Grimoire Diabolique

“Well, good, ’cos I gotta say I had my eye on you since I stepped on the bus. You’re about the handsomest thang I seen in a while. What I mean is we can make a deal.”

Rosser felt dead standing there. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to be in any proximity at all to this woman.

“Oh, say hi to my darlin’ little boy,” and then she held her baby up. It was the first time Rosser got a direct look at the infant, and—

He nearly gagged.

It was a fat baby—six months old, eight months, he wasn’t sure—and the child’s head looked twice as large as it should’ve been and was slightly warped from what Rosser assumed was some congenital affliction. Rolls of fat under the chin, around the neck, bulbous cheeks. Tiny beady mud-brown eyes seemed hidden in folds of still more fat. The baby’s lips looked inflated, like a pink sucker, smeared with chocolate. Mucus crusted its nostrils. Saliva glazed its chin.

The baby even had some moles on his neck.

Rosser was not a man prone to profanity, but when he got a good look at the child, he thought: That is the ugliest motherfuckin’ baby I’ve ever seen in my fuckin’ life…

Then the baby looked dully up at Rosser and blew out a wad of bubbly, Pop-Tart-flecked spit.

“His name’s Shots.” The woman held the baby’s hand up, puppeting it to wave.

“Shots?” Rosser had to question.

“Named the little fella that on account of that’s what I spent the whole time drinkin’ when I was pregnant.” She giggled. “Shots of vodka mostly, and Black Velvet whiskey.”

I guess that explains the warped head, Rosser concluded.

“Say hi to the nice man, Shots. Hi, Mr. Nice Man.” The woman beamed. “Ain’t he just the cutest li’l thing?”

It’s a fucking abomination…

“Where you from, sweetie?”

“Uh, Utah,” Rosser lied.

“Oh, wow! A Canadian! It’s easy ta tell you’re new in town. I’se kin tell by yer shirt. Guess you used to be a businessman, huh?”

“Used to be. Yes.”

The baby, now, seemed to be glowering at Rosser. If disdain could possibly be conveyed at so young an age, this was it. A pudgy pinky picked a booger from its nose and wagged it at Rosser. The other hand picked at a neck-mole.

“But back to what I was sayin’,” Maxine continued. She munched on a Pop Tart as she spoke, crumbs on her lips. “Bein’ that you’re such a fine-lookin’ man, I’ll give ya a deal, a sweet one.”

Rosser just stood there, numb. He looked appalled at the baby.

“I’ll give ya a blow-job right here—a fine one, at that—fer just twenty-dollars.”

“No. Thank you.”

A coy smile. “Oh, I know, just like all men. Playin’ hard ta get. You wanna see the goods first.”

“Oh, no, that’s really not nec—”

But already she’d pulled a breast out from her top: wide as a dinner plate, and flat. Rosser thought of a pita bread with a nipple. The nipple had several wire-like hairs sticking out of it. She flapped it for him, as though he’d find the gesture enticing.

“Wanna see my pussy, too? Here, take a peek—”

“No no no, really that won’t be nec—”

She traversed her bulk on the bench, pulled her knees up, and there it all was: a quagmire of rank flesh and hair. If anything, the monstrous gash looked like a wound, brownish folds around a pucker. As much as Rosser tried to avert his eyes, some cruel and arcane impulse wouldn’t allow it. He stared into the horror. At the nexus was a hole that glimmered within a rooster-wattle majora, and as if on cue a string of what could only be semen oozed out. The image came to mind: a toothless old man drooling.

“Oh, don’t mind that little bit’a nut. Ain’t no different from yours. Don’t know why guys get the heebie-jeebies ’bout another fella’s come. It’s just fluid. You kin fuck me right here fer, say, thirty.”

“No. Thank you.”

“All right, Mr. Hard To Get. Twenty. And ya ain’t gotta use a rubber ’er nothin’ like that. I’m clean.”

Oh, I’m sure. Pristine. Immaculate. Rosser just said, “No, thank you. I, uh, I don’t have any money.”

She maintained her poise, her knees aloft. The baby, meanwhile, greedily sucked at the broad, flat bag of skin that was her breast. The woman’s knees looked like beaten faces. Now, that string of semen was dangling.

“Aaaaaall right,” she conceded. “Since yer so good-lookin’, you kin fuck me fer free. But’cha gotta eat my pussy first. Deal?”

At this, Rosser nearly laughed. Lady, I would commit suicide before I would perform the act of cunnilingus on you. That’s right. I would BLOW MY FUCKING HEAD OFF.

“No. Really. Not today,” was the only response he could summon that wouldn’t be entirely rude.