The Crime Scene Has Been Tainted

"So, you're saying he what? He was gray? He had gills? Fuck, that's hard for me to understand. Was he wearing a scuba mask? I don't see a fucking fishing boat here. This is your apartment, miss, I don't see anything here that reminds me of a damn shark. I heard that alligators are in the sewers? Did one climb out and bite you on the ass? Did a shark bite you? Looks like you've got all your arms and legs."

"No, listen. I said, 'it was like Jaws.' Not in the sense that it was anything like a shark. The guy had nothing to do with a damn shark."

"You weren't even swimming, either. You got a shower back there, but no bath tub. And you've got a nice assortment of rubber ducks back there. Oh, I'm sorry, not rubber ducks, but rubber dicks."

"Jealous because you only have the one? Rubber dick I mean. Why don't you take it out of your ass and shove it in your mouth so you can shut up for a fucking minute?"

Valley found himself thinking of a movie. It wasn't Jaws he thought about, but Basic Instinct. But this chick wasn't any thing like Sharon Stone. First of all, instead of being blond, this chick was a brunette. She had short hair, cut like a guy's. Shit, she looked like "just one of the guys" if all you saw was her hair. But, oh man, if you managed to look at anything else, man, you really were sure this was a woman. One hell of a woman, too. There she sat, telling Berk to shut the fuck up, and she wasn't wearing any clothes. Well, she did have on a pair of stockings and some high heals, but that was it. Apart from that, the only other thing covering her was that towel that she had on over her shoulders. Her hair was wet, so she occasionally lifted up the towel to wipe the water off it. Valley could sympathize with her, but she still got him. Got him feeling for her a way he'd been told he shouldn't. Damn, she had a nice rack. Just huge, so big that Valley kind of worried that it might hurt her back when she walked. He thought about asking her what bra size she had and decided against it. Even if he could somehow work that into sounding like a legitimate question --- a question he's supposed to ask ---, he doubted she had ever worn one.

The thing that reminded Valley about that movie was her... Damn, he couldn't think of way to put it which wouldn't make him sick enough to puke. He'd never said any of the obscene words in his life (had heard it called a million disgusting things) and even the "nice" things it was called sounded dirty. Regardless of what he could think of calling it, she covered it with only her hands. Both hands clasping each other, except when she shook a fist at Berk or when she shrugged. Valley loved the shrug. When she did that, both hands went up, not just one. He got to see the whole works when she shrugged and it even moved.

"... You see?"

"Yes, I do, miss. We see a whole fucking lot. Davie here probably is seeing more of you than he'd ever seen in his life. I mean, I doubt this is the first time he'd ever seen a naked woman, but he's acting as if this were the first time he'd seen one seeing him seeing her." Berk. Fucking Berk making fun of him again.

"That's David Valley, please. Call me that and I'll call you 'Tim Berk.' Hell, I might even call you 'Timothy.' But you call me anything other than 'David' or 'Valley,' and I'll call you much worse."

Berk smiles. "You wanna show her your fig leaf, David?"

Valley ignores that. "In what way did you mean that, 'you see'?" he asks her, hoping she wasn't asking him if he liked what he saw. He felt that if she had been, then he might just vomit all over that damp boy's hair of hers and she'd have to take another shower. He might even stay to watch... Call it his civic duty to help her wash his puke out of her hair and clean it off her back. He'd love to get a look at what her ass looked like.

"I didn't have a chance to say what I meant before this asshole interrupted. I was saying, 'you see,' and before I could continue, Old Faithful decided to ejaculate again. But, looking at him, I guess only his mouth could do that. He just talks so fucking much because his little buddy is shriveled little interrogatory. No exclamations out of this one. Just questions nobody wants to answer. Questions like, 'why can't I get the damn thing to stand up on it's own?' I bet he squats when he pees."

"He sure does," answers one of the other guys. Valley doesn't know his name, but he's sure it's safe to say he can tell him and the other guy who's name he can't remember apart. The one who just said something Valley had wanted to say is black. The other guy, well, it's safe to say he isn't. Funny. Three words. So far, in the hour they've been here, one of them finally said something. And with those three words, Valley was sure of two things. The first that was he liked this one. This brother. And the other was that the other one must be either ten times hornier than Valley himself was, or just simply dead. He was sure if he touched that guy, he might just fall over backwards, as rigid as he'd been chiseled from stone. That brought a smile to his face. Saying a guy as fat as that was "chiseled" had to be a great joke.

Berk sneered. He didn't look at the black guy, but he stared right at the smile on Valley's face. Valley smiled again, and pointed at the wooden Indian over there standing next to the black guy he liked. Berk walked right up to the fat guy and slapped him in the face. Sure enough, the big bastard fainted.

No statue this one. He proved to have far less grace. He fell back, slammed the back of his head against the book case (a book case that sported no books, but a healthy collection of the articles that Berk had mentioned was in the bathroom), fell forward, and landed with head in the chick's lap. She then kicked him in his balls and threw him down to the floor. Valley had to envy the guy. Heck, he even respected him a little. Even unconscious, he still got a chance to give her a big kiss down there. And, despite the fact she'd kicked him so hard that his balls must of detonated with pain, the guy lay there, smiling.

"Anyone, you see, I'm not saying the guy was a shark. I'm just saying that you remember when the girl got attacked? She got shaken around like a goddamn rag doll and she didn't see what was doing it to her? Like that. Goddamn rag doll."

"You didn't see him?" Berk, oh fuck, that kick must of scared him, because Berk was actually writing this down. He'd suddenly dropped the pig act and was acting like he was doing his job. And forget him being a cop. This guy was suddenly a fucking police officer.

"No, I didn't see him. Didn't see his face. Didn't see him at all. But I sure as hell felt it."

"You weren't awake during this?" Writing it down.

"I was awake."

"He blindfold you?"

"No."

"So how come you didn't see him? You wear glasses?"

"Yes, but I was wearing them when it happened." She actually reaches behind Valley, leaning forward in the bed, touching her lips to his... to him... then pulls back her arm with a pair of glasses in her hand. She puts them on. "I just didn't want to see that ugly face of yours," she says, and smiles at Berk.

Berk writes this down. Valley would be goddamned if he didn't it write in third person as if she hadn't insulted him. Something like, "didn't want to see Berk's 'ugly face.'"

"I was on the phone at the time, just got out of the shower and I was calling my sister. Stupid fucking bitch mentioned her probably being pregnant. Fuck. Here I'm working for three years, not a goddamn one of them wanted to wear a damn glove, and the stupid bitch gets herself knocked up by that fucking retard boyfriend of hers. KIDS! Any way, I was talking and then all of a sudden, I get thrown right across the room and land in the bed."

"What time was this?"

"12:01am."

"When was this finished?"

"12:01."

"Uh, that fast? Or that slow?"

"One second. Not twelve hours. After it happened, I asked Steph if she'd heard anything weird. She said she was talking, I'd said 'Oh!' and that was it. Didn't notice anything."

"Oh?"

"Yep. I get raped by the fucking Flash and she thinks I'm saying 'Oh!' Damn, I wish they were all that quick. Average jerk wants to try for fifteen minutes even though he's done way before that. Just under one second of work, and, well, then that." She says this, then points at the nighstand by the bed. On it, there's the most money Valley had ever seen in his life. He was also pretty sure that it wasn't the most this hooker had seen. Sure, when she'd been a waitress, it would of. But now, with her current employment, he guessed she spent that much on just a couple of those toys of hers. One of them had a handle resembling a lightsaber right out Star Wars. And if that damn thing didn't glow in the dark, well, then Valley's new friend over there was probably just a white guy pretending to be black.

He sat in a furnace. He crouched in a gathering of flames so hot that they burned as they were a small pocket of hell upon the earth. He did not notice the fire, though. It did not burn him, nor did his face look as if he realized where he sat. He seemed as casual as if he'd been simply perched in the midst of a warm bath tub full of tipid water rather than in an inferno.

His hands clasped his knees and the wrists were slit with thunder bolts of incisions and blood poured freely into his lap. Once in a while, he would hold his flayed wrists to his lips and drink of his own blood. The blood flowed and was endless, an ocean of scarlet stuff that was boiled by the flames as it rested in his lap. The hairs all over his body were aflame as well, as was the hair on his head. But, instead of screams of pain, his lips only loosed giggles of satisfaction and manical bouts of laughter. In between giggles and laughter, he chanted the same fragment of words incessantly.

"Raven's Feather from unwholesome fen... Raven's Feather from unwholesome fen... Raven's Feather from unwholesome fen... Raven's Feather from unwholesome fen... Raven's Feather from unwholesome fen... Raven's Feather from unwholesome fen..."

Cackling with laughter, seated casually in an inferno of flames that did not burn him, bleeding profusely from the wrists, genitals boiling in blood, he chanted.

He stared straight up towards the ceiling. Upon it, he'd drawn a five-pointed star --- a pentagram --- with his own blood, but it wasn't long before he saw through the ceiling, though the pentagram stayed in his vision (reflecting the flames that did not burn him) and he could the night beyond and the moons above him in the dark.

Words. He closes in his eyes and hears words in his ears. Words being spoken to him. "she looked like 'just one of the guys' if all you saw was." Raven's Feather laughed harder as he released the words were not spoken to him, but were actually another man's thoughts. Thinking of him. No. Thinking of a woman in whose body he now resided. He opened the woman's eyes while his own stayed firmly shut. He opened her eyes and saw another world.

Men were standing around the woman where she sat. One of them was staring intently at her hair and his thoughts were heard clearly as if spoken, and more, what he could see --- was seeing --- was painted on his forehead as if it were a living tattoo. "But, oh man, if you managed to look at anything else, man, you really were sure this was a woman. One hell of a woman, too."

The man standing to the staring man's left was speaking to the woman and her head moved to face him. She saw her own face on his mind. Only her face. He was looking at nothing else but her face, centering his gaze on her eyes.

The woman ("did have on a pair of stockings and some high") lifted a hand to her face, saw her own reflection ("had a nice rack. Just huge, so big") in the other man's mind do the same thing. The hair was very short, as the first man had thought. From the rambling of his thoughts, she knew he was staring at her breasts even though she didn't bother to check to see if his mind showed them. ("might hurt her back"). She laughed at this one, not even guessing what he might of meant by that. She sensed he liked it when she laughed, but he "loved the shrug." She waved at the other man, smiling as she waved back in his mind.

She couldn't sense the other men's thoughts. They weren't a direct chain of thoughts organized as if spoken, but more like pictures of what these men wished to perform with her, regardless if she wanted to or not. Especially if she didn't. But she wanted to.

She turned to the first man, saw her breasts focused intently upon his mind, and she raised his hands to them, caressed her own breasts. His eyes widened and his mouth fell open. Then, she froze all of them still with a word.

And they were all frozen as if statues, staring at the bed where she sat even as she got up from it. Not even their mind pictures changed. For all intents and purposes, they only saw her sitting in the bed and not walking across the room. She went to the first man, kneeled before his rigid body, and took his pants off. She then crawled behind him, let one hand sneak in front and grab him in the center of his being (between his legs) for a moment to make sure he was ready for what she wanted him to do, then pushed him. He fell over as his he were a statue over-turned on his pedestal and his face fell into the pillows where she had sat. She climbed beneath his frozen body again, put only the part of him that she had willed back to life inside of herself, then writhed and floundered beneath him. She did this underneath him for what could have been called days had not she frozen the entire world in place and it wasn't only until she had been satiated a thousand times or more that she finished with him. She then pulled his pants back up, stood him back him where he'd been, and returned to her place on the bed.

Then she willed the world to unfreeze. She coerced the woman into speaking just two words: "... You see?"

"Yes, I do, miss. We see a whole fucking lot," the other man was saying. The thing inside her asked her what he was and she answered with three words in her thoughts: "cop, fucking asshole." The thing inside her laughed. "Maybe he's just jealous," it said. "Jealous of what?" the woman's thoughts asked it, but it would not answer.

The "fucking asshole" of a "cop" continued: "Davie here probably is seeing more of you than he'd ever seen in his life. I mean, I doubt this is the first time he'd ever seen a naked woman, but he's acting as if this were the first time he'd seen one seeing him seeing her."

"Berk, the first man's thoughts said. "Fucking Berk making fun of me again." But he kept these to himself and only the thing in the woman heard him. He spoke aloud instead: "That's David Valley, please. Call me that and I'll call you 'Tim Berk.' Hell, I might even call you 'Timothy.' But you call me anything other than 'David' or 'Valley,' and I'll call you much worse."

Berk smiles. "You wanna show her your fig leaf, David?" At that, the woman looked at him, saw naked man whose genitals discreetly covered with a leaf. Ah. This one was so boring, he even censored his own thoughts.

Valley ignores that. "In what way did you mean that, 'you see'?" he asks her. She can clearing read his thoughts: "clean it off her back. He'd love to get a look at what her ass looked like."

The thing inside of the woman is happily surprised as the woman speaks, sharing in the conversation: "I didn't have a chance to say what I meant before this asshole interrupted. I was saying, 'you see,' and before I could continue, Old Faithful decided to ejaculate again. But, looking at him, I guess only his mouth could do that. He just talks so fucking much because his little buddy is shriveled little interrogatory. No exclamations out of this one. Just questions nobody wants to answer. Questions like, 'why can't I get the damn thing to stand up on it's own?' I bet he squats when he pees."

"He sure does," answers a man with very dark, brown skin. She searches in Valley's mind and only comes up with the words "black guy." Not satisfied, and turns to Berk's mind. The name he gives is simpler --- "nigger" --- but she doubts it's the man's name.

She looks into the dark skinned man's mind, can only find a picture of what he wants to do to her; something his mind insists on calling "doggie-style." Other than that, only Cassius Clay seems to be the only name his mind, not even a hint of whether or not he himself is this Clay man. "Then again," says the thing in the woman's mind, "these are all my Clay Men!" She freezes time again while the men are in the midst of a bitter silence. She goes to Cassius, does the same thing she had done with the first man, only this time she faces away from him and bends at the waist. She forces him into her and does it like a "doggie" would to him as he stands there frozen, laughing at the joke he'd told about Berk.

When finished with the experiment, she sets him to rights and then starts to walk back to the bed. On her way, she stops. She looks at Berk. Smiling, she takes a pad of paper from a pocket in his pants and places it and a pen into his hands. She then shoots him pictures of her previous encounters with his fellows into his mind and commands him to draw them on the pad of paper. The command given, she sits down again. Unfreezes.

Valley thinks: "Saying a guy as fat as that was 'chiseled' had to be a great joke." She looks up at his face, sees the face of the "tub of lard" he's looking at in his mind and seriously doubts she'd want to do anything to him. The man is so ugly the only thing she would want to do to him is kill him.

Berk sneered. He didn't look at the black guy, but he stared right at the smile on Valley's face. Valley smiled again, and pointed at the wooden Indian over there standing next to the black guy he liked. Berk walked right up to the fat guy and slapped him in the face. Sure enough, the big bastard fainted. Freeze.

The woman laughs in incredible good humor. She hadn't told Berk to do that, but she now wishes she did. She turns her gaze to the first man and to the dark skinned man. She has claimed their souls as completely as she had claimed the woman in which she now breathed. She kept their minds frozen and blinded their eyes, but brought them entirely to life from their necks down. She makes them attack the fat man. Fists slam into his stomach a hundred times. Feet impact with his genitals dozens of times. They break his arms for her and she laughs. They hold him up, one man behind and the other in front, both pairs of hands strangling the fat man by his throat. Four pairs of hands lift him up and slam his head on the ceiling four scores of times. Four hands break his neck. They throw him against the wall and all freeze once more.

The fat man is as good as dead the very instant that she returns him to himself. She has the two men return to their places and the fat man slammed the back of his head against the book case fell forward (the vertebrae in his neck finally emitting the SNAP of his spine being broken), and landed with head in the chick's lap. She then kicked him in his balls and threw him down to the floor.

And, despite the fact she'd kicked him so hard that his balls must of detonated with pain, the guy lay there, smiling.

The woman now speaks again: "Any way, you see, I'm not saying the guy was a shark. I'm just saying that you remember when the girl got attacked? She got shaken around like a goddamn rag doll and she didn't see what was doing it to her? Like that. Goddamn rag doll."

"You didn't see him?" Valley's thoughts: "Berk, oh fuck, that kick must of scared him, because Berk was actually writing this down." The woman considered correcting him, but was delighted with look of shock in Berk's eyes as drew those awful pictures in that note book of his completely without his volition.