Thunder? Stampede? Earthquake? Ragnarök?
No, man, it's the Disciples. The whole motherfucking gang. They're on their hogs, and they ride. Hair streams like sinister oriflammes. Naked biceps clench in leather jerkins. Fists twist throttles. Like a dust of diamonds sweat glistens on the tattoo tapestry.
The Disciples roar through primeval forest, serpentining around potholes, a ten thousand horsepower parade, their mechanical mounts screaming like flame-mouthed Fafnir scenting gold. Dappled sunlight caresses their muscled forms. Chrome flashes actinically in the gloom. Petrochemicals pollute the clean air. Black leather and hard skin.
The Lizard King rides point.
Yeah, you know the Lizard King. You've heard the tales. The frightened old ladies quivering at crosswalks. The banker with the black eye, the trembling lips, the unctuous self-pity.
How can I pay for my boy's Ritalin?
The owner of the GM dealership, outraged,
outrageddamnyou!,
because the Lizard King's meth drop showed up a few ounces short and caked, positively caked, with rancid biker jizz.
Yeah, that Lizard King. The rebel. The stud. Your enemy.
You can't see his eyes because they're hidden behind his silvered goggles. But you can't miss his smirk. The canines, barely glimpsed. The contemptuous curl. The nostrils, flaring, sniffing, divining emotion by scent. Long, goatish black hair streams behind him. His open denim jacket flaps in the wind. Pyrotechnic ink blazes on his chest. From his aureoles thrust rays of black, red, and gold, turning and mixing like turbulent smoke, each color fucking its companions, a luminous orgy on the Lizard King's skin. Just above his belt buckle is a curious design. A knot of some sort, but a perverse, disturbing one.
Tentacles and cocks writhe together in unwholesome bliss.
If you could smell his sweaty armpits--trust me, you would if you could--you'd think of sandalwood and a bin of old, crusty, abused high school jockstraps.
Shouted above the roar: "This ain't shit, motherfucker!" But it's not the Lizard King who shouts.
It's the cherry, Snake. The blond one.
The Lizard King says nothing. He spits, leans into the turn as the road switches back on the mountainside, rides on, the king.
Behind the Lizard King, Black Crowley sits astride his beast, clad head to toe in sombre black leather. He's tall. And powerful. He could wield Thor's hammer--or, like Loki, breed with a stallion without a grunt. His thighs could crush an elephant's ribcage.
The defiance Snake’s shown infuriates him.
Fury on Black Crowley's face isn't something you want to see.
His visage is skull-like, his skin taut and white like bone bleached in the sun of western deserts. He has no hair. No eyebrows. No beard. No eyelashes. Not even follicles. Eyes: black jellyfish swimming in a crimson sea. His teeth are -- naturally? otherwise? who knows? -- sharp and pointed fangs.
His face makes you think of Valkyries weaving bloody intestines into the strands of a man's fate. Nosferatu and unholy lusts.
Black Crowley's loyal to two things. Sex. The Lizard King. In that order. Got it?
Behind Black Crowley: three men, the upper echelon of the Disciples, riding in a chevron formation. Their thighs almost touch. They sport blood-red bandannas. Black leather trousers. Bare chests: two obsidian, one golden. Matted hair and stubble. Ink, man, ink blazes on their skin. Automatics tremble in holsters, eager for action.
Crotches bulge, alien eggs ready to hatch and to procreate.
And then, at the center of the procession, come the cherries. Yeah, the cherries. The Lizard King's appellation. It doesn't matter if these two bitches are the biggest whores since Scott O'Hara: the Leather Messiah hasn't fucked them, so they're cherry. Sweet and delectable and ever so fun to breed.
The cherry called Snake rides on the left. Flaxen hair escapes his helmet. A golden van Dyke rings his lips. He is shirtless. Snake. You can easily remember his name. Look at his arms. You see those anacondas there, rippling on his forearms? Yeah, they're doing just what it looks like their doing: thrusting ophidian cock at each other. He's a powerful man, with big smooth pectoral muscles; he could model for Boris Vallejo. He's Sigurd, a sword-wielder clinging to the side of a ravine, waiting for the beast to present its vulnerable belly.
You look at him, and you see a defiant grin on his face, like the boy who just told a raunchy fart joke to his Sunday School teacher. But look closer, past those icy blue eyes, and you'll see inside him an autumnal forest shivering in the cold breeze, see a deer trembling as it realizes the thing it hears rustling the leaves is a hungry, all-powerful python, see a gazelle in the last moments of its life, nothing remaining for it except the foamy fangs of a cheetah closing fast.
"Fucker!" he barks, still defiant.
Snake's not likely to guest on Oprah Winfrey.
"Shut up, asshole!" This is the nervous plea from the other cherry. This one's called Skunk. Yeah, you've heard of Skunk too.
Man, escorted from local mall due to offensive body odor, shouts obscenities.
Blurred picture of lanky shirtless stud, fuckfinger raised. The Xtube video of Skunk, standing shirtless in a greenhouse, forearms locked behind his head, geraniums shedding petals like confetti.
Yeah, him. You shit yourself last time you saw him, didn't ya? Fucking pansy.
Skunk's hair is black. Long strands of it escape his bandanna. Lanky shirtless stud, almost every square inch of flesh sporting ink. The designs are too numerous to recount. Most characteristic, however, is one on a bicep: disembodied red-veined eyes worship an African-hued jinni emerging from a gargantuan bong.
Yeah, you've seen Skunk before. Smelled him, rather. Remember that time in the restaurant and he walked by, and you almost gagged, and you shot this look at him
like who the fuck are you, pig?
And you were afraid you might die from the way he looked at you?
Do you know what he thinks of you?
Let me tell you.
Skunk think you're a neutered piece of filth, tamed and subservient and lapping up vomit they send through the television, thinks that your skull would be a fine ornament decorating the burning, radioactive ruins of suburban America.
Not Oprah material either.
Right now, though, riding his roaring bike, fear subsumes rage in Skunk's mind. His armpits are cold with sweat, and his gut feels like he's lost a cage match with an Aikido stud.
He's got a premonition, see? He's got a feel for the future.
Behind the cherries come the rest of the Disciples. White. Black. Latino. East Asian. South Asian. Hooting. Hollering. Jeering. See, they've gone through this ritual themselves. Survived it. And they want it again, because it makes their balls burn.
The road ends high on the mountain, just below the bald summit, in a gravel parking lot where the shadow pools. The sun rests on the horizon, bleary, on the verge of dreams. The sky is the purple of the Caesars, and the brightest stars glimmer. But the cavalcade of evil doesn't end here. There is a path strewn with soft leaves leading upwards, and the Lizard King guides his roaring Triumph up it.
The Disciples and their cherries ride into a golden meadow rich with sunset. Eldritch night races in from the east. Alone, isolated, the bald summit is a brothel for voyeuristic sky-gods. Eastwards and westwards of the peak long ridges undulate. You could imagine great Odin seated here, his tame wolves Geri and Freki at his feet, his titanic cock erect and spewing semen as he watches the pornographic panoply of human existence.
The Lizard King kills his engine. His servants follow his lead.
The cherries? Well, they sit there astride their bikes a moment, gunning the throttles. Defiant. Hiding the fear.
"Made it, motherfucker!" Snake shouts.
The Lizard King is amused. Why? Why do they do that? They've begged him for this moment. But they pretend to hate it.
Hate it? How could anyone hate what the Messiah is about to do to them?
Ah well.
The Lizard King pulls off his helmet. Locks of nightdark hair fall forward into his eyes. The sides of his head are shaved, revealing tattooed outlines of crowned goannas circling his ears.
"Not yet," he says. "Cocksucker."
"We're here," says Skunk. "That's what you said, motherfucker."
"That's not all I said, buttboy." The Lizard King rises from his bike. His jeans are stained: oil, carbon, piss, jizz, the funk of a thousand orgies.
"Let me handle that fuckhead, boss." Black Crowley rumbles.
"We'll all handle that fuckhead, Crowley. Shut the bikes, off, cherries."
The cherries obey.
"What the fuck more do you want?" Snake spits.
"Babies," says the Lizard King. "Pretty babies."
The Disciples laugh.
