Young Writers Society

MORAL ZERO

PART SIX

By Set Sytes

HOTEL

Mr White lay in the bed of the hotel. In an adjacent room he heard the drone of a TV, and in the other he heard the restless movements of Red as he slept or tried to sleep or did whatever it was he did. Overshadowing both these sounds was Mr White’s own breathing, and the thump of his heart.

Mr White had been staring at the wall for an hour. Occasionally blinking. He was not thinking, not really. Nothing that could be called truly human sentience. Twice he tried to make himself cry but nothing came. So he kept staring.

Eventually his eyes fell closed and he slept, as silent and still as the dead.

They spent four more days in District Twelve, Red fucking every girl he could in masterpieces of perversion, Johnny distant and infrequently seen, only staying with them for brief periods before he vanished again. One girl in particular Red had taken great pleasure in talking about, describing her to Mr White as being absolutely filthy, I say the dirtier the better but I mean, fuck, the room stank like shit after if you get me?

I get you, Mr White had replied.

Smells like love, Red had laughed. I was almost sick.

Mr White grimaced. Did you have fun?

Oh man.

Mr White didn’t say it but he had watched them at the time, his eyes glued to the readymade peephole or gloryhole between the rooms, between every room. He had seen the acts, the filth and the sickness. He was disgusted and entranced. He stayed until the end, holding his nose with one hand and masturbating with the other, and then removing his hand from his nose and falling apart inside himself with the stench of sin. He felt like he was in the room, part of Red, feeling what Red felt, and fetishes that had never held cards with him transfigured themselves into intoxicating delights, things appalling and shameful and invigorating in equal measure. Glorious in their foulness. Mr White writhed in twisted abasement, slave to a world rich in fecundity. He poured his soul out through the hole and drank in Red’s soul back through it. He tried not to be sick, and in this he was moderately successful.

On the afternoon of the third day Johnny had returned to them, had knocked on Mr White’s door and brushed past him when it opened. He looked about the room with disinterest and sat on the bed. He took a ready-rolled cigarette from the bedside table and took his lighter and the cigarette flared up in his mouth. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his eyes obscured by the low brim of his black outlaw hat.

Hi, said Red, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Hi. He didn’t look up.

You’re back then.

I’m back.

What have you been up to? Or don’t we wanna know?

Johnny was taking long drags on the cigarette and finished it quickly, without answering. He crumbled the butt in his hands and dropped it into the unused ashtray on the table. Around the room were discarded butts and ash where Red had paced and dropped his smokes. There were small burns on the carpet but they may have been long there.

Johnny took off his hat and ran his fingers through his black hair. Red self-consciously moved his hands about his, playing with the ends. Johnny was wearing a beaten up leather jacket that they had not seen on him before and he reached inside to pull out a shiny silver tin. Such polish and gleam seemed unnatural, an anachronism to his person, some trinket that he held as though a connection into the modern world.

He opened the tin soundlessly and though they could not see inside he took a thick black cigar and lit it and stuck it between his teeth as he replaced the tin. He breathed in and out and grinned. It’s good.

Is it.

It’s been a while. Johnny looked up at them, finally. So. Yesterday. Have you ever heard of the V.S.S?

Mr White shook his head.

I have, said Red, pouring himself a drink from the dark rum and fizzy pop that lay in unlabelled plastic bottles beside him. It’s the Voluntary Snuff Society. It’s here, in Twelve. God knows how they get away with it, this place’s biggest illegal is against harm, any kinda harm, no matter how much the consent.

Things thrive in adversity, smiled Johnny.

Yeah. So, you go to the V.S.S. Red shook his head in distaste. Charmin.

What’s it like?

Johnny looked over at Mr White, grinning at his interest. Horror, he said. It is horror. Foul transmutation of humanity. It’s in an underground warehouse. There’s dozens of them, they used to shift it about to not be caught. Now they pay the police and the District government off. Hell, some are members. I can always tell a lawman from looking them in the eye. They were there. Standing around, waiting their turn. In the centre are the drains, and most of it goes down the drains but not all. Not all. The ground is stained dark red all over. Patches on the walls. Some on the ceiling.

Johnny took another drag on his cigar. I look in each other’s eyes and they don’t look back. There’s something dead there. Some carcass of soul. I look at them and all I see are carrion. They’re masturbating, the semen falling out pathetically and running thick and slow on the ground. Mixing with the blood like dessert. It’s yellow and white and congeals between stones and dries. No man or woman there got it right inside their body.

So you were there looking at semen, said Red.

Johnny ignored him. The idea of the V.S.S. is one of self-preservation. Of the final say of the ego. Males and females sacrifice themselves to be remembered in film. They believe there is nothing else that can capture their life, their existence. Most of them got nobody else to remember them. They do not want to die unsung. To die a nobody is to have never been alive. Some might be well known, they might be high-profile. It don’t matter to them. It ain’t enough. There must be a final record. The world must be ended on screen.

They stand in the centre, among the drains. Men and women and girls and boys. Young and old. Some are coerced into being there, and though that is against the principles of the society it is often overlooked. There is a market at stake, and sometimes fresh meat is not always willing. Others watch them. There are the performers – they call them actors and actresses. And there are the watchers. The performers always seem more alive than the others. They are often smiling, full of vitality in their final minutes. Dressed up and make-upped, looking their best. How else to go out? The smiles do not last. Rarely do they last.

It is hard. There is no torture, not as such, but sometimes the deaths are slow. They are filmed of course. There are cameras to capture them on all angles. They bleed differently. Some bleed like pigs. Only a few bleed like you would expect of a human.

Red was shaking his head to himself, and almost continuously drinking. He seemed about to say something but didn’t.

Mr White was listening in rapt attention.

Johnny took his hat off and placed it beside him on the bed. He lay back, putting his boots on the bed, and blew his smoke towards the ceiling. I waited until the end, he murmured. I did not get pleasure. I did not try and get pleasure. The place is . . . hollow. It is pitiful. You may think me evil in my actions, but this is something else. Not evil. I do not know what. Not evil.

I stayed till the end. There were one-on-ones. These are always at the end of the night. Clients pay good money to see the deaths in private, to enact them, just them and the performer. And, of course, the cameras. I was there too, invisible in the shadows. The private rooms of the warehouse were locked behind each client and opened again after a knock. I was already in one. I saw the man come in. He was old and fat, with thick glasses that enlarged his eyes like some alien. Some insect. He panted as he walked in. He was suited but quickly discarded it to a vest, and naked below. She was beautiful and delicate of a like rarely seen in the V.S.S and he masturbated looking at her. She was dancing, in a green dress that glittered in the lights, and he paced around her as though she was sexual furniture. There was only one camera in the private rooms. Just one, pointing directly at each performer, each willing victim. I watched as he picked up a carving knife from a tray of implements. There were plenty worse to pick. He moved towards her and she smiled, her teeth shining white and her lipstick red and her hair fake in a blonde wig.

He stabbed her in the neck with the point of the knife. I watched as her smile fell off her. But I was watching the man. I knew this man. I knew of him. Don’t ask me who or how, I won’t tell you. I watched as he withdrew from her, leaving the knife stuck in, her choking on her own blood, and he moved back and behind the camera and he pressed a button on it and the light winked out.

No writer or poet could describe the expression on her face. Her eyes as she saw the camera turned off as she died. I will not try. You can imagine and you will fail. He took away from all he could take at her final moment, at the moment of her dying, her living. In this girl’s eyes, he took more than it is possible for anyone else to take, more than anyone has ever taken from her before in all her years. You could see her soul shred.

This man, if he could be called that, this thing, was masturbating as he stole the last dream this girl could ever have. As he began to cum, huffing and sweating, his mouth open and his eyes unfocused, I moved fast up behind him and pushed my own knife into his back. I twisted it. He made a strange, racking noise. Not a scream. Shock flooded his body before any pain. His penis died and shrivelled in his hands but continued to pump its diseased load over his stubby fingers. I twisted the knife and asked him if he felt it and I told him it was the world ending. I withdrew my blade and I pulled him back and he looked in my eyes but did not see, and I stabbed him in the heart. I pulled out and blood trickled down to mix with his semen. I smiled at him and I saw something pass across his face, and I knew he knew. He knew that I had taken his dream as he had taken the girl’s. But the chain stopped there. It was the perfect moment of ruining the perfect moment, but this was not my dream. This was not a murder. He had nothing in him that could be murdered. This was a robbery.

Johnny stopped, and closed his eyes.

Mr White said nothing but closed his eyes also. Red took a deep breath in and out and seemed weary, as if listening to the anecdote had stolen something from him, and not the people in the story. He finished his drink.

So you’re the same as the man then? said Mr White, his eyes still closed, where Johnny Black’s sudden hard gaze could not penetrate. And still it did, boring through his eyelids.

No.

I think . . . I think I am beginning to understand you.

You are beginning no such thing.

Mr White let it go, turning to Red as he slightly wobbly got to his feet.

Red held up his hand as if to hold back any questions. Bar.

In the early hours of the fourth night Red and White were woken by Johnny kicking in Red’s door. Mr White put on some clothes as fast as he could and ran into Red’s room to see Johnny standing over Red as he sat up naked in bed, mercifully by himself.

The fuck? Red was yelling. The fuck?

Listen Kidd, just listen, commanded Johnny, not looking around as Mr White came up behind him. They all did so. They could hear the familiar buzz of the drones. The sound was thick, as though a pack of them. The noise was close enough as to come from inside the hotel. Echoing along the dank stone corridors.

Get him dressed, barked Johnny, and Mr White realised he meant him. We have to leave. They’re after us.

After who, I ain’t done nothin.

Between us we just about done it all. We’re outta here, just get dressed and follow. Leave anything you can’t pick up right now.

Mr White rushed to help Red, who grumbled but quickly sprang into action as the noise of the drones increased. He shoved his sockless feet in his cowboy boots and Mr White ran back into his own room to gather the essentials and put on his own shoes. He was back in Red’s in thirty seconds. Red had a sleeveless shirt hanging open and his belt was unbuckled. He was throwing bottles and cigarettes and packets of tobacco and sex toys into a plastic bag and Johnny, who was the only one completely dressed, was roaring at him to stop fucking about.

Where did you get all this? Mr White said hopelessly, watching Red chuck a double ended dildo that looked unwashed into the bag, a sticky and purple ribbed cockhead rising out the top like it wanted a front row seat to the chaos. You never had this when we last jumped ship.

Girls, muttered Red.

In the end the bag was left, thanks to Johnny pulling Red through the window after him by the scruff of his shirt. The three of them crawled down the fire escape and were off into the night, Johnny turning them through backstreets of backstreets. Red ran stumbling along, trying to light a hastily plucked cigarette with one hand, the purple dildo waggling in his other.

There were sixteen districts in Rule, and they spread out like a grid, all within walking distance of their neighbours. At the edges of Rule, the edges of the furthermost districts, was a wall so high that even the tallest buildings could not see over it. It could not be scaled, knocked through or tunnelled under. On each of the four sides of Rule there were huge metal doors, guarded 24/7 by a contingent of police. They were opened rarely, and when they were they showed merely an extension of wall, the gatehouse and another set of doors, and before the exterior doors were opened the interior doors were closed fast. No onlookers standing in the area could ever see outside. Whole lives had been lived and lost in Rule, lives that saw the outside more as a myth than anything, if they ever thought of it at all. Something unseen and thus unreal.

If you were in Rule, then Rule was everything.

Rule was a city unlike any other. If it could be even called such. Each district, no matter how close it touched its neighbours or how brief its borders, was under its own, local rule. A government of one district had no say in the running of another district, not in its infrastructure, its justice system, its laws, its customs, or its moral code. There seemed little crossover between districts; some values might be mutually shared among certain districts but they were never mutually understood. The borders were kept and controlled, immigration and emigration were permissible, but the only real co-operation between districts was of material transport, the trade of goods. A criminal in one district, should he or she successfully cross the border, was a free citizen in the next, even if he or she had broken a very similar law to what was considered illegal in the new district. There was no extradition. A district would capture and punish its own. The chances were, however, that an escaped criminal from one district would soon be convicted in another, given continuous opportunities to break the law. Even the most evasive of criminals would soon run out of districts.

Crimes considered the most severe were those that befouled some strong moral taboo within that sector. These were usually sexually related. Common ethics as they applied to all other situations were never applied when sexuality was present. Sex was seen, in every district, as the prime factor to make a case unique, to be dealt under its own terms. Each district had its own idea of what was, plain to put, wrong, and the insular, intensely xenophobic nature of each district propagated these ideas as history passed, so that these moral taboos were enshrined in the local system. Sodomy in District Three was as foul and alien a concept to them as use of condoms was to those in District Five.

The districts might as well be separate states or countries. No-one held authority over Rule in its entirety, there was nothing to command the city en masse. It was if separate countries from across the world, complete with all their cultural, judicial and moral baggage, had been crowbarred together to within minutes walking distance of each other. It was preposterous and yet Rule continued. It did not thrive. For the most part, it was run-down, slums and seediness. The criminal element was high, as was the presence of law enforcement, each force local and protecting only the district itself. Police were known to stop dead at each border, with no jurisdiction beyond.

Moving quickly from one district to another made it apparent how specified the laws were. Any country has highly specific laws but, until immediately contrasted with another’s, the distinctions remain vague. Not so in Rule. It was a strange, troubling feeling to move a few steps from one moral paradigm to another, perhaps vastly different. To walk from District Nine where traditional marriage was sanctified and sex outside of marriage not only grossly contemptible but in the upper echelon of illegality, to an area of the polar opposite such as District One, where strong emotional attachments were against the law, was at first disorientating for new visitors to Rule. To go from an age of consent of thirty in District Nine to an age of consent of twelve in District Fourteen, or no age of consent in Thirteen, could be even more alarming. At first. Soon, the spell of Rule bewitched everyone. One of two things happened. Either they identified with and respected certain districts (or just the one) and their moral and legal codes, and vilified others, or, more commonly among visitors, they lost respect for all of Rule’s laws, seeing Rule not as a collection of what should be far-flung states shackled together, but as an absurdity, an illogical mess, where justice and morality became, in its arbitrary intemperance, a joke, a game to be played. A system to be fucked with. Whether one indulged in whatever practices were legal in that district before hopping to the next to try something else, or, for the risk-takers and thrill-seekers, indulging in whatever was illegal, moving to another before they were caught.

Breaking the law in Rule was not without considerable risks. The law was not kind. That was something true to every district. The sexual crimes, considered crimes of obscenity, were usually worthy of capital punishment, for perpetrators against such stringent moral taboos were considered inhuman. Torture was sometimes employed, for the perpetrator’s mind, body, and in some cases soul, was such an abhorrence that it had to be cleansed, with all intangible grotesquery removed as if carving or burning out a tumour, even if such a purification involved the deepest of mutilation.

You could not defend yourself in the districts of Rule. There was no jury or trial as others might know it. Once you were arrested, you were charged, you were done. The local government called your crime and exacted the punishment, which usually ended in death for all but misdemeanours, none of which were sexually-orientated. In a number of districts murder was significantly less atrocious an act than particular sexual transgressions.

The laws of the districts, especially when contrasted against each other, seemed irrational, nonsensical, just as those of one culture might appear to another halfway round the world. In Districts Four and Fourteen rape (with differing quantifiers) was legal against women, provided it was not vaginal. In District Eight rape of males was legal. District Two allowed for much sexual fetish, including the legality of incest, with its chief laws against vaginal intercourse, and in particular pregnancy. Any woman found to be made pregnant whilst in Two would be killed, her unborn foetus dying inside her. Through DNA matching the father would then be hunted down and also executed.

Other districts held strong claims against anal or oral intercourse, or allowed for polygamous marriage, or bestiality, or forbid sexual contact with augs, or the practice of BDSM, or were for or against homosexual or heterosexual relations. Six had a zero tolerance policy on any fetish. The conservative Nine had far reaching obscenity laws, with a strict dress code enforced for both sexes, and an early curfew for under twenty-fives. Some districts outlawed prostitution, some economies thrived on it. Thirteen, with its zero age of consent that was a constant source of horror to some of the others, had mandatory contraception and monogamy laws, as well as a regulation penis size (forcibly controlled), and a law (fully open to police interpretation) forbidding the perceived degradation of females. They in turn saw themselves as the stalwart guardians of the otherwise moral turpitude of Rule. Likewise District Five, which had legal incest and yet a tough, no-nonsense law that sex must always be “loving”.

And so on, and so on. It was a melting pot of discordance, a judicial cesspool thriving on sanctimony and moral inanity. But for those who made, kept, and lived the laws, it was nothing of the sort, at least not in their district.

DISTRICT 8, BAR

They sat and watched as two pubescent teenagers were propositioned by an old couple. The woman held out something they couldn’t see and the teenagers’ eyes lit up. The man extended a hand and touched one of the girls on the shoulder. He blinked slowly under his thick rimmed glasses and took out a handkerchief from his coat and wiped his brow with it. The woman smiled at the two girls and showed them the contents of her hand again.

Do you think they’re legal? Red asked.

I don’t know, said Mr White. Maybe not.

Why do people still wear those things?

What things?

Glasses.

Not everyone has the money for augments, Johnny said. And many just don’t want to fuck with their bodies.

Even in this day and age.

Even in this day and age.

They watched as the young girls were led away by the couple. There was an insistent pull in the grip, one of the girls faltering but dragged along anyway. She looked a little apprehensive. Her friend looked determined and whispered to her. There was no room for doubt in the world. No halfway points. One must go or not go.

What’s the age of consent here? Mr White asked more for Kidd Red’s benefit than his own.

Fourteen. Johnny didn’t take his eyes off Red. Sounds right up your alley. Or right up hers.

Fuck! Kidd Red threw his hands up in the air, then laid them down again on his lap and shook his head several times. It’s too young.

Surely not for you? Johnny smirked.

I’m not goin below fourteen. It ain’t right.

What’s the youngest you’ve ever had? Mr White enquired.

Thirteen, when I were a bit younger. And I only got with her cause she had tits like melons.

Thirteen was a normal age to have sex in the past. Everyone did it, said Johnny.

That’s the past. We know better now.

Do we.

Yeah.

I wonder what will be considered abnormal in the future. What new lines of perversion will be drawn. Rearranged. To cast every previous generation down to Hell.

They were natural too, said Red wistfully. You know those growth ‘plants don’t take no effect at that age.

Sure they do. I’ve seen a few. District Fourteen, you can find them all over. They got new implants now that work on early starters. They’re going for younger and younger. Like you.

Red ignored this. You could tell, anyhow. No matter how fuckin good they get, I know what’s real. All soft and jigglin and . . . yeah. It was an exception to the rule.

What, the pedophile rule.

It’s not pedophilia if I’m not touching kids! Besides, I’m too young to be a pedophile.

You’ve never too young to be a pedophile.

What, so you can get a fuckin ten year old pedophile?

You’re not ten years old, you’re a grown man.

A young man. Who ain’t touchin no kids.

And why aren’t you?

I told you, it’s wrong.

Johnny laughed. Wrong he says. Wrong. What’s right about any of this? He waved his arm around.

We might not be the nicest of guys -

There’s an understatement.

- But we’re just playin around. Pedophilia, now that’s some kinda mental disorder. They’re fucked in the head.

Why is it a disorder?

Because . . . Cause it’s fuckin unnatural.

Unnatural. Some folks might be pretty hot up on the idea that anal sex is unnatural.

Red grinned like a naughty child. Anal sex feels pretty natural to me. And animals do it.

Animals are also pedophiles.

Animals just don’t give a shit.

Exactly.

Red dropped his smile. But seriously, my shit’s harmless.

Would all the girls you’ve savagely speared in the ass agree with that?

Hey! I ain’t no sadist like you man. I’m out for both our enjoyment.

And then there’s your scatological obsession. You with your cock all steeped in shit. Low down with the pigs.

Watch your mouth, I ain’t ready to masturbate.

Now I know most folks out there would definitely think you’re mentally . . . unsound for all that.

Red pffted. Whatever. I ain’t into children.

Sure you are. As far into them as you can get.

No. They’re too underdeveloped. He beckoned at Mr White. You know me White, you know I like tits and ass.

Mr White nodded mutely, so Red turned back to Johnny. They’re undeveloped in the brain too.

I thought you liked that? Johnny wouldn’t cease with the jibes.

Not like that. They lack perception, y’know? Appreciation of the corruption. They don’t know shit. They don’t know what they want. It’s just, just abuse, and not the good kind neither.

I like them clever, said Johnny. Well, certain forms of cleverness. Cotton-ons. I want ones with the best understanding, the best understanding of what’s happening to them. I want to see clarity in their eyes. Horror and clarity. Horror and understanding.

He took a big gulp of whiskey. But you like dumb bimbos.

Red mouth upturned wryly. They are fun when they’re thick, that’s for sure.

I always knew you were a cock fiend.

Red stuck his tongue out.

Johnny rolled his eyes. Tell me Red, what if you saw a girl with huge tits and a fat ass. Rest of her slim. Just how you like. Thick black eyeshadow, red lipstick. Mini-skirted. Tight shirt tied round her midriff, exposing a whole ton of flesh that makes your mouth water. She’s all over you. Wanting you.

You sound like you’re turnin yourself on now.

Johnny ignored this. She tells you she’s twelve. What do you do?

Red paused to contemplate. How big are the tits? What ratios we talkin here?

My point made.

Pah.

They call you Kidd Red because you leave infants bleeding out their butts.

Fuck off.

You’re going to fuck a middle aged woman just to spite me now aren’t you?

I was goin to fuck one anyway.

I bet.

My daughter will be here tomorrow anyhow. I can wait.

Your daughter. Of course. And how old is she again?

Fifteen.

No comment. Johnny Black downed the last of his whiskey and smashed the glass back onto the bar. He got up to go, and the others followed suit.

Wait, did I hear right, your daughter? said Mr White, confused.

He’s just being facetious.

No, I ain’t. You’ll see her tomorrow.

Johnny stared at him. Are you real? He tapped hard on Red’s forehead. Is there anyone in there? Is this a setup?

Of course I’m for real, chuckled Red, dodging out the way of Johnny’s finger. You couldn’t fake a fella like me.

Because there’s a lot of them about you know. Most of the people in the city are just empty vassals. They got so little to them that they may as well be cut-outs.

I know it.

STREET

Mr White tried to get in Red’s forward view as they exited the bar and walked down the street, half walking backwards, his hands protesting before his mouth had started. Red, Red. Red.

That’s me, said Red, not slowing.

You’re . . . you’re incestuous? With your own daughter? Have I got that right? Or is that completely the wrong end of the stick. If so I apologise. It’s just you kinda made out -

No, that’s right man, smiled Red. It’s alright though, don’t worry about it. I told you I was a bit fucked up. Some things just go down a certain way, y’know?

Johnny shook his head in front of them but said nothing.

You’ll meet her tomorrow, maybe. Don’t worry about it. Seriously. He laughed at Mr White’s expression.

But – but, she’s fifteen?

I know, I know. What can I say. I was an early starter.

Johnny slowed down until they caught him up, and he moved close towards Red, right up to his ear, who twitched and leant away with a silly smile stamped on his face as if Johnny was some stinking drunkard.

I’m going to fuck you up the ass someday.

Red couldn’t have taken it seriously because he snorted. You think I ain’t had the tables turned on me before? I’ve had it a fair plenty number of times. I know how it feels.

You won’t know shit.

BAR

What was all that about back there man? Kidd Red asked, trying to sound casual and leaning his back against the wall of the next bar. It could have been identical to the last one. Just rearranged, like the whole city was. Nothing new, just templates for the residency of all deviant souls. To fill in with oneself. The details in the people. Always in the people.

All what? Johnny replied emotionlessly.

All that pedophile shit.

Messing with you.

No you weren’t. Not fully.

What of it.

You don’t see anythin wrong with pedophilia?

You do?

Yes!

Your morals seem very particular. Picky, even. Why do you not fuck kids? Even though you kind of do.

I told you why.

You like dumb girls though. You like them young, dumb and full of cum. Their intellects must be those of girls younger than them. Hell, a twenty year old might have the intellect of a ten year old. You fuck them, you’re taking advantage.

It don’t work like that.

Tell me how it works.

Kidd Red sighed and stood up, his back stiffer than before. I ain’t gettin into no argument about whether or not I’m takin advantage. Maybe I am, maybe I ain’t. Maybe everone is to some extent. I reckon so. But I will say there’s more to bein older than intelligence and the body. You know there is.

What’s that then? Johnny Black smiled, relaxed and cool.

There’s experience. They’ve lived. They’ve seen things. That’s a kind of intelligence. They understand, where it counts. They understand sex. Yeah, even if they ain’t had it before – although I’ll swear now that my preference ain’t never been for virgins. I like corruptin girls, sure, but I like somethin to start with. Only those that wanna be corrupted! I’m no predator man. I’m just, well I’m just me. They gotta have that inner slut just waitin to be awakened. I can see it in their eyes, all dormant and nestin. And full-blown practiced whores who’ll do whatever right off the bat are a joy, a real fuckin joy to be with.

You like them with understanding too then, Johnny murmured. Maybe a different kind to me, but the same ball park, maybe. They gotta know what’s happening, the more they know it the better. That your cock is a cock, that their body is a body, and the two are together, and it is all real, all happening.

That their asshole is an asshole. Red laid himself back against the wall, and his speech softened.

That my knife is a knife and their blood is caused by it. That their pain is their pain, and it is right and true, though they do not understand why. Or perhaps they do. Perhaps we all do, when it comes to the final moments. I hope so.

Easy now, Red muttered.

Perhaps, just for this matter and nothing more, we’re two sides of the same coin, Johnny mused, stroking his thick stubble. You are the filth wizard.

Ha, I like that. And you’re the fuckin sadist.

Something like that, at least.

Red’s eyes narrowed. Wait a fuckin second, have you just been playin devil’s advocate this whole fuckin time?

Johnny grinned, baring his lion teeth without amusement. I’m not his advocate. I’m the Devil.

Yeah, yeah. Red waved his hand distractedly. Then let’s get to the meat of the issue, right. Stop fuckin about. From everthin you said it seems to say that you think that my refusal to fuck kids is based on preference, nothin more. I’ve denied this, and I got no fuckin more I can say on the matter. It’s about a damn sight more than age of fuckin consent laws.

Johnny rolled his eyes. Of course it is. It always has been. Rule is a madhouse, but the world’s no different, it’s just on a larger scale. You get nations with different AOCs and in each one it’s like that’s the moral truth. Is it hell. They’re just laws, and they lost their ground when relativism took over. Here, it’s blazing daylight, you can’t even see a shadow of the truth. You and me and our two-headed coin, we use our own judgement. Maybe we disagree on each other’s. But we’re thinking for ourselves. I am more than you, of course. You’re pretty much going on instinct, like an animal on heat.

Bullshit. I seen no fuckin judgement from you on any account. You act against consent, I never do that.

Consent is never cut and paste.

What’s that supposed to mean?

Something to take from others. Stick it on your wall, big fucking woop, frame it like a diploma. People don’t even understand their own consent let alone another’s. It can mean anything. You can make it up. Artificial. Build it in a lab. Teach them to nod their heads like dolls. Give them a quiz before you have sex. Go out with them for a year first. Give them a contract to sign. Witnesses and all. Make them study philosophy and ethics for half their life. Fuck it, it’s to no avail. It’s just a sliding scale, different degrees. So slippery, a ride in an eternal swamp. A slide from darkness to darkness.

Johnny realised from Red’s expression that he wasn’t getting far with this line of talking. Forget it, he growled. A different conversation entirely. Try another day. What point are you trying to make?

Uh, right. Um . . . Red tried to summon back his train of thought. Fuck, where’s White when you need him?

Bathroom, grunted Johnny. As usual.

Oh yeah . . . As fuckin usual. Well, my point, yeah. I deny all that child molester shit and always will. It just ain’t in me. It’s more than a preference. I do have morals, believe it or not. No, they ain’t based on no fuckin laws and they ain’t based on history or traditions. They’re home-grown, seein things the way I see em.

Congratulations, Johnny drawled.

But I reckon you don’t have any morals. I never seen no account of em. You don’t even defend yourself. If you push me to say I’m workin on preference alone, then what about you?

Stop dallying about in the mud. Make your point.

I am doin! Kidd Red scratched his head in exasperation. Right, as clear as day here it is. No tryin to be somethin you ain’t. Would you mess about with kids?

No.

Why not? Preference?

It’s not a matter of preference.

Aha!

It’s a matter of will. I don’t have a will for it. No desire, zero.

Sounds like a preference to me. Now it was Kidd Red’s turn to poke away at Johnny Black.

You may as well say I got a preference not to kill myself.

Right. But there’s still this difference here man. It’s about what’s wrong.

What does that even mean? Do you even know what that word means, or why it exists? It’s the shallowest word there is. It changes like an oasis. It’s got no content. It’ll disappear as soon as you get up close.

Stop dodgin the question.

I’m dodging nothing. You wouldn’t see the point if it was an arrow up your ass, Johnny snarled. He put his own back to the wall alongside Red, and he put the tips of his fingers in the pockets of his jeans.

Do you think pedophilia is wrong?

Johnny Black said nothing.

Do you think it’s wrong to fuck kids?

Johnny Black just looked at the floor.

Do you think it’s wrong? pressed Red.

Silence.

That’s it then, said Red, straightening up and beaming, with his hands on his hips. I reckon I got you there. I got you.

Before he knew anything else, within a half-second’s whirl of movement Kidd Red found the sharp blade of a knife held close against his throat. Johnny’s fist was clenched tight around the handle and the serration of the blade nicked Red’s neck, drawing little beads of blood like a dotted collar.

You got shit, Johnny growled, and he was so close their noses were almost touching. Red could smell the whiskey and smoke and death. His eyes were as wide as twin moons.

Say it.

I got shit. Kidd Red’s voice was as meek as a lamb and croaked like a toad.

Johnny Black fucks children.

What?! came the croak.

Say it! hissed Johnny.

Uh . . . Johnny Black fucks children. Red couldn’t swallow with the knife thrust against his Adam’s apple. His mouth was filling with saliva.

Johnny Black rapes kids and then disembowels them.

Johnny Black rapes kids and then disembowels them.

Johnny Black severs their heads and sticks them on spikes.

Johnny Black severs their heads and sticks them on spikes.

And then fucks the stump of the heads.

And . . . fucks the stump of their heads. Red felt sick.

Johnny removed the knife and Red wheezed, rubbing his neck and feeling his fingers come away with spots of blood.

You’re an easy one, Johnny said coldly. Don’t try me again. He strode off, the knife vanishing somewhere on his person. Red could hear the echo of his boots in the street outside the bar, and then continuing in his mind, on and on.

It was in that same bar that Red bumped into his daughter.

His eyes widened at the fifteen year old girl standing hands on hips in front of him. Fuck, I thought you were arrivin tomorrow?

I was done early, weren’t I? The girl blinked long eyelashes at him.

Yeah. Cool. Red grinned widely and put his hand on her shoulder and then took it off again. You look good.

I know.

Lemme introduce you to a hombre of mine.

Okay.

Red took her hand with the polished pink nails and raised it as though she were a princess and he guided her through the crowd and over to Mr White in the corner.

Hey man, this is my daughter. Daughter, this is Mr White. My amigo.

Mr White swallowed. Pleased to meet you.

Hi. She fluttered her eyelashes at him but in all other respects seemed disinterested, and she quickly looked back at Red.

Does she have a name?

No, said Red. I mean, best not have names for the moment. Keep it on the safer side, y’know?

Uh-huh.

The girl stretched up on her pink high heels and Red leaned down to her and she whispered in his ear. He looked at her and she bit her lip. He grinned.

Um, Mr White said. Do you two want to sit down?

Red looked from Mr White to his daughter. I dunno.

The girl put her hand to her mouth and yawned deliberately.

Just for a bit, said Red. I need to get her back to the hotel soon. He looked at her. Can you drink?

What do you mean can I drink.

I mean, uh, can you drink alcohol?

Course I can fuckin drink.

Alright then. He chuckled. I’ll get a round in. He strode off and the girl hovered for a couple of seconds as if unsure of herself and then sat down beside Mr White.

He looked at her and smiled but she was looking away from him. He could see she was not naturally beautiful as such, and certainly not elegant, but very sexually attractive, and conscious of it. Red had told him in in the first days they had met that there were two scales of attractiveness, beauty and sex appeal. There was some correlation. But a very beautiful girl, he said, often lacked in sex appeal. And vice versa. A classically beautiful person would be caressed and fawned over. Thought of sodomy did not so readily enter his mind. As if such women were works of art to be kept unspoiled. Then he had pondered on this and said actually, it is more that such dolls have risen above the depravities of sex. You could see it in their face. The way they walked and talked. He said it was a mutual thing, that he could not imagine the possibilities of degradation within them and they presented no possibilities. He declared there was such a thing as too beautiful. That such women were not mortal, perhaps not even women. Not human. Or perhaps they had become too human. That it was the same thing in the end. They were paintings and he could love them but only as if he were looking at them from afar. A distant viewer in an art gallery. In a crowd of thousands.

Then Red had remarked on the other scale. That one could have a gallon of sex appeal and yet not be so beautiful. That sex appeal was on some other level so less defined, and that nobody could truly explain it to another. It just was. That it thrived, in some way, on ugliness. An ugliness of mind and body. That it involved a step down from the ladder of beauty, the ladders of dignity and grace. That it must be effortless. An animal state of being. That you could not teach it.

The girl catered entirely to Red’s aesthetic. It was if his desires and attractions had formed from observing his own bloodline. Or as though she was designed by his own specifications. The large breasts and large, apple-shaped rear, on an otherwise petite and slim body. A little teenage hourglass. Dressed to display, and caked in the makeup of promiscuity.

She was inspecting her nails and tugging at her skimpy halter top that barely contained her heaving breasts. Mr White felt a stirring in his loins and reminded himself severely that she was too young for him.

So, um, you’re his daughter? Mr White didn’t know what to say to this silently disdainful nymph before him.

Yep.

What’s he like as a dad? He never really struck me as the sort. If you don’t mind me asking . . .

The girl shrugged.

Do you see him often?

Shrug.

There was a silence, awkward on Mr White’s side, and then he tried again. So what kind of stuff are you into?

Stuff?

Do you have any, um, hobbies?

She gave him a look. Sex.

Ah. Mr White settled back against the wall. Fair enough.

Nothing more was said until Red returned with the drinks.

You guys been gettin along?

I think so, said Mr White. The girl rolled her eyes.

The following fifteen minutes consisted of the following. Red chatting idly with Mr White. Red’s daughter frequently whispering things to her father that Mr White couldn’t hear, but that made Red look very pleased. And Red and his daughter drinking their drinks much faster than Mr White.

And then they both made their excuses and left. Mr White sat there for a few minutes and then left the rest of his drink and went into the bathroom and masturbated. There was some feeling of anger, he remembered, but he couldn’t direct it towards anything. A formless anger. Afterwards he looked in the mirror at his reflection and twitched. A thin, jagged crack ran through the mirror and through his body. Blank eyes stared back at him and neither him nor his reflection truly recognised each other.