He wandered down the road a little, staring at the screen of his phone.

Still no signal bars.

He walked a little further down the road that meandered off inland. It wasn’t really much more than a dirt track and he wondered how the hell any kind of car got down it.

A movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He spun round. He was sure he’d seen movement in the upstairs window of the pub, directly above ‘The Dirty Swallow’ sign. Maybe it was just the low sun reflecting off the glass.

And so what if it wasn’t. Somebody was watching him. It was no big deal.

He didn’t understand why he was suddenly so uneasy.

He walked back to the pub. One of the others were bound to have a signal.

“No signal,” he said, waving his phone at them when he walked through the door. “Maybe someone else can try. Where’s Margaret gone?”

“To help her husband in the kitchen,” Tim said, retrieving his mobile, just like the other two were doing. “Shit. I haven’t got a signal either. Do you guys?”

Jessie and Beth shook their heads.

“We can try outside,” Jessie said.

The three of them trooped outside, leaving Craig alone.

He took a big gulp of his warm beer, wondering why the hell he was so jittery. He could faintly hear their voices and crossed his fingers under the table that they had got through to the taxi rank.

“You here on holiday?”

Craig sprayed out his beer.

“Jesus! You gave me a fright!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare yer.”

Craig stared at the old man that had apparently appeared out of nowhere. He was stooped, skinny and had a walking stick. Sparse white hair decorated his mostly bald head and his skin was yellow and wizened, like parchment paper.

“I’m Margaret’s Father. We don’t get much passing trade nowadays. In fact, you’re lucky you caught us open.”

Craig noticed the door behind the bar was opened and a dark staircase could be seen ascending into darkness.

“Oh. Yeah, we’re here on holiday, we’re staying in Penzance.”

“You hiked here?”

“Yeah.”

Craig could only just understand him as he had a thick Cornish accent.

“Used to be a popular trail. That’s ‘til folks started disappearing when they walked it. Some say it’s haunted. Killed our passing trade stone dead, I can tell yer. What brings you folks here?”

“Old Jake. We’re staying at The Jolly Sailor. He said it was a walk to die for with the best pub in Cornwall at the end of it.”

“Ah, yes, dear old Jake. Me and Jake go back a long ways.”

He smiled at Craig, displaying a gaping maw.

Jesus, didn’t anyone here have teeth?

There was one thing Craig knew for certain. When they got back to the B and B, he was going to ram the out of date bus timetable down ‘Old Jake’s’ neck. The stupid old fuck.

The other three walked back in.

“Any luck?” Craig asked eagerly.

“Nope.”

“Are you folks having some kind of a problem?” the old guy asked.

“We’re trying to call for a taxi, and none of our phones can get a signal,” Jessie answered.

“Ay. Hanow and the surrounding area is a dead spot for your there mobile telephones.”

“Do you have a phone we could borrow?” Craig asked the old man.

“No. Tree fell down on one of them telephone wires over by the old main road few days ago.”

Craig’s mouth was suddenly dry. “Does anyone here have a working phone?”

“No son, I told you, phone line’s dead. Besides, ain’t no one that lives in Hanow now ‘cept me and my family.”

“I do not believe this shit,” Beth said.

She actually stamped her foot and there were tears in her eyes.

Margaret burst backwards through a door by the side of the bar. She was holding a big tray piled high with sandwiches. Craig caught a glimpse of an old, grubby looking kitchen, then the door swung shut again.

Christ, he thought, I really don’t want to eat anything that comes out of that kitchen…

“Lunch,” she said brightly, placing the tray of sandwiches in front of Craig.

The others came back over to their seats. No one looked too thrilled to see lunch, despite a collective ravenous appetite.

Beth was the first to speak.

“So what are we going to do?”

Craig was painfully aware of Margaret and the old man who had edged closer.

A bit of privacy right about now would be nice, he thought.

“We could walk back to the main road,” Craig suggested. “It can’t be more than a few miles and I’m sure we’ll pick up a signal before we even hit the main road.”

“It’s five miles to the main road. But it will be at least that before you get a signal on your mobile telephones. Here’s a dead spot,” Margaret said.

“Ay, it’s a dead spot alright,” the old man intoned.

Craig bit down a wave of irritation.

“I’m not walking five more bloody miles. And it’ll be dark soon.” Beth said.

“You’re right there young lady,” Margaret agreed. “Ain’t really nothing but a dirt track leading out of Hanow.  Gets dark as a dog’s guts at night.”

“Ay. You wouldn’t see jack shit out there.”

“Do you perhaps have a torch we could borrow for the walk?” Tim asked the old man.

“I am not walking anywhere more today. You can go alone and order a taxi to pick the rest of us up,” Beth said.

“Hold your horses, young lady, I was gonna offer you folks a lift to the main road seeing as y’all so keen to leave. But I hope ya alls understand that you’re more than welcome to stay with us tonight.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Jessie said to the old man, “and we appreciate it, but we really have to be getting back. We’re going home tomorrow and we don’t want to miss our train.”

That was a barefaced lie, but the three of them kept a poker face, even Beth.

Looks like none of us want to stay here tonight, Craig thought.

The old man nodded gravely. “I can only transport two of you’s. I have a two seater Land Rover so I only got the room for two.”

“Thank you so much,” Jessie gushed, “that’s awfully kind of you. We can pay you for your trouble.”

“Ain’t no trouble young lady. If you really want to pay us then you can start off by eating those sandwiches my son-in-law has so kindly prepared for yous.”

Jessie flushed. “Of course,” she said, picking one up.

She took a bite and everyone watched her. Those sandwiches didn’t look at all appetising. At first glance they were a pile of ordinary, white sliced bread cut into triangles.

But on closer inspection, the bread had a greyish tinge and looked stale. And God only knew what the filling was, Craig’s stomach turned just looking at it. It looked like ham, except it was too thick to be ham.

Jessie’s face said it all. Even the most polite out of their group was having difficulty swallowing.

“What meat is this?” she asked.

Margaret and her father exchanged a look.

“Pork,” they said in unison.

Jessie took a big gulp of orange juice. “Lovely.”

“Come on,” the old man said, clapping his hands together and sitting down on the long bench to Craig’s left. “Tuck in. You have to eat something before I give the two of yous a lift.”

So they each took a sandwich. Craig figured they all wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible.

Tentatively, he took a bite. It didn’t taste as bad as it looked. The meat was a bit chewy, and pungent somehow, but not altogether unpleasant. He certainly had never tasted pork like it.

“Margaret, get these fine people another drink. On the house.”

“No, really, there’s no need for that…” Jessie began, then gave up when Margaret went behind the bar.

Craig wasn’t about to protest too much. He’d drained his pint and another wouldn’t go amiss.

Hell, he thought. He might as well get pissed.

“So tell me a bit about yourselves,” the old man said. “My name’s Barry, but everybody calls me Bish.”

Now that he was sat next to him, Craig noticed that he smelled a bit funny. It wasn’t something that he could put his finger on, and it was only faint. But it was sweet and rank, reminding him of the smell of shit lingering in the bathroom.  Perhaps it was just the odour of old age. Maybe the old guy hadn’t wiped his arse properly.

Discretely he shuffled closer to Beth.

Tim was the one that introduced them all.

“So what do you do, Tim?” Bish asked.

“I’m a university student. We’re all third year university students. Well, apart from Beth, that is.”

“And what do you do, young lady?”

“I’m an actress and model,” she said.

Code for barmaid and waitress, Craig silently added. Unless you count going to endless auditions and getting fuck-all-nowhere at the end of them.

“Now I can say I’ve met a real life model and actress. What are you folks studying?”

“I’m reading Law,” Tim said.

“Training to be a primary school teacher,” Jessie said.

“Reading English Lit,” Craig said.

“Yowzer. We’ve got us a real bunch of bright young sparks here, ain’t we Margaret?”

“Ay, that we have, Dad.” she said, placing their drinks in front of them.

“How did y’alls meet?”

“Halls of residence,” Jessie said, “the three of us just clicked so we rented a house together in the second year, along with a couple of others.”

And that’s when my best friend hooked up with the girl I was in love with. It should’ve been me, Craig thought miserably. And that’s how much I love her. Even when I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere with the local weirdos I still think about how much I love her…

“How old are y’alls, if you don’t mind me askin’?”

Bish’s question struck Craig as odd. Why on earth would he want to know that? Then he figured he was just worried about them being underage. All pubs nowadays abided by that ‘think 25’ policy. Craig never set foot inside a pub without his driver’s license.

“Don’t worry, we’re all old enough to drink,” Tim said, obviously coming to the same conclusion as Craig. “We’re twenty one. Would you like to see our ID?”

“Don’t worry son, I was just checkin’. Can’t be too careful nowadays.”

“The under twenty fives are so much fresher,” Margaret said.

Fresher? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Craig thought.

Craig picked up on the warning look Bish threw her.

“Ay Margaret, tis nice indeed to have some young blood around, liven the place up a bit.”

The four of them sat there in awkward silence, which was eventually broken by Bish.

“Well, it will be dark in less than half an hour, would a couple of you fine folk care for that lift to the main road now?”

Tim got to his feet while the old man was still speaking. “Sounds good to me. Does anyone want to come?”

Craig wished that Beth would volunteer so he could be alone with Jessie but he guessed there was more chance of hell freezing over.

“I’ll come,” Jessie said.

“No, I think I should go,” Craig said. “It will get cold when the sun goes down, you girls should stay here. You must be shattered,” he said to Jessie.

“No more than you,” she replied. “Tim?”

Tim looked from one to the other. “Craig’s right. C’mon mate, let’s go call us a taxi.”

The two lads followed Bish out of the room. Craig saw the shadow that passed over Jessie’s face that her boyfriend had chosen him over her. He felt a pang of guilt when it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps she was a little disturbed by these people and didn’t want to be separated from her boyfriend.

Oh well, they’d be back in no time and then they could be on their merry way.

The three men stepped outside as the sky was beginning to darken.

END OF SAMPLE. Please check out my author page at Amazon to find out more.