system with the rag, spraying window cleaner on the screen and wiping it until her reflection shone through. She then threw the rag into the trashcan and grabbed another, repeating her frantic wiping on every piece of furniture, every knick-knack, and every trinket in the room. Everywhere she looked there was grime and scum, tops of the baseboards, beneath the stove and refrigerator, underneath the couch and between its cushions. She ran the vacuum slowly over the carpet until she was sure all the dust and dander was gone. Then she poured water and cleaning fluid into the steam cleaner and retraced her path over the carpet until it looked as if it had just come from the showroom floor. She poured three capfuls of ammonia into a bucket of water and lowered her mop down into it. Then she began furiously mopping the floors, walls, and ceiling. When she was done the house shined like a show model.
Rosie appraised her work with admiration. Satisfied over her accomplishment she went upstairs and stripped off all of her clothing, dumping them into the washing machine along with a capful of laundry detergent. She looked her body over, sniffed her hands and armpits and wrinkled up her nose.
“Filthy!” she declared with undisguised revulsion.
She sprinted to the shower and began furiously scrubbing at her flesh, using various soaps and bath gels before grabbing the bottle of bleach and dumping it over her head, wincing in anticipation of the burn. Various cuts and abrasions sang out in agony as the bleach seared her flesh and she scrubbed herself raw. When she finally stepped from the shower, she smelled as fresh as new linen.
She dressed in fresh clothes and went out onto the porch to watch as the garbage man struggled to heft her two trashcans into the trash truck. She winced when he dropped one of the cans and piece after piece of her drunken adulterous husband tumbled out onto the sidewalk. Blood flooded from the upturned receptacle and stained the sidewalk crimson as first his head, eyes still wide in surprise, mouth open as if still trying to lie his way out of it, then his legs, arms and finally his bloated torso splattered onto the street behind the garbage truck. Blood rolled up onto the driveway in a wave as blood, organs, and intestines came boiling out of the tremendous gash bisecting the corpse’s stomach and chest. Last, the gore-streaked weed whacker, the pruning shears, and the meat cleaver slid out of the garbage can on a slick trail of blood and viscera.
The two garbage men were shocked but managed to avoid throwing up and further soiling the blood-soaked street. They cautiously approached the second trashcan. The braver of the two stretched out his foot and kicked the can over, leaping back as the woman came sliding out leaving her skin and much of her flesh crumpled up at the bottom of the can. They both lost all pretense of bravery when the woman whose breasts, ass, and vagina had been removed, carved out so that the white of ribs and pelvic bone gleamed through where her sexual organs had been, turned eyes wide with terror towards them and began to scream. They hopped back into their truck and peeled out of the cul de sac, leaving the bloody mess behind.
“Filthy!” Rosie shrieked, her voice trembling with the force of judgement, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. She turned and went back into the house to collect her cleaning supplies.
Tina looked in the mirror and felt her stomach roil with revulsion. She looked at her reflection and saw billowy rolls of adipose tissue dripping from each bloated appendage. She saw her own hideously distended torso enclustered with grotesque lumps of bulging fat and felt sickened. She didn’t know how Hank could make love to this horrible corpulent cow; why anyone would want to. Her pudgy cheeks were so swollen that she could barely see her own squinty, piggish eyes. The image she saw staring back at her looked as if she’d been stung by a dozen bees, or like
Diane Duane
BA Tortuga
Sofie Ryan
Kate Collins
Sapphire Knight
Catherine Coulter
Lily Harlem
James Cook, Joshua Guess
Nina Coombs Pykare
S. E. Lund