The Pigtown Chronicles: Chapter 3.14 – Mercy in the Darkness

For Jimmy, time was counted in the silence between each strike of the flogger, between the hollow scream of the shade, and the next thud of the leather on flesh, or whatever passed for flesh on Marlon’s body. No, not Marlon. This thing was not Marlon. Just a shadow, just an imposter, just a fraud. Jimmy had never wielded a flogger before, and in his haphazard strikes, he often struck himself in the process. The sharp sting of the leather was enough to remind him of his own gullibility, his inaction, the weakness of his love. The darkness of the prison never changed, there was no sign of dawn, or day, just the perpetual twilight of the lamps in the cavernous space. He’d lost count of the strikes several times now, but he had to be close to a thousand hits. His muscles were aching, but each time he struck the shade it would reform, look a little less like Marlon, a little less like anyone at all, and that was enough to push him onward, to keep hitting him, and if the pommel of the flogger hadn’t come loose and fallen off, he might have have never stopped. It did fall off though, and on the next swing, with his grip loosened by fatigue and sweat, the flogger flew from his hand, bounced off Marlon’s shoulder, and landed behind the cross a few yards off.

Jimmy let his arms hang for a moment, sweat dripping from him, and stared at the shade, who stared back. The look from the shade was still furious and angry, but the fear was more present now, and when Jimmy saw that, a flutter of pleasure shot through him, enough that his cock got hard, and he pulled back, tried to rein himself in, tried to figure out what he was even doing.

He was alone, aside from the shade. At some point, the Warden and the other two guards must have left him there to his own devices. He didn’t understand why they would have left him, or where they might have gone–the guards had restrained him, after all, and now he was completely unsupervised. 

“Well, come on then Mr. Guard, you’re not finished already, are you?” the shade said. Like his face, it resembled Marlon’s, but was no longer quite perfect. 

Jimmy looked over at the shade, and scowled at him. “Why did you call me that?”

The shade laughed at him, and the rush of anger in his chest, running all the way up the back of his spine, and then down to his cock and balls, confused him. He didn’t like feeling confused, he didn’t like this…this prisoner laughing at him. He should punish him, beat him, fuck him, torture him–

Jimmy shook his head, the intrusive thoughts nearly overwhelming him. He gripped his head in his hands, felt just how large they were on his face, pulled them away and looked down. This was wrong–his arms were wrong. Jimmy had never been a muscular kid, just a low effort twink really, but the forearms he was staring down at were bulging with muscle, as were the biceps, and they were hairy, and this wasn’t his body, it couldn’t be his.

“You’re one of them now,” the shade said, “You might as well just accept it. No one gets out of this prison–no one other than Shadow, I suppose, but that was an exception, I think. I wanted to drain you myself, but we can’t always get what we want. Knowing that you’re trapped here, same as me though, I can live with that, mostly.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jimmy said, his voice gruff and deeper. Was that from the shouts and hollers he could remember leaving his throat while he’d been wielding the flogger, or was it really different? There was no mirror anywhere that he could see, but running his hands over his face, feeling the stubble verging on beard, the angular jaw beneath that, the heavy brow, the short cropped hair, he could feel what he would see well enough. “I don’t…want to hurt you, I just wanted him back, but you…you took him from me, and–”

“I did. I took him from you. You want vengeance. Come on then, let’s get this over with.”

Jimmy did want to hurt him, badly. Wanted to flay him until he no longer looked human, until he was just a quivering pile of shadow, shapeless, something they could throw in a cage and forget about until it acted up again, and then they’d beat it again, over and over, until…

The thought faded away. The pain was the point. The torture was the purpose. That’s what his thoughts were telling him, but he still had enough of himself there to question it, push back against it. He didn’t see where that would lead, didn’t know what that would get him. Certainly not satisfaction or justice. The shade was saying these things, goading him on, but for all his projected confidence, the shade was terrified. Jimmy could smell it on him, and while part of him was hungry for that fear, he also found it curious. He stepped closer, looking at the shade now, at how Marlon’s face was still there, but a bit off, no longer symmetrical, no longer perfect. But still his, still the young man Jimmy had loved. He took the shade’s face in his hands, leaned in and kissed him on the lips, tenderly at first, then pushing his tongue in like he always had with Marlon. For a moment, the shade reciprocated, and then turned his face away. “What are you doing? Why would you do that?”

“I loved him. You were part of him, so I…think I would have loved you too, and you were part of him, and I think, you love me a little too, or a part of me. If I hurt you, if you lose…his face, then he’ll be gone, forever.” He used one thick hand to bring the shade’s face back over, so it faced him. “I would never want to hurt him, and so, I don’t think I want to hurt you either.”

He kissed the shade again, and he resisted for a moment, and then relented, pushing back, just like Marlon would have, Jimmy coming closer and pressing his cock against the shade’s own, feeling them throb together, when a hand landed on his shoulder and hauled him away. Jimmy lurched around and found himself facing the Warden, his face furious, and he laid a heavy slap across Jimmy’s face. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, guard?”

“I–I’m not–” another slap, this one hard enough to send him stumbling back a couple of steps, cheek red and stinging. He licked his lips, and tasted a bit of blood from where a ring on the Warden’s finger had bit into his flesh.

“Apparently I was too optimistic in leaving you unsupervised. You seemed to be coming along so nicely. Pick up the whip, and punish that fucking shade, guard.”

The thoughts in his head grew more intense, almost a scream, the hatred behind them heating up his chest like a furnace. He nearly grabbed the whip, desperate to push it out of him, away from him, at anyone else. If he held onto it all, surely it would kill him, he would catch flame and burn to a cinder. He resisted though, he didn’t want to hurt anyone, especially not that last bit of Marlon that still remained, not that, anything but that. The fever broke after a moment, and he could see with mostly clear eyes again. The Warden seethed, picked up the whip himself, but instead of turning it on the shade, he cracked it across Jimmy’s chest, raising a red welt and a line of blood down one hairy pec and part of his belly. He shouted in pain, spun around in time for the next strike to land across his back, and he screamed in agony.

“I have no patience for guards who will not do their duty down here. If you won’t wield the whip, then you’ll be under it, do you understand?”

The Warden came up to him, and shoved the handle into his hand. “Use it. Punish the thing, it deserves it, you know it does.”

Jimmy turned to face the shade again, the anger welling up, even more powerful, washing so much away with it. He closed his eyes, and cracked it across the shade’s body, leaving a deep gash down the front that took a moment to heal entirely. It hurt though. It hurt just as much as when the whip had been turned on him, he couldn’t do this, he couldn’t keep doing this. He would be here forever. All around him, he could hear the screams of men being tortured, the laughs and moans and grunts of the guards thrilling in it. He raised the whip again, then tossed it to the side and rushed forward, grabbing at the restraints holding the shade to the cross. They were simple buckles, unsecured with locks thankfully, and he got one arm free before the Warden grabbed him and dragged him back, throwing him to the floor. That was enough for the shade to phase out, sliding free of the rest in a matter of moments, before the Warden could grab his light. The shade was gone into the darkness, and Jimmy chuckled.

“You fucking–do you have any idea how fucking valuable those are down here!” the Warden shouted, rolling Jimmy over onto his back. “Flesh–flesh can only take so much, but those things, we can beat them, over and over, and they always come back, fresh and vibrant–and the screams!” He spit in Jimmy’s face, and his hands wrapped around his neck, closing tight, “You’ll be in a cage then, you’ll be my personal punching bag from now on, you’ll regret this for the rest of your life, you’ll–”

That was the last thing that Jimmy heard, before the darkness shrouded him, and he was gone.

At first, he thought he’d been choked out. He was awake, though, and the darkness around him wasn’t a void–it was textured, and there, a short distance from him, was the shade. “He loved you, you know. I loved you too, both of you, shade and man,” he said. “You freed me, I freed you. We’re even.”

The darkness opened up underneath him, and Jimmy landed on the pavement below hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. He rolled over onto his back and there the shade was, standing over him. The look in his eyes was pure hunger, desire, lust. Then he was gone, and Jimmy was left in a strange alley, alone. From the look of the sky, it was just past twilight. Not dawn though–evening from where the remains of the sun glinted in the windows over him. He tried to stand up, but the exhaustion overwhelmed him at last. The pavement didn’t make for comfortable sleep, but he passed out all the same, unprepared for the Pigtown hangover that awaited him the next morning.

The Pigtown Chronicles: Chapter 3.13 – Portrait of a Lover

Few things in art can survive the light of day. Samuel always worked best at night, often by candlelight, sketching and drafting and musing. He would be satisfied, until he woke up and saw what he’d done in daylight, and almost always trash his work from the night before. The nights held potential and mystery, but there was no space for that under the sun. On Friday morning, the light came in through the studio window, worked its way across the floor as the hours passed, and landed on Samuel’s face around eleven in the morning. He sat up, head throbbing from a hangover unlike anything he’d experienced in his life, looked around the studio, and wondered if any of that had been real.

It couldn’t have been real, there was simply no way. He tried to think back, and pinpoint the moment when things had last seemed reasonable. Bringing that boy back from the bar, probably. He must have fallen asleep while he was sketching on him, and imagined the rest of the night in his mind. There was no other explanation, other than all of that actually happening, and there was no way that could be true. His stomach growled. There was nothing in the way of food here in the studio, but plenty of places around would be serving lunch. He got himself put together, mostly, but struggled with his reflection in the mirror. It was the light, of course, shining there on him now, showing every little wrinkle and mar. He’d never liked himself, never felt comfortable in his body. Too much of himself to manage, none of it settling on his bones ideally. His art helped push out that frustration and desire, but it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t fix himself, after all.

He ran his hands under his shirt, feeling his belly there, his paunch, his tire, then worked around to his ass, which was far smaller. He thought about how it had felt, moving that man’s flesh in his dream, and tried it–but nothing happened of course. It felt foolish in the daylight, even trying. He got himself put together, then headed downstairs and out onto the sidewalk, looking for something to eat.

He found himself retracing his steps from the night before, after he’d left the boy in his dream, and was struck by something by the end of the block. Everything from his dream, it was a perfect memory. Usually dreams didn’t have that sort of detail, but he could recall all the shopfronts, the street names. He felt something squirm in his gut, shaded by the building looming over him. There was a deli he liked if he turned left, or if he kept going straight, there was a cafe a few blocks further, past the alley where his dream had happened. He continued straight, picking up his pace somewhat, that squirm in his gut growing stronger.

He came upon it, across the street, and just stared at the wall, at what was growing from the wall, what was inside and a part of the wall. The sunlight was falling on it, and he could see the bricks expand and contract slightly, like it was breathing, like it was alive. A hole in the wall, an ass suspended among the brick, it was there. It was there, and he’d made it, it hadn’t been a dream, and in the light of day, he found himself feeling sick, the squirm growing stronger now. He stumbled to a trashcan and tried to vomit, but nothing would come forth. 

He might have gone closer to investigate it further, but before traffic cleared and he could jaywalk, another man passed the alley, sniffed the air, and was pulled in. Samuel watched as he dropped his pants without hesitation, slid his cock in, and gave the hole a good pounding. In a couple of minutes he finished, pulled his pants back up, and continued on his way, shaking his head, as if trying to push off a dream. The hole shuddered, leaking something viscous onto the asphalt below, and then stopped, waiting for another man to use it. Samuel watched the spectacle in horror, but when it was finished, discovered he was hard as a rock, knowing what he’d done, and he fled down the street towards his apartment. 

He had to leave. He didn’t know where he would go, but it wouldn’t be long before someone discovered what he’d done, and if they found something to link him to the scene, he didn’t know what would happen. Was it murder, if the wall was alive? Was it manslaughter? Something else, some crime no one had named as of yet? He didn’t think of Parker, in his hurry home. He’d forgotten all about their fight the day before, how he’d planned on breaking up with him, none of that mattered anymore. Parker didn’t matter. Samuel couldn’t tell him, couldn’t show him what he’d done. It was only when he’d stepped into the apartment, and caught the scent of Parker’s unmistakable gym aroma–though it was much stronger than it usually was–that he recalled all of it. He had no way of making a clean escape while he was here, he’d just have to pack a bag, tell him he was moving out, and do his best to not give him the sense that Samuel had done something horrific.

He steadied himself, rounded the corner to the bedroom, and found himself faced with something else, something so preposterous that it made his own acts from the night before outright plausible. Parker was sitting on the edge of the bed, or at least, it was someone who vaguely reminded Samuel of Parker. The massive bodybuilder was easily twice the size that Parker had been when he’d left the apartment the day before. He’d added a foot in height, and every muscle was thick and corded, skin riddled with stretchmarks. There at his feet, were two blobus things that Samuel could only surmise had been men at some point. Their limbs were atrophied and withered, they seemed to move simply by undulating their amorphous flesh. But there was something else, something behind him, a shimmer in the air, where the light coming in wavered and writhed about. 

“There you are, I was beginning to wonder when you’d show your face, coward,” Parker said.

“Parker? What…what the fuck happened to you?”

“Don’t worry about me, you fucker–get the fuck over here, it’s time I showed you your fucking place.”

Samuel wasn’t about to take a step closer, and yet, his feet betrayed him, shuffling him forward. He could smell it now, the musk. It was intoxicating, rolling off of Parker’s body in waves. He could almost feel it pulsing in the air, in time with the wavering of the light, with the heaving of the blobs sucking on Parker’s feet. It was all tied together, it was all tied to something, something behind him, but it was too bright, he couldn’t see it, he couldn’t bear it. The closer he got, the foggier his head became, his own breath heaving now in the same rhythm. He’d stepped inside the painting suddenly, become a part of it, the light wavering not just behind Parker but all around him. With one hand, he pushed, felt the boundary there, pulled it apart, and he saw it again, for a moment. That beast, that brute looming behind Parker that he’d seen in the restroom, but it was so much closer now, so much thicker and vibrant and alive, swelling up and taking up his entire vision for a moment, before he was able to push it away, before it could see him too clearly. 

But looking at Parker, he could still see it, see it inside him, throbbing there, pulsing and brewing and swirling. He was close enough to touch him now, and Parker allowed him to do so, Samuel running his hands over his hot skin, the muscle thick and taut and solid, his cock snaking around Samuel’s thick waist, nearly three feet long now, and tightened around him, pulling him closer still. The musk was heady and humid, oppressive on his lungs, one of Parker’s massive hands closing around Samuel’s throat, tight enough to make him gasp a bit, vision tunnelling as he fought for air. The other hand tore off Samuel’s clothes, leaving him in tatters, the massive cock now hunting for Samuel’s own cock, ready to latch on and drain him of whatever he could find, leaving him as just another suckling thrall–only for Samuel to reach down, take the cock in his hands, and Parker felt something run through the flesh of his cock, a shudder, and it cramped, the muscles running along the shaft seizing up and convulsing, making Parker shout in pain. 

Samuel pulled himself free of Parker’s grasp, took the cock from around his wrist, and ran his hands over Parker’s thigh, the same pulse radiating out from his palms. “So much flesh…” Samuel muttered to himself, eyes bright with something between greed and lust. He looked up at Parker, but beyond him–Parker took a swing at him, furious at the resistance this pudgy loser was showing him, that no one else had been able to muster, only for Samuel to grab it in his hand, and his arm went limp. Beyond limp, the bones in his body had simply melted away, leaving a floppy arm hanging at his side. The sensation was somewhat painful, but more nausea inducing, and Parker grabbed at the limb with his other hand, horror churning in his gut. 

“I saw you,” Samuel said, “I saw you, but I thought you were something else–but you were mine all along, weren’t you? You were…trying to show me…”

What happened next, Samuel couldn’t quite recall. His hands had simply followed some arcane knowledge, some deep, hidden desire buried in his mind. Parker was no longer a man to him, no longer anything beyond raw material, flesh to use in bringing forth his vision. Parker found his body contorted and twisted, stretched and molded, and when Samuel was satisfied, frozen in place–mostly. When Samuel stepped back to assess the work, Parker tried to howl back at him, scream or shout or anything. His mouth was frozen in an open roar, teeth now sharp, jaw dislodged, and hanging too wide, brow thick and heavy, eyes dark. His muscles were further inflamed, but tensed–unable to release from their contraction, permanently cramped, trapping Parker in pain from every part of his body. The only bit of him that still moved was his cock, wrapped around one of his thighs, balls churning and pumping out a load every few minutes. It drooled down to the thralls below, who were now attached to Parker’s body, a part of him, growing out of his feet and calves, fighting for the pleasure and sustenance of their master above, oblivious to their new fate. 

It wasn’t perfect. It was never going to be perfect, but it was there. A portrait, he realized. A portrait of the Parker’s he’d always seen, the simmering rage, the greed, the lust, the envy, the size, all of it. There in the light, he’d created it openly, under the sun. He opened the blinds, no longer afraid of the light, or of Parker. Parker was his now, would always be his. Anyone could be his, from now on. He called Rod again, and this time, the proprietor answered. 

“Yes? What is it Samuel?”

“I…I did it. At least, I think I did. Twice. I–”

“Say no more, not over the phone. Where are you?”

“My apartment, with…I…”

“I’ll be over soon, stay there, understand?”

“Yes…yes, of course.”

“Do not talk to anyone else, understand. No one…will understand, not yet.”

“I don’t understand it myself.”

“Of course you do. You always have.”

Rod hung up on the other side of the line, and Samuel took his time admiring Parker, making a few small edits here and there as best he could. He could grasp his power now, but his control wasn’t particularly fine-tuned. He remembered, as a child, how he had fumbled with paints, trying to make the blobs of watercolor do what he commanded, unwilling to be patient and wait for it to dry. He pulled away again, worried he was making it worse, ruining the raw force of it as it was, and retreated to the bathroom, where he again looked at himself, pulled away the remaining rags, and again laid his hands on his body.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He was unprepared for the disappointment, and utterly flummoxed by the rage that welled up within him immediately. He went out to the bedroom, stared at Parker again, at the portrait of Parker, really, and thought about melting him down into a puddle of goo on the floor, but pulled back. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he couldn’t mold himself.

Rod arrived, Samuel answered the door, tears still fresh in his eyes. Rod just pushed past him towards the bedroom, took in the sculpture there, and gaped in awe. “It’s…beautiful, you did see it, you saw it too…”

“What is it? What is it I even saw?” Samuel asked, “And why can’t I change myself? What the fuck did you do to me?”

“What indeed, Rod?” 

The two of them looked over at the third voice, and there, in the darkest corner of the room, bending enough light around him to create a veil of twilight in the room, was Shadow.

“I knew I had smelled something of that before, last night. I didn’t think there could be another one of you, not without going deeper.”

“Neither did I,” Rod said, “I’d heard you were loose again, Shadow. It’s nice to see you. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visitation?”

“Has he shown you the other one yet?”

“Other one?” Rod said, and looked over at Samuel. 

“I tried to call you earlier. I…last night, I made…something else. Down the street from Depot, in an alley.”

“The authorities are already investigating it.”

Rod cursed.

“No need to be so concerned,” Shadow said, “I find this one rather fascinating, and I have a feeling he will be enough to take some of the attention of the precinct off of me for a moment or two–or longer, if we can strike a deal. I want a house, Rod. I want protection, for me, and my shades.”

“Fucking hell Shadow, that’s asking a fucking lot,” Rod said.

“You can do it.”

“Of course I can do it, but…fuck, what are you offering?”

“Storage. In the darkness. I assume you wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise of the little artist’s debut gallery showing sometime down the road? Give me my house, my legality, and I’ll care for this one’s creations in the meantime.”

“Houses have rules, Shadow. You can’t just go around freeing any shade you feel like, you won’t be…you, if you have a house.”

“Change is a way of life, here in Pigtown,” Shadow said with a shrug, “I can change too.”

Rod rubbed his temples for a moment, eyes squeezed shut, then heaved a sigh. “Fine, I accept. Say you accept, Samuel.”

“I don’t, I mean–”

“Just fucking say it!” Rod said.

“I accept! I…I guess…fuck,” Samuel said.

“Where is it, the other one? Exactly?”

“I know where–I watched him craft it.”

Rod turned to Samuel, took his hands in his own, and Samuel felt the same chill of his own flesh in Rod’s–he knew, somehow, he wouldn’t be able to change him, no matter how hard he tried. He wasn’t flesh–he was something else. Samuel found himself wondering if he, too, was made of something else. “Don’t make anything else, not until I get this sorted. No more than a day. Alright? Just…stay here. I can’t tell you how important you are, you aren’t ready to understand, but I’ll explain as much as I can soon.”

Samuel nodded, and watched as Shadow stepped up to Parker’s portrait, Rod joining him in his veil of twilight. The darkness condensed, then disappeared, and both of them were gone, along with his art–and Samuel felt a visceral tug of anguish, seeing it gone. He panicked, but regained control of himself before he could leave. He sat as still as he could until he realized how hungry he was still, and devoured everything he could find in the kitchen, starved for something he couldn’t explain, a hunger he’d felt ever since he’d first lusted after a man, a carnal, fleshy hunger lodged in his gut. It was unfurling, into what he didn’t know, but as scared as he was, the beauty of its movements deep inside him held him rapt through the day and the night, until Rod’s return.

The Pigtown Chronicles: Chapter 3.12 – Something New

It had been a long night, but then, every night was long and fraught. Rumwell rolled over in his king sized bed, only occupied by him this morning. It had been another busy night, when he and his cops didn’t have as much time to satisfy their own vices, occupied as they were with containing everyone else’s. The high point of the evening, certainly, had been the capture of one of Shadow’s shades, which had been sent down into the jail for the warden to deal with, though where there was one, there were bound to be more. It was starting all over again, then. He could only hope that they might keep up, before the shadows were overrunning them in the midnight streets.

He rubbed his eyes, ran his fingers through his inch long beard, stood up, bent back and cracked his spine. His cock was already hard and leaking, and with the house to himself, he thought he might take some time for one of his more rare pleasures. The commander usually smoked cigars at the precinct, but at home, he was fond of a contemplative pipe. He threw on his robe and went to his study, where a rack hung on the wall with nearly fifty pipes on it. He took down one of the larger ones, the briar rubbed a bit smooth from his worrying fingers, then went to another shelf of pipe tobaccos, and rummaged about for a moment, until he pulled forth a particular tin, opened it up, and cursed. Barely enough for a quarter of a bowl. He never let this blend run dry, usually. With all this about Shadow, Pigtown adding another half block each month in every direction, and all of this freshmeat around, he must have forgotten. Disappointed, he considered one of the other blends for a moment, but set the pipe back up on the rack, returned to the bedroom, and dressed himself in a clean uniform. A cigar lit, he set out with plans for coffee, breakfast, and a stop by Marshall’s to refill his favorite tin.

His usual table on the sidewalk was reserved for him, and a number of other officers on the night shift were there, mostly in twos or threes, recovering from their night. A cub wearing booty shorts and an apron brought Rumwell his coffee–black with one sugar–checked that he wanted his usual, and skipped away. The cafe was connected to a bookstore, and already there were a few busy perverts in the aisles, magazines open in one hand, masturbating onto the floor with the other, in full view of the sidewalk. In another life, Rumwell would have taken issue with that, but in Pigtown, you had to choose your battles. He drank his coffee and ate his breakfast, and instead of sitting for a few more minutes to read the paper, as he did most mornings, he settled his bill and walked down the street, stepping into Marshall’s Cigar and Briar. 

One of Marshall’s regulars was inside, and the two of them were chatting about some gossip or other. Marshall’s new boy was at the back of the shop restocking, puffing on a cigar, and looking a little haggard–he still probably wasn’t quite used to the long days and nights under Marshall’s care. Rumwell was a bit uneasy about the developing situation, but Marshall hadn’t asked for his advice, and the boy seemed sensible enough. If he ended up causing trouble, there was always room in the jail, after all.

“Morning Rumwell, here for some cigars?” Marshall asked.

Rumwell stared down the regular until he got the hint, and vacated the store with a hasty goodbye. Then he said, “I need some more of the blend, I’m out.”

“You know, I was hoping I’d see you soon,” Marshall said, “You hear about what happened down the street, between the Baron Apartments and that old laundromat?”

Rumwell was familiar with the spot, a dim alley where a good amount of fucking got done each night, usually by guys who were travelling between the tamer clubs at the edge of Pigtown, like Depot, and the ones a bit deeper in, like The Hideaway. “No one’s filed a report, no,” he said.

Marshall stood up, and stretched up. “Kyle, I’m gonna go get us lunch, watch the counter for me.”

“Yes sir,” Kyle said, and came to the front of the shop. Rumwell and Kyle hadn’t been properly introduced, but they sized each other up. 

“You’re Rumwell–the guy in charge of the precinct?” Kyle asked him.

He nodded. 

Kyle looked like there was something on his mind, but just gave a little nod to Marshall. “I got it handled, Sir.”

“What about my blend?” Rumwell asked.

Marshall went to the back of the shop, opened up one of the locked cabinets–one that not even Kyle had a key to–took out a glass jar about three quarters full, and packed a tin with it. He came back, but didn’t hand it to Rumwell right away. “Why don’t we take a walk?” he said, and left the shop. Rumwell, with a huff, followed after. He hated when Marshall toyed with him.

Marshall had been smoking a cigar in the shop, and he passed one to Rumwell, who lit up as well. “What is this about, Marshall?” he asked, “You aren’t seeking to change the terms of our arrangement, I assume?”

“Certainly not,” Marshall said, and handed him the tin. “Your supply is well secured, so long as I’m free to do as I will–which I assume I still am?”

“Within limits. Just mind your little boy in there, and make sure he understands the rules.”

Marshall chuckled. “What rules are there, in a place like this? Still playing cops and robbers like little boys in the street, that’s all you are.”

Rumwell thought about a bitter retort, but bit into the cigar instead, and they walked the next couple of blocks in silence, until they passed the apartment complex, and arrived at the narrow alley beside it. Marshall gestured to the wall, in the side of the vacant laundromat, where there was now something else there. Spray painted above it were the words “Hole in the Wall” and there, embedded in the brick, was a human ass, at about the right height to be fucked. “This is what you wanted me to see?” the Commander said, “Someone’s stuck a fuckdoll to the wall, so what?”

“Look a little closer.”

Rumwell stepped up, to the side of the building, and found himself becoming a little unnerved as he did. If it was a fuckdoll of some kind, it was a very realistic one. He could smell something on the air as well, a scent that any resident of Pigtown would know well, the smell of cum, lube and heat that any hungry hole could give off in a dark backroom–but somehow sweeter, more inviting. He was a couple feet away from it now, and the ass in the wall, which had been a little too low for someone of Rumwell’s height to fuck easily, seemed to tense, and rise up the wall by a few inches, the hole winking at him, drooling either cum or lube down the crack and onto the pavement below. He noticed then that he had his cock out and in his hand, rock hard and leaking himself, and pushed the temptation away. He zipped back up and took a few steps back, watching the hole in the wall relax again, sliding back down the wall.

“It’s…alive?”

“I don’t know,” Marshall said, “I mean, you’re familiar with my work. They aren’t alive, not like they were, and certainly not like this.”

“Have…you seen anyone use it?”

“A regular said they saw someone fucking it. The guy came, zipped up and walked off, nothing seemed to have happened to him that he could see. It certainly smells like it wants you to fuck it. I haven’t partaken myself.”

Rumwell pulled out his phone and called the precinct. “I need a squad here on the corner of Seventh and Wellington, we have a possible aberration to quarantine,” Rumwell discussed it for a few minutes while Marshall examined the hole in the wall himself, touched it, felt where the warm flesh became warm brick became cold stone. Rumwell hung up, and then turned to him, “What do you make of it?”

“Not sure. Not my kind of craftsmanship. It’s not an aberration itself, I don’t even know if it was done by an aberration. There’s nothing missing.”

“What does that mean?”

Marshall shook his head. “Look, I don’t know, and I don’t have the time. I’m just a concerned citizen looking to stay on the precinct’s good side is all. All the regulars have been talking about it this morning–half of Pigtown passes this way to get to my shop.”

“So now we not only have Shadow on our hands, but some other new aberration out of the blue.”

“I told you, this isn’t an aberration. This…is something new. It’s not the first thing either, that seems different. Something’s happening around here. There’s an energy, lately. I don’t know how to explain it. You know I don’t agree with everything you’ve done here, but I know that chaos isn’t good for anyone. Now, I gotta get back to the shop,” he said, and pushed the tim into Rumwell’s hand. “Have a good smoke, Rummy. Let me know if I can help.”

Marshall left as the cops came running up to where Rumwell was standing. Some made a perimeter, others started investigating. The Commander supervised for an hour or so, but as he figured, it didn’t match the M.O. of any of the aberrations currently active and at large. It was something, and someone, new. If there was something that Rumwell didn’t like, it was new wrinkles in Pigtown. It meant it was getting stronger. If the precinct couldn’t figure out what was coming and how to contain it, it wouldn’t be long before the whole city looked like that cafe and bookstore–or worse. 

The Pigtown Chronicles: Chapter 3.11 – Jimmy’s Descent

As Jimmy descended down into the jail below precinct 27, it was difficult to shake the sensation that he was passing into some other place, somewhere that didn’t quite exist in the same sense that the station, or the street. Going into Pigtown felt similar, perhaps. Crossing that liminal space between the normal world–if that world of suburbs and skyscrapers and children could be considered normal–one could sense that the rules had shifted. Each person might describe this differently. Some felt a new spring in their step, a sensation of opened opportunities where none had existed before. Others felt it as an oppressive threat, a hidden terror around every dark corner, though few could resist the parallel urge to see what those terrors might be. 

Descending that first stairwell, Jimmy found himself in another hallway, identical to the one up above, but the light was dimmer, the concrete cracked, walls bulging and pulsing, almost as though they were breathing out the moans and screams that came from further below. The cells here were not entirely empty like the ones above, though there were only a couple of prisoners here. One clad in a full rubber catsuit, who seemed to be struggling with it fruitlessly, looking for a zipper or closure at the back of his neck that no longer seemed to exist, his panic rising, though the bulge of excitement in his crotch could not be discounted either. Another fellow was sitting with his back to the wall, high on some party drug, both hands wrapped around a cock rubbed red and raw, with a huge sack resting on the ground between his legs. Another gout of cum erupted from the head of his cock, rolling down the shaft, and as Jimmy stared, he swore he saw a pulse, or a wave try to extend itself from the puddle of cum accumulating around the man, and then recede, almost like the semen itself was alive. He hurried past them both, the men far too preoccupied with their own problems to notice Jimmy, who made his way to the end of the hallway, down another identical stairwell, and again, found a hallway lined with cells.

This time, though, the lights were dim and flickering, more cells were occupied, the walls seemed to have grown broader. This was enough for Jimmy to feel that he ought to turn around and climb back up, but when he turned around, all he found behind him was a solid brick wall. This was, of course, impossible. He had stepped off the stairwell just a moment before his bravery failed him, but when he pressed on the brick, it was solid and unyielding, though the stone and mortar was quite a bit warmer than the air around him, nearly the same temperature as his own flesh. He shuddered, certain somehow the wall was feeling him back, hardening further, thickening, or perhaps engorging. He retreated away down the hall, towards the staircase at the other end, hoping, perhaps, that one would rise upward. He kept his eyes straight ahead, not willing to look at the strange inhabitants of the cages on either side, at their oddities, the ways they now failed at being entirely human, the reasons, he assumed, they were all caged now. He had not yet seen a guard or officer of the law, which only increased his sense of unease. The staircase at the far end only sunk deeper into the earth, spiraling now. He no longer had any sense of being beneath the precinct above, but he no longer had much choice but to venture further. The oppressive urge to sleep that had been so constant for hours now had left him, and even if it had remained, he doubted that he would have been able to at all. He continued down.

Each level was larger than the one before, each time the staircase would seal up behind him, the light grew dimmer, the path through the cages more labyrinthine. The cells were no longer only built into the walls, but now also free standing. In large areas, there would be open spaces with a cross, a stand holding whips and floggers, or any assortment of other BDSM gear, some that Jimmy recognized from his early ventures into porn, and some that he certainly did not. It was a couple levels further down that he saw a guard for the first time, with a prisoner bound to a cross, lashing them roughly, wearing something between a police uniform and an executioner’s garb. He hit behind a cage and took a long way around, now finding himself wondering if he’d slipped into hell, or was perhaps dreaming all of this in a chair up in the waiting room. One level deeper, he was spotted by a pair of guards about to unlock a cage and drag a prisoner out for punishment. Jimmy tried to run, but the two guards chased him down and tackled him, the prisoners around him jeering and hooting and calling, shouting for the guards to rape him, to beat him, to shove him in their cage and let the prisoners have their way with the freshmeat.

In the end, all they did was tear off his clothes, collar him, chain his ankles and wrists together, and march him deeper still into the jail, but that was enough to have Jimmy in tears, begging for understanding, trying to understand why they were doing this to him. The guards would simply slap his ass if he got too loud or whiny, and tell him that they were taking him to The Warden, to see what was to be done with the freshmeat.

Jimmy was led deeper into the jail, down to levels where limiting walls could no longer be seen in the darkness, where the cages and dungeons were truly a maze. The guards moved through the space unerringly, the captives cringing away as they approached, or pushing forward, scarred and bruised, begging for more. The guards were more numerous, but were far outnumbered by the captives. They would punish one, shove it back into a cage, and move onto the next without a moment’s rest. They came, at last, to a man larger than any of the other guards he had seen thus far, smoking a cigar, with a silver badge on the chest of his leather shirt declaring him the jail’s warden, and the guards told him that they had found an oddity–freshmeat roaming the upper levels, and didn’t know what to do with him, beyond strip him, bind him, and bring him to the Warden, of course.

The Warden looked at Jimmy, a bit puzzled himself, took a drag off his cigar, and asked him what he thought he was doing, trespassing in his jail. Jimmy, after a few false starts, managed to get out most of the relevant details, starting with Shadow stealing Marlon away, his troubles with everyone forgetting, filing a report at Precinct 27, his dream, his encounter that night with the shade that resembled Marlon so closely, who was then taken by the cops down here, into the jail, where Jimmy had gone as well, once the precinct had mysteriously emptied for the evening. The Warden listened rather intently, and Jimmy concluded his story with a request–he just wanted to know what he could do to get his friend back to the way he’d been. There had to be a cure, certainly.

The Warden just laughed, a deep belly laugh, hooked a lead to the collar around Jimmy’s neck, and tugged him away into the dark. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Freshmeat,” he said, “but one thing I can tell you, for certain, is that your friend is gone.”

The Warden said nothing else for a few minutes, until they rounded a bank of cages, and there, bound to a cross, was Marlon–or at least, the shade that had taken his place. He was still in his leather gear, unlike most everyone else in the jail who had been stripped naked–aside from those with clothes that could not be removed, or which the guards had secured on them purposefully. The chains binding him were not mere steel, but in the dim light of the jail, were glowing bright enough that Jimmy had to shield his eyes for a moment to let them adjust. Marlon was struggling against them, and as he did, he seemed to be warping, his body trying to slide away into the darkness around him, only to be dragged back to the chains holding him in place.

“Shades are a menace,” The Warden said, “Ever since the first, Shadow, who you had the unfortunate chance of encountering, we’ve been struggling to contain them. We’d done well, securing Shadow and caging most of his converts. We’ve been hunting him since his…escape, and were lucky to catch this one early, but I suppose we have you to thank for that, in one way or another.”

“But…what happened to Marlon?”

“That thing devoured him, more of less. Took his place. We don’t know what happens to their remains, but we know that the shadows grow as the flesh wilts, the shades taking their form, and their place, once they’ve drained enough from the people they used to follow around. They pretend well enough, but here, watch,” The Warden said, took the whip wrapped around his shoulder, cracked it hard against Marlon’s chest, and the whip bit into the leather like it was somehow soft, the shade letting off a screech far outside something a person could make. “See? It pretends, but it’s nothing like us. If it were up to them, all of us would be devoured. They want nothing beyond our complete decimation. Likely this one pursued you due to a lingering emotional connection, but don’t be fooled–if you hadn’t escaped, that shadow under you would have taken your place by the end of the night.”

Jimmy just stared at Marlon, the shade staring back, eyes full of disgust, but also fear and anguish. Could it feel those things, or was that just another trick, trying to earn his sympathy, hoping it would try to free him? The Warden unhooked the chains securing Jimmy’s wrists and ankles, and lastly, removed the collar around his neck. “You, on the other hand, aren’t even a resident, and so are beyond our jurisdiction. I’ll be sure to mention the security breach to the Commander, when we next speak, but you are free to go–my guards will escort you back to the surface.”

“What happens to that? What happens to everyone here? None of this can be legal, none of this is even possible.”

“Ah, the possible! Your laws hold no sway here, neither those of man, nor those of nature. We hold back the things that would devour this whole city if we weren’t here to stop them,” The Warden said, “the shade, along with the rest of our prisoners will remain here forever. They are aberrations. Any one of them could warp the surface irreparably in a matter of nights. Pigtown would become a Hell on Earth without me and my fellow guards keeping the filth in line.”

Jimmy couldn’t seem to turn away from the shade, bound to the cross. The fury and rage and sorrow he felt were as limitless as the darkness and as loud as the screams surrounding him. Without even knowing why, he took a flogger from a stand, strode forward, and whipped it across the shade’s face. It screeched, deep lines appearing in the surface, returning to their proper form in a few moments–almost. It had his face. His lover’s face. It was the greatest insult. He whipped it again, the Warden holding back one guard who stepped forward to stop him, and shook his head.

The jail would always be short on guards–there were simply too many in Pigtown that required containment. If the freshmeat wanted to help, so be it. The Warden would be happy to add him to the ranks.

The Pigtown Chronicles” Chapter 3.10 – All Alphas Need a Beta

Parker, with his two thralls following behind him down the dark street, didn’t look entirely out of place in Pigtown, though usually that sort of sight was more common deeper in, closer to the heart. He still got more than a few gawks from the men he passed by, and even then, none of them were really seeing him for what he truly was. It was around midnight when he got to Hugh’s apartment and pounded on the door–but no one answered. Figured, he supposed. Not many folks would be at home at this time of night in Pigtown, unless they were bringing someone back with them for the evening, and Hugh would more likely be out on the street selling his wares in the various bars and clubs. There was a chance, though, that his stash of BHB was still inside the place–after all, it wouldn’t make sense to carry a bunch of vials of the stuff around, since Hugh usually stuck to party drugs. He tried the door, but it was locked. He placed his massive shoulder against it, hand on the knob, and gave a bit of a push. The door caved it around the lock, and he and his globby thralls were inside.

Something was off, though. The lights were on, he could smell the remnants of food in the air. He poked around through the apartment, and sure enough, there was Hugh in his bed, covers pulled up to his chin, shuddering, looking like he’d caught cold. Parker sniffed the air, and he recognized the scent now. Hugh was…his. Somehow, he knew that. Not quite the same as the meek little sucking things he’d made at the gym, though he supposed that Parker could probably suck him dry just as easily as the others. No, he was something else, and Hugh popped his head up from where he was lying, nostrils wide, and licked his lips. “P-Parker? I…something’s wrong, I–fuck, I…”

“Don’t worry about it Hugh, I know what you need, alright?” Parker said, lumbering around the side of the bed to where Hugh was lying. “But you need to do something for me first, alright?”

Hugh nodded, one hand reaching for Parker’s cock, already sensing why he was feeling so ill. “What the fuck happened to you Parker? What did that stuff do to you? I…I felt great, for a couple of hours, and then…I can barely move now.”

“Do you have more of the BHB?”

“I…a couple more vials, yeah, but that’s it.”

“Where were you getting it from? What’s your source?”

“Just…a friend. Another dealer, usually works the gyms, steroids, that sort of thing. We exchange samples on occasion.”

“What’s his name?”

“Aaron–don’t know much more than that.”

“And where does he get it? Who makes it?”

“I don’t fucking know Parker, please, I…I need a load from you, I’m so fucking hungry.”

“You have to fucking know something!” he said, “I’m barely going to make it through the fucking weekend with a couple of vials. Where do you meet up with him?”

“At The Emerald Spa. I deal there on Saturdays to the party boys, and he hooks up some jocks there with steroids at the same time. We chat between deals. I don’t fucking know where he’s getting it. He said it was from somewhere in Pigtown, but I don’t know more that that, you have to fucking believe me,” Hugh struggled and pushed himself upright with one arm shaking a bit, and that was when he finally noticed the two other figures who had entered the room now. “What…what the fuck…”

“Don’t mind them,” Parker said, “They’re with me.”

“What the fuck are they?”

“I don’t fucking know, Hugh. I’d like to get some fucking answers, so I know what the fuck is going on with me, but you don’t fucking know shit!”

Hugh flinched at the harsh tone, and Parker felt a jolt of delight. He was afraid of him. He should be afraid of him. Everyone should be afraid of him, everyone should know that he’s in charge, that he’s the fucking alpha. He toyed with the idea of throwing back the sheet and sucking Hugh dry right there and then, but didn’t. As much as the weak little drug dealer disgusted and infuriated him in the moment, he did still need him. He had no idea who Aaron was, and after that moment of withdrawal back in the gym, he had absolutely no interest in repeating that experience again. The only way he was going to avoid it, though, would be to get a regular supply. “Alright, I suppose you still have some use left in you,” Parker said, and shoved Hugh over onto his back in his bed. “That, and I’m fucking horny as hell. Let’s get you feeling better with a good dose from my alpha cock.”

Hugh looked like he was going to be a bit sick, when he saw the size of Parker’s new cock, and felt it sliding up and down his ass crack, lubed up with a generous layer of precum. He could feel it though, the tingle from the massive muscle man’s cum as it seeped into his skin, and he let out a little moan, cheeks flushing pink, feeling his own sex drive kick into gear. Parker pushed the head into his hole, and then with a few grunts, drove the rest of his cock in deep, Hugh biting down on a pillow to keep from screaming, knowing how much he needed this, worried that if he didn’t get it, he was going to die. Already, he could feel the withdrawl symptoms beginning to recede, but it wasn’t like before, where he felt just a simple burst of energy. He felt hot all of sudden, flushed with heat, and then came the first muscle spasm in his arm. 

“What the hell, it fuckin’ hurts,” Hugh said, gripping his arm, his bicep flexing beyond his control.

“Of course it fuckin’ hurts moron, it’s a big fuckin’ dick.”

“No, not that, something’s wrong, it’s different this time, pull out.”

Bitch, I don’t pull out for anyone, I’m just getting started,” Parker said, and rammed in deeper, feeling his cock pump out some extra pre into Hugh’s guts. His thralls, attracted to the scent coming from Parker’s sex, climbed up onto the bed. One squeezed down, planted it’s greasy lips on Parker’s hole and started rimming him, driving a thick tongue into his Alpha’s hole, while the other oozed its way up onto the small of Hugh’s back, sucking on Parker’s muscular chest, drinking down the milk still seeping from his swollen muscle tits. Parker shuddered in pleasure, fucking faster now, no longer thinking of Hugh as anything more than just a hole.

Under him, the muscle spasms were spreading through Hugh’s entire body, from his arms, to his back, to his neck, to his chest, to his abs, down his legs and even in his feet. Each time, the muscle would clench, squeezing hard, and then start pumping, and with each pump, he could feel it swell, adding mass before relaxing again, exhausted but also somehow invigorated at the same time. Parker fucked faster and faster, and finally came, pumping a massive load of cum into Hugh’s guts, and when he did, he felt the same spasms begin again, his already pumped muscles inflating even larger–and only then, did Parker look down, past the fat thrall sucking on his tits, and realize that Hugh was growing larger and more muscular.

Not nearly as muscular as he was himself, of course, but Hugh had never been in much shape. Rail thin, with a small paunch, and rather short, Parker had always thought of him as a bit of a troll, and assumed he’d gotten into drug dealing as a way to extort sex out of guys, since he likely wouldn’t be able to get any from his looks alone. But while the cum hadn’t done anything to help his face, his body had gone from rail thin to thick with muscle after a single fuck. Parker pulled out, and Hugh pushed himself up and off the bed, looking down at himself, astounded. “Holy fuck, you fucking me into some fucking muscle beast, what the fuck is in that shit?”

“I don’t fucking know, but you’re gonna get me both of those vials, right fucking now,” Parker said.

Hugh didn’t even question the order–he went right to his stash, pulled out both vials, and handed them to Parker, who took one, found a needle, and injected it right into his ass. He could feel the first couple twinges of withdrawal. Filling Hugh up like that had taken a good amount of vitality out of him–he’d have to be careful with that from now on. But smelling Hugh on the air, he could tell something else, somehow. “Hugh, stand on one leg,” he said.

Again, without a moment of hesitation, Hugh shifted over and stood on one foot–and stayed there. From the look on his face, he was a bit confused himself, as to why he had done that, and why he was still doing it. “I…can’t put my foot down.”

“Holy fuck, you have to do what I say, don’t you?”

“I–wait, no fucking way!” Hugh said, struggled a bit more, but couldn’t get his foot down on the ground, no matter how much he struggled.

“You can put your foot down, but only after punching yourself in the nuts,” Parker said.

“No, what?” Hugh said, but his fist connected with his sack, and he bent over, moaning from the self-inflicted punch. “Why the fuck did you make me do that?” he said.

Parker just laughed, “becuase it was fucking funny, that’s why,” he said, “Alright, I have something I need to take care of, but I’ll be back tomorrow to give you another dose–probably before you start feeling shitty again. In the meantime, I want you to connect with Aaron–just with text. Don’t fucking tell him anything about me or what’s happening with you, just say that you’re interested in selling more BHB, and you want to get in contact with his supplier. I don’t care what you have to say, I want you to find out who’s making it and where, got it? If you don’t have the fucking info by the time I get back, I’m going to take you from this little muscle pig you’ve become, and you’re going to become one of these flabby little monsters instead–got it?” He said, grabbing one of his thralls by the scruff of its neck and hauling it’s fat body up into the air, waving it a bit in front of Hugh’s face.

Hugh nodded, “Understood…Sir.”

“Good instincts,” Parker said. “Now, I have some business to take care of. Be a good beta and get that info, or else.”

Hugh nodded, and Parker left the apartment, both thralls in tow. He found his phone, sent off a text to Aaron asking him what it would take to get that info, and then sat around waiting for the reply. In the meantime, he groped his own cock, amazed at how large it was, how it instantly rose up, demanding attention. He stroked himself off, always listening for the sound of a text coming in, but if he was going to be an Alpha’s beta, then he might as well get to enjoy the benefits in the meantime.

The Pigtown Chronicles: Chapter 3.9 – Love’s Shadow

“Jimmy? Are you there?”

Jimmy could still hear the voice in his head as he drove down the freeway, heading for the city proper. He had snuck out of his room in the middle of the night, and was on his way to Pigtown–all because a dream that he was somehow certain wasn’t a dream at all.

“Please Jimmy, you have to help me. He’s hurting me, please, Jimmy, please!”

It had been days since Jimmy had thought about Marlon, since he’d even recalled being in a relationship with anyone at all at school. But then he’d woken up in his bed, or at least, in the dream, he had woken up in his bed, and he’d sensed something in the room. He’d only felt something like it once, in the darkness that night on the sidewalk. Terrified, he’d tried to sit up, only for something to land right on his chest, squeezing the breath out of him. There, in the corner of the room, a figure, a shadow, a silhouette of someone, he couldn’t see who, but it was their doing, they were crushing him, killing him, and the voice, he’d heard Marlon’s voice…

I don’t know how much longer I can last, I need you Jimmy, I love you–”

It had taken all of his willpower, all of his disbelief, but he’d managed to reach out, grab hold of the cord of the lamp on his bedside table, and click it on. The weight had lifted, he’d heard a scream come from the being in the corner, and it had disappeared with the light, leaving Jimmy sitting up in his bed, panting and heaving for breath, the sound of Marlon’s voice fresh in his ears, his face fresh in his mind, and again, the shame, the crushing shame of abandoning him, of forgetting him.

Who knew if it had been real or not. It couldn’t have been real, but then, none of it could have been real, any of it, which is why it was constantly in a state of unraveling and unbeing. It was just a dream, and it had to be more than a dream. If he’d stayed in his room, if he’d fallen back asleep, it would have been nothing more, but he knew, somehow, that if he went to Pigtown, it might become something more than that. A message. A sliver of hope.

It was two in the morning when he drove through the liminal space between the city and Pigtown. Outside the district, the streets had been empty, but here, they were full of activity. He had no idea where to go, other than, perhaps, to the place where it had happened. He parked the car a block or so away from Depot, and retraced his steps to the same dark sidewalk where Marlon had simply vanished into the darkness. Jimmy’s heart was pounding in his chest, and he hesitated as he approached the doorway where the man had stepped out from that night, that shadow. He stopped, turned to go back to the car, or to the precinct, or anywhere other than here, but there, behind him, was him.

No–not him. Another man in full leathers, but a bit shorter, and younger–though it was hard to tell, since the only thing he could see of flesh was the bottom of his face, his eyes and brow shaded by the muir cap on his head. “You came. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten me.”

“M-Marlon?” Jimmy said. “Is that you?”

“Yes and no,” the figure said, and took a step forward. As he did, the streetlight behind him flickered, and went dark. “I had almost forgotten you too, my love. I had forgotten how good it had felt, when we’d crossed on the bed while they’d kissed. How good our darknesses feel together.”

Jimmy felt something stir at his feet. He looked down, and saw his shadow was bent at a strange angle in the light where he was standing. The light was above and a bit in front–his shadow should have been small and behind him. Instead, it was in front of him, one hand outstretched towards Marlon, though Jimmy was making no such movement. He took a step back, and the shadow snapped back into place with a sickening sensation, something gut wrenching. He could feel it, suddenly, the longing, perhaps even deeper and more distraught than his own had become, tempered with an anger he couldn’t begin to fathom. His own shadow was furious, furious at him, but he had no idea why. 

“Marlon, what happened to you? Where did you go?”

“I’m not talking to you!” the man spat at him, with just as much disgust as he’d felt from the shadow at his own feet. “You’ve held him down long enough. You escaped one time, but not again.”

Marlon raced towards him then, and Jimmy turned and ran off down the street away from him. He kept to the sidewalk at first, but the streetlight ahead of him flickered off, turning into that same pitch black hole that Marlon, his Marlon, had fallen into. He swerved around it into the street, where the light was more diffuse, and Marlon followed him, shouting and cursing at him, his own shadow clawing at the ground below him, trying to slow him down and hold him back. It was only a block away from the precinct. Perhaps, if he could get there, he would be safe. 

There was one other close call when Marlon swerved into a dark corner and disappeared, only to reappear ahead of him, rushing from the side to cut him off. He tackled Jimmy to the ground, and he saw the lights begin to dim around him, almost like the darkness was trying to swallow him down into the very street, his own shadow rising over to smother him. He managed to fling Marlon off him, get up, and dash around the corner. If there hadn’t been a patrol coming out of the precinct at that moment, he might not have made it, in the end. But there was, and Jimmy shouted at them, “Shadow! Shadow!” hoping that would be enough to get them to see what was happening. Sure enough, the three burly cops heading out on patrol all turned in his direction at the word, and each of them pulled free a massive flashlight from their belts and ran towards him. Marlon was so preoccupied with his prey, and too new to realize the dangers of the precinct’s cops, that he didn’t consider turning back. He knew this was his only chance to get a hold of Jimmy’s shadow, to free him, so they could be together as they always should have been, away from their fleshy masters. 

The first beam struck him, and it seared through him like a laser. He howled in pain, twisted away into the darkness, gathering up as much as he could to try and reform and protect himself. The beam swung and found him, and a second as well, pinning him in the light as the third officer came around behind and brought his own beam to bear on Marlon’s back–only it was looking less and less like Marlon, and less and less like a person at all, the longer the light was on it.

Jimmy just stared in horror as the thing that he’d known as his boyfriend, the man he’d come to save, melted away, lost definition, becoming flat and matte and small. One of the officers carefully set his light down on the ground, making sure it remained on Marlon without giving any space for a shadow to form that it might escape into, opened up the backpack he was wearing, and pulled out a plastic globe about the size of a basketball. He split it apart, and careful to make sure his own shadow made no contact with the shade, he scooped the small black creature into it, and locked it. One officer picked up the other flashlight, and together, the three of them carefully walked the globe back to the precinct, back past Jimmy, who just stared at them, and followed behind, wondering if he could help, if maybe, just maybe, they could fix his friend.

Inside the precinct, the previously calm waiting room was now anything but. Every chair was full with leather and rubber clad miscreants of various flavors, all of them staring at Jimmy, wearing just a pair of sweatpants and the tanktop he usually slept in. The hunger radiating off them was enough to curdle his guts. The three officers shoved everyone out of the way and took the shade back behind the desk and down the hall before he could catch up–only for an officer to grab him by the collar and haul him back. “Where the hell do you think you’re going, kid? What the fuck are you even doing in this part of town at this time of night!” the officer shouted at him. He was nothing like the men he’d seen lounging around the office during the daytime–he was muscular, and furry, his uniform clinging to his body, looking more like a stripper version of a cop, perhaps, though it was clear he wasn’t about to take anything off. Jimmy stammered out as best an explanation as he could, told him that he’d spoken to a detective just a few days prior about his friend going missing, the same friend that they had just turned into some weird shadow creature and taken away.

It was clear the officer didn’t believe him, and didn’t particularly care in any case. “Take a number, take a seat, and when its called, an officer will help you–but this is a restricted area, especially for freshmeat like you.” At that word, a few of the guys in the room–not the officers, but the other men waiting–all hooted and hollered, only for the officer to glare at them, and shut them right up. “Better yet, boy, you should go home and get back to bed. This is no place for you.”

Instead, Jimmy took a number, and since every seat was taken–though a few men offered to let him sit on their laps–he parked himself on the tile floor against the wall, and struggled to stay awake. He would start to drift off, feel something pull at him–not his shadow, but some other force he couldn’t quite describe, and it would be enough to panic him, wake him up, and each time he opened his eyes again, the waiting room would be more and more empty. He never saw anyone taken back, nor did he hear anyone’s number called, but he stuck his ground, staring down the officer behind the desk, as well as the one guarding the hallway who had chastised him, only for sleep to threaten again. He would check his phone, but the minutes began to crawl along as dawn approached, almost like time refused to progress until he fell asleep. After one final close call, at four fifteen, he snapped back awake, only to find the waiting room was empty aside from the two officers at the desk. He stood up, yawned, brushed himself off, walked up to the desk and slapped his number down on the table. “I’m done with this. Tell me what you did to my friend, and how I can fix him. I fucking want answers.”

The two officers looked at each other, surprised he’d lasted this long. 

“The only one who can give you those answers is the commander, but I don’t think you’ll like what he has to tell you,” the officer said, his tone a bit softer. “You really should just go to sleep, and go home.”

That was reversed, wasn’t it? Jimmy was so exhausted, all of this was making even less sense than usual. “No, I want to talk to him.”

“Alright alright, look, he’s just wrapping some stuff up. Just a few minutes, and I’ll take you to see him,” the man said, yawning. “Have a seat.”

“I’ve been sitting for hours.”

“So then you can sit a little more, go fuckin’ sit down.”

Jimmy did as he was told, and the two of them stared each other down, both of them blinking slow, the end of the night bearing down on them, urging them to close their eyes and rest. There would be more nights in Pigtown, after all. Jimmy resisted the urge, though barely. He noticed, once, that the officer had begun to snore behind the desk, and the next time he pried his eyes open, he had disappeared–simply vanished from one moment to the next. Jimmy told himself he must have just nodded off, but the clock hadn’t advanced at all–in fact, it didn’t seem that time had advanced as much as it should have. 

There was an analog clock above the desk, ticking away, but when Jimmy got up to investigate it, the second hand wasn’t advancing at all. Just trying to push past some invisible barrier, frozen a few minutes before dawn. The whole police station, which had been so full of raucous life earlier, was now silent aside for Jimmy. He went past the desk to the hallway, and there, he saw a little sign pointing down a stairwell that said “Jail”. That would be where they’d taken Marlon, probably. He went down the stairs, and found himself in a small collection of cells, but like the rest of the station, they were also empty, though there was evidence that they hadn’t been earlier–some abandoned clothing, an empty bottle or two. It was eerie. No longer was it fully silent, however. He heard sounds coming from another stairwell at the end of the jail, leading down to a sub basement, apparently. 

He told himself that he should go, that he’d come back in the morning for answers, but something else called to him. He wanted to know now, and he knew, come morning, much of this would feel like a dream, like some wild fabrication, no longer fitting into a reality where the sun could banish shadows so easily. He started down the stairs into the jail proper, hoping he’d find the truth down there, in the darkness.

The Pigtown Chronicles: Chapter 3.8 – The Hole in the Wall

Samuel pushed his way out onto the street, taking a few deep breaths of the cold night air. He hadn’t even gathered his coat from the studio before he’d abandoned the young man he’d picked up from Depot, but he hoped that the chill might settle him, ground him for a moment. He flexed his hands, and tried to shake the sensation of that young man’s flesh, how it had bent and twisted, how fresh it had felt, throbbing and alive and it could be so many things, so much more than it was. He picked a direction and walked away from his studio, hands shoved down deep in his pockets, both for warmth, and because he was afraid that simply brushing up against any of the men sharing the sidewalk with him would draw the desires and sensations right back to the surface, where he might not be able to stop himself from doing something beautiful.

Despite the hour, the sidewalks of Pigtown were bustling. He made sure to give them a wide berth, but found himself looking past the gear, the clothes, to the flesh beneath, wondering what it would feel like, what it would look like, what it could look like. He had moved through so many mediums as an artist before this, both in two dimensions and in three, looking for something that could effectively communicate the visions he had in his mind, and now, each person passing him looked like a pigment. He thought of what he could do with them alone, he wondered what might happen if he took those two, and perhaps a bit of that third, and blended them all together. That skin, covered with that hair, stretched over those muscles, with the bones hollowed and shortened, perhaps. He had to forcefully remind himself that they were people. People! He slipped into the mouth of an alley to avoid a couple walking hand in hand down the sidewalk, and followed them with his eyes, their two hands melding together. They were close; they could be closer. They could be one, or many. He could articulate their desire with their own bodies. It would be an exquisite artwork.

There was a sound behind him. He turned, and there against the wall, one leather clad fellow had shoved a young cub up against the brick, yanked down his leather shorts, and was driving his cock into his hole. Helpless, Samuel just watched them fuck He had many of these sorts of acts on these streets and in these alleys, and yet, he had never seen them like he now did. The physicality of it, the pistoning, the sound of the flesh meeting and undoing and opening and leaking and crashing. He wanted to walk over and strip them of their clothes, push them together and pull them apart again, different, put them into perpetual motion, a testament to this one moment. 

He wondered what might happen to them, their internal lives. Perhaps the spirit inhabited the flesh, some separate thing that would be expunged in the process. Maybe the mind simply was the body itself. He could pry open the skull, peel it back, crack it open, spread it apart, pick and choose the bits he desired and discard the rest. Perhaps something new would come forth, some new consciousness, a new being, glad to be alive, the synthesis of flesh giving birth to something more than the sum of its parts. Sex was a desire for closeness, after all. Intimacy. To be inside someone, because the mind could never fully penetrate another, not as one could with their body. As he watched, and thought, the man came in the cub’s hole, pumped a sizable load inside him, and without a word, detached himself. The union came apart and he slipped out the mouth of the alley and down the sidewalk, not even giving Samuel a glance as he passed. 

The cub lingered a bit longer, still recovering, and turned around to lean against the wall, his own cock hard and excited. He glanced around, saw Samuel staring at him, and flashed him a smile, turned around and bent back over against the wall. An invitation, it would seem. He knew he shouldn’t. It was too risky, too dangerous, but there, he saw something, again. Something like the throbbing, undulating flesh in the VIP suite of Depot, something like that vision of Parker in the restroom, that moment he had experienced as terror at the time, but which he now thought of as something else entirely. He stumbled forward into the dim light of the alley, reached out with his hands, and felt the hot, young flesh, kneaded it, groped it, the young man moaning in pleasure and excitement. He wanted it, the flesh wanted it, wanted to be taken and used and warped and satisfied. 

Samuel didn’t know how he did it, exactly, any of it. He came around behind the young man, reached up, laid his own hands on the young man’s, and pushed them against the brick, and then pushed the flesh into the brick itself. The flesh did not disappear, and neither did the brick–you could say, perhaps, that bits of the wall came alive, you could see where the skin began to flake and turn red, almost like a sunburn, where the stone began to give slightly. The young man felt it happen, without pain, tried to pull his hands free, but couldn’t. Samuel ran his hands down his arms, pressing them against the wall, merging them together, the stone and mortar warm and flexing, hard and rough to the touch, yet with give, all the way to his shoulders, the young man’s face pressed hard against the rough surface now. Samuel stepped back for a moment, considered it, then picked up one leg, while the young man tried to kick, but rather than deal with resistance, Samuel simply pushed it, warped it, muscle and bone and tendon all melting down into one mass inside a now floppy leg, then shoved it against the wall, into the wall like the young man’s arms. First one, then the other, leaving him suspended there, horrified and confused.

Samuel pressed a hand against the man’s head, gently, but he wanted him aware. If he simply pushed his head and brain into the brick, he would mostly understand himself as a wall–but he wasn’t a wall. He would be a hole in a wall. He pushed the man’s head down instead, shoving it down into his neck, into his chest, down deep into his guts and groin, then pushed the upper part of his body against the brick, continuing the process, angling the body up, arching the small of the back, ass now available and eager, cock and balls still hanging below. Those it wouldn’t need, as a hole. He gripped around the base of the cock, tighter, the flesh constricting then coming away. He pushed the now detached member into the eager hole, then hollowed it out, feeling the flesh shudder as the nerves joined, growing more sensitive now. He pushed his hand into the hole, pulled the testes up from the inside, rewired them, and when his hand came free, so did a gush of precum drooling from the hole onto the asphalt below, the flesh shuddering from its new orgasmic pleasure. He laid the hands on the small of the back, the head inside still addled and terrified and confused. He eased it, simplified it, converted the bits of the mind dedicated to that which no longer mattered, and turned all of its attentions to the hole that it was now. No need for higher order thinking, no need for those old senses of smell, sight, or hearing. All was touch and taste now–nothing else mattered, nothing else could even be experienced, or understood. 

He stepped back, admiring his new work of art. There, suspended in the brick wall of the building, was simply an ass, gaping, winking and drooling precum, eager to be filled, meant to be filled, flesh with no other purpose beyond that simple drive and desire. The pleasure and excitement that Samuel felt now that the deed was done was impossible to articulate, but as it eased and settled, it curdled into shame and horror as forbidden pleasures often do. He stepped back up to the hole, ran his hands over it, wondering how he could reverse what he’d done to the young man, bring him back, but he couldn’t feel it, he couldn’t see it. He had erased that old form from existence. It was gone, he was gone, and now, there was just a hole in the wall, nothing else.

“You’re a new one, since I’ve been away,” a voice said, and terrified that someone had observed what he’d done, Samuel whirled around, an explanation forming on his lips, as a leather clad fellow stepped out of the shadows at the deep end of the alley. The brim of his muir cap was pulled low, casting most of his face in shadow, aside for the sly grin of his mouth. “Don’t mind me, now. If you need to feed, feel free. I was going to take him once he was alone again, but this has been much more exciting.”

“Look, I…I don’t know what I was doing, alright?” Samuel said, “No one would believe you if you said anything anyway.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me telling on you, I’m no friend of authority. We’re compatriots, really. A couple of aberrations, as they like to say. Not my favorite word, really, but rarely do we get to decide what we are called.” The leatherman stepped forward, sniffed the air, and then his mouth turned down slightly. “No, not…what are you? I’ve never smelled something like you before. Something very new, it would seem.”

Samuel turned away from him then, reached the sidewalk and headed back towards his studio, but ahead of him, from a shadowed doorway, the darkness condensed, and out stepped the leatherman from the alley–though there is no way he could have gotten there so quickly. Samuel came up short. “How did you do that?”

“You walk away from me when I’m asking you questions, and then have the nerve to expect answers of your own? That seems rather rude,” the man said.

“I don’t have an answer for you! I don’t–I’ve never done something like that before. I’m an artist, I…it just…happened, like that. I saw it, and I made it, and…”

“And you got nothing from it?”

“What?”

“You didn’t…feed on it? Take something for yourself?”

“I don’t–no! It wasn’t like that at all.”

“Curious.”

They looked at one another for a moment, and then the leatherman said, “To answer your question then, since you were kind enough to give me what you could, my name is Shadow. I thought we were…similar, and while I think we still are, we are not quite the same. Still, I find you interesting, and won’t be eating you anytime soon.”

Another man came down the sidewalk, passing close, and the same darkness that had collected in the doorway, opened up around him and Shadow, and they seemed to disappear–at least from sight. There was a scream, though it seemed rather distant, and after a few moments, the darkness fell away, and Shadow remained, though the man was gone. A flat thing of darkness seemed to scuttle off into the night, but it could have just been a glamour in the light. “Much better–I was rather famished. It was a pleasure to meet you, in any case. I’ll be interested to see how you…develop.”

Shadow stepped back into the darkness, and when the light faded back in, he was gone. Samuel hustled his way back to his studio, wondering how much of that had been some nightmarish hallucination, or if he was dreaming on the mattress in his studio with that young man, or if perhaps all of that had in fact happened. Inside, the young man was gone, as Samuel had known he would be, somehow. Exhausted, and yet sleepless, he sat down at his desk, looked out the window to the streets below, hands quivering with excitement. He’d made it. Art–a true art, from deep inside himself, for the first time. He sent a text to Rod, just a location, nothing more, and that was the last thing he recalled clearly before waking up in the morning, alone on the mattress in his studio.

Suggested Story: Adventures Off Base

I’ve started taking suggestions for short stories again, over on my new Sponsus page! Here’s one I wrote this month, for someone who requested some boot worship and army men. If you enjoy it, there’s more to be found over there, and I’ll be taking suggestions for October starting tomorrow!

Jameson Army Base wasn’t where you wanted to get shipped off for base camp, but there was a reason it received a fair share of recruits. It was in the middle of nowhere, flyover country, attached to a small town whose fortunes were pretty much tied to the base and everyone on it. It wasn’t glamorous, but there were also no real distractions. When this latest batch of fresh recruits were given their first permission to go off base for a weekend, none of the young men were particularly thrilled. The bar on base was generally well regarded. The man reason to go off was to head for the strip club and hopefully get laid with a dancer after parting with a chunk of paycheck, or go to one of the rundown bars in town and look for a cute girl who wanted out of town, and was willing to marry an army man to do it.

Eddie Westfield didn’t have either of those ambitions in mind. He was a little older than some of the other recruits there, had grown up in a small town not too different from this one, fell in with the wrong crowd for a few years after dropping out of high school, and part of trying to turn himself around was taking one of the few exits that existed these days for fuckups like him: the army. When the weekend was announced by Drill Sergeant Rugger, he had made it clear to the young cadets that they were to keep their noses clean and stay out of trouble–and that meant staying clear of one bar in particular, known around there as Gully’s Tavern. It catered to some rougher clientele that didn’t take kindly to the men off the base, generally–biker gangs mostly. Eddie hadn’t thought much of the warning at the time, he hadn’t even planned on leaving base for the weekend, but as Friday finished up, and the rest of the guys were talking excitedly about their plans, he couldn’t help but get a bit swept up in it too.

He started the evening with a couple of buds at one of the friendlier bars in town. They were both looking for women they night woo, and Eddie took an early leave. The night was still young, and he wasn’t quite ready to go back to base. He decided to walk around town a bit, and see what there was around. Not much, especially not that late, but there was a building half a mile down the highway all lit up in the night. Eddie headed for it, enjoying the walk, and found himself standing outside Gully’s Tavern.

There on the porch were a couple of bikers, smoking cigars and drinking. They hadn’t noticed him walk up in the dark, as they leaned over and kissed, sharing their smoke together. So that’s why Rugger had urged them away from here. Some army kids probably tried to start something with the biker fags, and shit had gone down once, so it was easier to just urge everyone away. Rugger wasn’t perturbed, though. He’d been with guys before, and girls, and anyone really. He went up the steps, inside, turned to the bar, and froze when he saw one of the men in full leathers there, chatting and groping up a trucker-ish fellow. It was Sergeant Rugger. A bit embarrassed, Eddie turned to leave, only for the two bikers who had been out of the porch to appear behind him, blocking his exit and pushing him deeper into the bar, everyone turning to stare at the clear trespasser in their midst.

“Hey guys, I’m just here for a brew, I’m not looking for trouble,” Eddie said.

The men all looked towards Rugger, who pushed a couple jets of smoke out of his nose in clear annoyance at being found out. “Boy, I told you all to stay away from this bar, didn’t I say that? That was a fucking order, if you didn’t realize, not a damn suggestion.”

“Sergeant, I don’t care, really I don’t! I won’t tell anyone,” Eddie said, but the sergeant was already walking over, and as he did, Eddie noticed a sizable talisman hanging from the sergeant’s neck, swinging against his hairy chest. It was…captivating, and Eddie couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away.

“Sure as hell won’t tell anyone, boy. Westfield, you’re gonna be straight with me. You’ll only be able to answer truthfully.”

Eddie nodded, eyes still locked on the talisman.

“Ya gay, Eddie?”

“Bi, Sir.”

“Think I’m hot, boy?”

“I…I mean, yeah…”

“You think I’m hot, boy. You think I’m so hot, that you’d be willing to do just about anything I tell you to do tonight, got it? Now–do you think I’m hot?”

“Fuck Sir, I think you’re the hottest fucker I’ve ever seen…” Eddie muttered.

“That’s more like it. Do you like boots, boy?”

“E-Excuse me?”

“You love boots, don’t you boy? Men in leather boots. Clean ones, dirty ones, biker boots, combat boots, can’t tear your eyes off boots. Why don’t you get on your knees boy, give mine a closer look.”

Eddie did as his sergeant ordered, the rest of the bar sniggering and hooting at the show. No one knew where the sergeant had picked up that talisman on his last tour, but the bar sure had been a lot more fun ever since. The recruit had never seen something as beautiful as the leather biker boots in front of him in his whole life, his whole being quivering at the thought of servicing them, licking them, being under them. Rugger had Eddie begging him permission to lick his boots clean, and after just a few licks of the leather surface, Eddie moaned, his cock unloading in the front of his underwear. That sent the crowd into the flurry, and they tore all of his clothes off, aside for the soiled briefs, and once Rugger’s boots were shining with spit, he was ordered to crawl around, begging men permission to lick and service their boots. When the bartenders announced last call, Rugger hauled Eddie up to his feet, bent him over the pool table, and gave the boy a good rough fuck while the bar closed up.

Rugger held the talisman in front of Eddie’s face, told him he would forget the events of that evening, think he went home with the rest of the young men, though he would have a lingering fetish for boot play all the same. To his surprise though, he felt the boy pushing back against his command–the first time he had, actually. It seemed like he wanted to remember…so Rugger altered his suggestion. He made it a dream, a vivid one, but certainly a dream, one he enjoyed, one he wanted, and one he’d think about when he next jacked off, for sure.

Rugger wasn’t sure what might happen next, and Saturday evening, it wasn’t even ten before Eddie burst through the doors of the bar, looked around for the Sergeant, and headed right for him. “You–what happened last night?”

“Excuse me?” Rugger said, with a little smirk. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Westfield.”

“No…I had a dream, and…and I…” Without saying more, Eddie dropped to his knees, and bent his head down. “Sir…it wasn’t a dream, was it? I loved it. I…please Sir, can I service your boots, Sir?”

Rugger smiled, “If that’s what would please you boy, by all means, have at it.”

It was rather unheard of for a recruit to remain at Jameson Army Base once basic training was done–the recruits were usually scattered to bases across the country for more specialized training. Eddie, though, stuck around, taking a low level office job on the recommendation of Sergeant Rugger. Their relationship was an open secret, though few knew the whole story. Eddie had no problem with that. As long as he could remain Sir’s bootboy, he’d be more than happy anywhere at all.

The Pigtown Chronicles: Chapter 3.7 – Old Acquaintances

“What do you want pig? You want more smoke?”

The man on his knees in front of Kyle gave a little whimper, but the size of his hard on, and the hunger in his eyes showed that his hesitancy was no longer as powerful as his newfound lust. Kyle took a long drag off the jumbo pipe he was smoking tonight at The Hideaway, wrapped one leather glove around the man’s chin, and fed him the smoke. He snorted it down, his already substantial waistline filling out even further, eyes glazed over with lust, and Kyle pulled out his cock, shoved the man’s face onto it, and he started sucking, only to be surprised when even more smoke filled his mouth. Kyle heaved a sigh and shuddered, leaning over against Marshall, who was watching his apprentice work the man over in the bar, where a small crowd of regulars had gathered to watch. 

It had been clear that he was freshmeat. Enough time spent in Pigtown, and you began to smell the scent when they walked past. Everyone described it a bit different. Some compared it to a steak coming hot off the barbeque. Others said it reminded them of the smell of good whiskey rising up out of a glass. Each person had their own take on it. To Kyle, it was like his mother’s fresh cobbler, fresh out of the oven, too hot to touch, and yet it called to you all the same, no matter how much you wanted to deny it. Everyone knew, and everyone wanted you. Pigtown wanted you, and they were all Pigtown. Of course, not everyone could have you, it wasn’t a free-for-all. The freshmeat had to want you first. It made it worse, somehow, when you could smell it, and somehow know it wasn’t for you. Tonight, though, the older fellow had wanted Kyle, and Kyle had wanted a smokepig, and so here they were.

Kyle had thought he’d miss his old life. Thought he’d miss going to college, thought he’d miss his old friends, thought he’d miss his family. Pigtown, though, didn’t give him any space to miss things, every moment was taken up with some little hedonistic delight now, a constant drip feed of pleasure, so he no longer needed to consider what he might be missing. Even his work in the shop was becoming more pleasurable, now that the regulars were involving him in their conversations, since he was one of them as well. Outside the shop, though, he could sense that a number of people feared Marshall, and feared him in turn.

He asked him about this, one morning as they were eating breakfast. Marshall had seemed hesitant to say something at first, but eventually had told him that even among the men in Pigtown, they were different. “You’re not like the people outside of Pigtown anymore, but you know that. We also aren’t like the men inside Pigtown either. No one really knows what to call us. At the precinct, they call us aberrations. I’m not a fan of the term, but you should know what it means, if someone says it to you. We aren’t quite human anymore, not in the ways that humans would say matter. We need different things than humans do, too. I, of course, still think of myself as human, for the most part.” He took a long draw off his second cigar of the morning to make the point, then continued, “But we’re still men. Now, there are some like us who I would say aren’t even men anymore, either. I would hesitate to say that they are dangerous. Pigtown is dangerous, but nothing here will kill you. It will change you, render you into something unrecognizable, but it won’t kill you.” It was more or less an answer. It wasn’t until he met Shadow for the first time that evening, that the boundaries Marshall had outlined became wholly clear. 

It happened like this: 

The light in the room changed, everything seemed to glow a bit brighter as all the light left one corner of the Hideaway, and when the darkness receded, there were two men in full leathers standing beside a small round table, and the men in the bar fled that corner just as the light had moments before. A number of men shot up from where they were sitting or leaning and booked it out of the bar, a few others sat up a little straighter, clearly ready for something, and the bartender poured a couple of whiskey sodas, and sent them to the table, free of charge. Kyle was left looking at Marshall for cues on what to expect, but his Master held the same laid back confidence as always, though perhaps the smoke inside him had quickened, ever so slightly.

“Leave the pig for a bit. We should go pay our respects, and you ought to be introduced,” Marshall said.

“Who…is that?” Kyle asked, “Is that…Shadow? The guy that took Marlon?”

“That is Shadow, yes. I would be very careful with the words you use, though. How is Shadow ‘taking’ Marlon any different than what you’re doing to this poor soul right here?” The sarcasm was exaggerated, but the point stung regardless. Kyle nodded, and followed Marshall over to the dark corner, where Shadow gave Marshall a nod as he approached.

“Marshall, it’s been a while. How’s the shop?”

“Business has been booming around here since you went away for a while,” Marshall said. Shadow stood, the two of them embraced, and then Shadow sat back down. “I heard you were in the jail.”

“Yes, I was.”

“And…you escaped. From what Rumwell is always spouting off, I’d have thought the Warden had the place locked down tighter than that.”

Shadow let a little smirk cross his mouth, the only part that Kyle could see beneath the brim of his cap. “Well, I’m sure he will attempt to return me there as soon as possible, in any case. Now, who is this strapping young man with you? Last I recall, you were rather reluctant to spread your gift, Marshall.”

“I like to think I was waiting for someone worthy of it,” Marshall said, and Kyle couldn’t help but swell with a bit of pride. “I see we have a new shade among us as well.”

“Marlon,” the other leather clad figure said, extending a hand, and Kyle gave a little jump.

“Wait, Marlon? Really?” Kyle said, leaning in close and trying to get a good look at Marlon’s face, but his eyes couldn’t pierce the shadow that seemed to fall across his eyes perpetually, “You…You’re ok then? Jimmy’s been worried sick about you, since you disappeared.”

Shadow stood up, placed himself between them, and pushed Kyle backwards, knocking him slightly off balance. “It’s very rude to look under a shade’s brim, you know. It’s very private.”

“I…He’s my friend. He went missing.”

“I don’t…wait, I do know you, don’t I?” Marlon said, leaned over and laid one hand on Kyle’s shadow. He could…feel it, somehow, and he shuddered. “Ah, of course. I didn’t recognize you from up here. Kyle, right?”

“You don’t remember me?”

“I was Marlon’s shadow, Kyle. I remember, and know, different parts of you than he would have. The Marlon you knew is gone. I took his name; it was one of the few things about him I liked.”

“What do you mean gone?” Marshall dropped one hand on the back of Kyle’s neck and gripped him there, hard enough to make him reassess what he was saying. “I mean…I’m sorry. I was mistaken.”

Shadow looked down at him, or at least, Kyle assumed the blackness under the cap was looking at him, and sat back down. “I wouldn’t have expected you to know everything that goes on here, but I would advise you to be a bit more cautious, in the future, little smoke.”

“Why don’t you go tend to your pig, Kyle. Go have some fun.”

“Yes…Sir,” Kyle said. He left, and dragged his pet pig for the evening towards the maze, wondering if he would have been dismissed so easily if he’d been a little more tactful. Marlon watched him go, rubbing his leather gloved fingers together, feeling that particular darkness, and that name, Jimmy. “Shadow, you said that I can go somewhere else, if I need to, didn’t you?”

“I am not your master, my shade,” Shadow said, “Come and go as you please.”

Marlon stood up, summoned the darkness and slipped away into it, leaving just Marshall and Shadow alone at the table together. Marshall took the seat that Marlon had been in, and watched as the rest of the bar slowly fell back into its prior rhythm, though several men were still glancing back at them both on a regular basis.

“Is it…time for you?” Marshall asked. “It’s been calling to me, lately, that’s the only reason I ask, and I know you’re quite a bit older than me.”

“Oh, all the time. But I have work to do, first, before I go there. He’s a handsome fellow, a little prone to putting his foot in his mouth, perhaps.”

“What about yours? Where has he gone off to?”

“I do not keep tabs on my shades. They go where they please. I’m in the business of freedom, you know that.”

“Chaos, some might say. I like that the nights are more interesting with you in them. I should go follow that little apprentice of mine, before he gets into too much trouble. He still has a pretty heavy hand.”

“I could use something to eat, myself. You’re welcome to join me, if you want. I think your little apprentice will manage one way or another, without your supervision.”

“I ate last week. You know I don’t need as much as you do.”

“You need just as much, you just swallow it all at once. I prefer to share.”

“Have a good night, Shadow. Let me know if I can be of assistance.”

“Last I checked, we weren’t quite on the same side of things.”

Marshall stood up, and adjusted his leather coat. “If the rumors I hear coming out of the precinct are at least half truths, I’m not quite sure where the line is anymore. Things are…breaking down, around here. Getting messy. I hate mess, you know that.”

Shadow chuckled, and from one moment to the next, the chair was occupied, and then it was not, leaving Marshall standing alone in the bar again. The men there breathed a collective sigh of relief, and Marshall wandered into the maze, sniffing out his apprentice’s pipe smoke. Shadow, meanwhile, materialized a few blocks away, in the dark of an alley, closer to the edge of the district. Still a bit early, perhaps. No matter, it would only be a matter of time before some prey wandered along, as it did.

The Pigtown Chronicles: Chapter 3.6 – The Warden

Precinct 27 had been a normal police precinct, at one point. The neighborhood had been rundown, ripe for gentrification maybe, but no more troubled than any other area of the city. But then, they’d seen an uptick in public indecency, nudity, sex in the alleys, all of it originating at the far end of its jurisdiction. Rumor told of a bar or a club or a complex called Pigtown that had opened up, some sleazy gay place, but the officers had never been able to find it and shut it down. Then, it had spread. A few more arrests for public indecency turned into gay bars and bathhouses and more opening up, and it wasn’t long before the corruption, or whatever it was, had spread to some of the officers. Looking back, it was difficult to say whether the choices Rumwell had made then had been the right ones or not, but there was no good reason to second guess himself now. What he had done, he had done in the interest of maintaining order, both within the precinct, and outside of it, as best they all could. It had meant making some deals with a few devils. It had included making a few necessary sacrifices. There had been an equilibrium for a while–Pigtown hadn’t grown much larger than the blocks beyond the precinct, and the commander had done what was necessary to keep the city and other eyes from prying too closely. Over the last few months, though, Rumwell had found it difficult to feel like that balance was going to last forever.

He was in his office, where two of his officers had finished their business with his boots and his cock. He sent them off to other duties, and made his way down to the lowest level of the precinct–or at least, what had been the lowest level at one time, known as the drunk tank. The basement was lined with a few cells, empty at this time of day. It was generally intended for catch and release these days. But what hadn’t always been there were the stairs at the end of the hall, that led down into the jail proper. 

Six months into whatever this was, the precinct had run out of room. There were just too many deviants, and if you jailed them together, they would get up to even worse antics in the cells than out on the streets, and more than a few times, he’d caught his officers fraternizing with the perverts. He’d even lost a few to the alleys, in the early days, before he’d learned how to assert proper control and discipline over his ranks. They’d needed space, and one night, more space had appeared. Another bank of cells below the basement, appearing like magic. But soon those had been filled as well, and more appeared, and more. At this point, it was difficult to know how deep the entire complex went below the precinct. He imagined that the only person who might know would be The Warden. 

When the jail had first begun growing, a small contingent of officers proved to be more resistant to the corruption spreading from the perverts locked up there than others–or at least, they were less prone to letting them escape, or running off with them. At some point, the group had named one of them their de facto leader, and begun calling him The Warden. Rumwell had known his real name at one point, but now, it was gone, as was most of the man’s prior identity, he supposed. After all, it wasn’t that the men had been more resilient to the corruption spreading through this part of the city, it was merely warping them in a different fashion, and by the time Rumwell realized what had happened down there, it was too late to do anything about it.

The result, now, was a division. The precinct above, run by Rumwell, and the prison below, run by The Warden. They had been cooperative at first, but slowly, the warden had grown more antagonistic. He demanded more guards to cover the cells, and when Rumwell refused, he simply took them for himself. Prisoners that Rumwell had intended to release back onto the street come morning were deemed too deviant to be allowed out, and commandeered on a regular basis. Rumwell couldn’t help but feel like he was no longer entirely in charge, and when he’d confronted the Warden about his actions a couple of months ago, neither of them had escaped the encounter unscathed. They hadn’t spoken sense. 

He descended into the jail, trying to ignore the screams, the sounds of whips and flails and paddles and whatever instruments the guards desired to maintain the prisoner’s compliance. It seemed rather clear to him that their motives were more selfish. Some prisoners saw him, begged him for mercy. The deeper he went, the less he heard that cry–instead, conditioned by constant beatings, twisted by the guards, by the warden, the deviants ached, craved the pain and the discipline, howling with ecstasy from where they were chained on the walls or confined in the cages. 

The occasional guard would notice him, but while some would smile, none tried to stop him. They all knew that they wouldn’t be able to resist him–the only one who could was the Warden. He recognized the faces of a few, but many were unrecognizable, either their faces were hooded, or they had been twisted into such a brutish appearance as to no longer even seem human. This was deeper than he’d ever been before, the depravity around him much more intense. 

“Ah, so he has returned,” a voice said out of the darkness, and The Warden stepped forth, a flogger over one shoulder, half smoked cigar clamped in his bearded jaw, “To what do I owe the pleasure, Commander Rumwell? Come to give me another lecture?”

Rumwell sized up the warden, who seemed to have grown a little wider, and a bit taller since their last encounter. Not quite as large as Rumwell was, but close. He was wearing a full leather uniform, and underneath the smell of leather and smoke, there was the distinct pang of blood in the air as well. “My feelings on the matter haven’t changed, and I assume yours haven’t either. I don’t see a reason to open up old wounds just yet. I’m here on business. I need to confirm that Shadow is still being held here–I want to see him.”

The Warden took a draw off his cigar, and pushed a plume off to the side. “Unfortunately, he escaped.”

“What?”

“A few weeks ago. Found himself a shadow, slid right into it.”

“You told me you had him contained.”

“And I thought I did.”

“Why am I just now hearing about this? Weeks? You know full well how many fucking shades that monster can make! It was a nightmare cleaning up the streets last time, and who knows if we even caught all of them.”

The Warden gave a little shrug, “I’m sure you’ll be able to catch him again.”

Rumwell stalked a little closer, “You let him escape on purpose, didn’t you?”

“And you still aren’t meeting the quotas we agreed on.”

“So you let one of the most unpredictable aberrations loose onto the street because you’re not getting enough bodies to torture?”

“This is not torture, Commander. All of these bodies, if we let them loose, what do you think would happen? The city would be overrun. You can’t keep the streets in order without me, without everything that I do down here. I know what they need. I know how to control them. You can pretend that you sit in that tall office of yours, that you know this city, but it’s down here in the fucking dark that I keep it safe. All I ask is that you give me what my guards need to stay occupied.” He took a draw off the cigar, and blew another plume. “Besides, shades are really…exquisite things. The punishment they can take–the punishment they need. Nothing like it in the world that I’ve found. If Shadow happens to make a few more that end up down here, I can’t say I would be disappointed. Flesh withers so easily, but shadow–so much more resilient.” He held out the flogger, handle towards the commander, and he saw that each leather strap was tipped with a metal spike, a few with flecks of what he imagined must be blood. “My offer still stands, Commander, if you want to try your hand at it. See what it feels like. I know you have the rage in you, I can still feel the bruise on my jaw a little. Why don’t you just let it out on something that really deserves it? They aren’t even human after all.”

Rumwell turned and left before The Warden could finish speaking, the laughter of the man echoing through the halls, mirrored in the ecstatic screams and shouts all around him. He struggled to find his way back up to the precinct, the stairwells and hallways seemed to twist around him, confound him, threaten to seal him in, but finally, he burst his way back up into the drunk tank, and didn’t stop until he was out of the building, standing on the sidewalk, panting in the night air. It was monstrous. It was necessary. He wondered, again, how it would feel, what the screams would sound like if he had brought them forth himself, if he would lose himself. He knew he would. He was strong, but not strong enough, and the Warden knew that. 

He straightened up, and marched back inside, where the night shift was just coming in. They were more hardened, more resilient than the day officers. They faced the brunt of what Pigtown had to offer, and pushed back as best they could–and fed the beast below them. “The Warden has informed me that Shadow has escaped from the jail. He’s been on the loose for a few weeks now. This is now our priority. I want him found, and I want him back down there, where he belongs.”