The Toothpick Man

Shannon watched the possum as he worked the toothpick in and out of his gums. The movements were exaggerated beyond anything she had seen and she was sure it was causing him pain. The look on his face told her that much. With each jab and twist, she noticed his naked, pink tail would twitch wildly. Each twist and grimace caused the jaguar to cringe herself.

"Surely he's not doing this on purpose," she thought. That thought was cut off as she watched him shove the toothpick into a gap as far as he could, a soft groan coming from his lips. As he moved the piece of wood out of his teeth, he spun it around so that the fresh side would be used. The part of the small wooden pick that was now exposed to Shannon was disgusting. It was splintered and covered in bright red blood, more than she knew should be healthy.

Shannon had ridden this train back and forth to work every day for over seven years and was familiar with all the regulars who rode with her. Still, there were always the fresh faces, the ones who would ride the train once in a while while their car was in the shop, the traveler who didn't want to pay cab fares during their stay in the city, the homeless man trying to stay warm, and the ever amusing country bumpkin who had never even seen a train that wasn't driven on steam.

"This sick fuck doesn't fall into any of these categories though," Shannon thought to herself. She tried to divert her attention as the man continued to mutilate his gums not three feet away from her. He wasn't paying any attention to her, that much was obvious. Otherwise he would have noticed the discomfort on her face and, hopefully, stopped his antics.

As he was making another dig, the toothpick snapped near the center, causing the possum's paw to jerk up and bop himself in the nose.

"Finally," she thought, "now maybe he will find something less disgusting to do while he's in public." Instead, the possum simply reached into his coat and pulled out a small cylinder. As he popped the lid off and stuck a finger inside, Shannon realized what it was. It was an entire container of toothpicks. She groaned audibly and stood up to move to another car. As she left, she turned her head and saw that the male was still sitting on his bench, his paws gripping the ledge between his legs, only now he had taken notice of her. He watched her exit the train with an intense interest, his head tilted to one side with his black eyes locked onto her back.

Two cars over, Shannon finally found a seat in which she could feel comfortable. She set her bag down on the bench next to her and plugged her headphones into her ears. As her toes tapped along to the beat of the song, she closed her eyes and drifted lightly between the world and her dreams.

A jolt as the train started off again woke Shannon out of her sleep. She looked at her cell phone. "5:32. I still have at least three stops. Damn."

She tilted her head away from her phone so she could close her eyes again, but just before she could achieve this goal, she noticed a pair of Converse high tops in front of the bench across from her. They hadn't been there before and Shannon looked up to see who they belonged to.

She gasped audibly as she saw it was the same possum from before, only this time his paws were folded in his lap, covering the crotch on his ratty blue jeans instead of jamming things between his teeth. As the sound escaped her lips, the possum's eerie black eyes widened with what seemed like surprise as his head tilted in the direction she had slid.

Shannon's chest began to slow down as the train stopped at its next destination. The doors slid open and five furs walked from the platform and onto the train. A couple of college students, a sheep and a gazelle, walked between her and the possum in an effort to find seats together. As they walked, Shannon's eyes inadvertently followed them, watching as they sat down and the sheep put his arm around the gazelle's shoulder and began to talk to her.

Once they had passed, her eyes moved back to the possum. She noticed that the possum's eyes were fixated directly on her, watching her in a manner that reminded her of the tales her grandfather used to tell her about his days in the African jungles. She studied the possum intently as he sat across from her, seemingly satiated by simply watching her. "Just plug your ears back in and ride this out. You've only got two more stops until you can get away from this creep" she thought to herself.

As she moved to put her headphones back in, she saw the possum's eyes jerk. Without warning, he leapt off the seat and placed a paw on her leg. Shannon shrieked softly and came very close to slapping the possum's face, claws out. Once he had stopped moving, Shannon found herself staring at a gray t-shirt with a band logo on it covered by a military green jacket with patches decorating the front. She looked up and into the face of the possum that was now standing over her. His eyes were little more than black pools framed by wire rim glasses that sat neatly on the bridge of his muzzle. His fur was immaculately clean, as was his short blonde hair and he had a very pleasant smell about him. "What a strange thing to notice about a guy who just creeped the shit out of you," Shannon thought. She was brought back to the train as the possum spoke.

"Hey...I guess that's three times I have spooked you. I'm sorry about that." He spoke in a voice that sounded soft and young, nothing threatening in his tone, sounding like a teenager that just got busted for lying to his mom.

"Yeah...Please take your paw off my leg." Shannon glared at him as he removed his paw, using it to rub the back of his neck.

"I'm sorry. It's just that you left the car when you saw my using those toothpicks and I wanted to make sure you weren't too...put off, I guess."

Shannon looked at the possum, her eyes scanning his face intently. "Well...You were digging pretty hard. It grossed me out, to be honest. The subway is a hell of a place to do things like that."

The possum nodded, a solemn look on his face. "Yeah...I started chewing them to quit smoking and it progressed into what you saw. I guess I traded one bad habit for another. I'm Jerimy." The possum extended his right paw, the one that had been doing most of his DIY dental work. Shannon drew back slightly and Jerimy tilted his head questioningly before the look of realization struck him.

"Oh...don't worry. I cleaned my paws," the possum said as he drew a package of wet wipes from his rear pants pocket. Shannon looked at the package incredulously before accepting his paw with a visible reluctance.

"I'm Shannon. Look...It's not that I wish to be rude, but I do wish to be left in peace for the remainder of my ride home."

"Oh...Yeah...Sure...I just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was The Toothpick Man or anything. I'll leave you be." As the possum turned to walk back to the first car, Shannon tapped him on the back. "The what?"

The possum tilted his head again as he turned and looked back down at her. "The Toothpick Man? You haven't heard about him?"

Shannon shook her head as she removed the headphones from her ears to make sure she heard him correctly. The possum sat down on the seat next to her and turned towards her.

"Well he's been in the papers. He's this serial killer here in New York. A pretty sick dude. He finds these women, on the subways they think, and rapes and kills them. Once he's done, he jams toothpicks through their eyes. Makes the eyeballs look like those olives they put in martinis. Like I said, he's been in the papers. No major stories yet, though, simply because he takes like a year or so between his kills. He'll make the headlines before he's done, though." As the possum spoke, his eyes seemed to gleam as if he was speaking of somebody he looked up to. His tone was that of an expert on the topic who had been asked to share this expertise with a rather perturbed jaguar. She did remember reading about a girl from her neighborhood who had been killed four months ago, but it had been a page eight story with little to no details. The only reason she recalled it was because the police suspected she had been followed from the subways.

"Well...I don't think you're him, regardless of how you've conducted yourself. May I please enjoy the rest of my ride in peace, now?" Shannon watched as the possum nodded and stood. He tipped his head and saluted her as if saying goodbye before walking through the door and on to the car in front of hers. Shannon shook her head and watched the door for a few seconds before plugging her headphones back in.

The rest of her ride was, in fact, rather peaceful. As peaceful as a subway train could be at least. As the train approached her stop, she gathered her bag and stood, walking toward the door. She stepped off the train and onto the platform, her eyes looking around at the two or three furs who exited the train along with her. "No sign of that damned possum," she thought to herself. Allowing a small smile to appear on her lips, she hiked her bag up on her shoulder, adjusted her headphones and proceeded up the stairs.

On the street, the chill in the November night air was a welcome change from the stuffy train car. As Shannon made her way down the sidewalk, the street lamps cast a soft yellow glow that shone off of her black fur, creating the illusion that she could glow. Her soft brown hair bounced lightly behind her as she walked, puffing up at the sides as the occasional breeze caught it to expose her cheeks. She brushed the hair backwards as she ascended the stairs to her home, scouring about her purse for her keys. Finding them, she looked at the doorknob, her paw guiding the slender key onto the the slot before twisting the knob and pushing the door open. She reached to her right and flicked the switch. A split second after the light in her entryway came on, she felt an impact on the back of her head and her world went dark once again.

_____________________________________________

Shannon's eyes opened slowly, blinking a few times in a lax effort to reduce the fuzziness in her vision. She looked up at the ceiling, recognizing the light fixture as the one in her bedroom. A groan escaped her lips as she tried to turn over, her arm jerking backwards. She quickly turned to see that her arm was tied to one of her bedposts, her eyes blinking a few times in disbelief. She turned to her other arm. Bound as well. She looked down and saw that while her legs were still free, she had been stripped naked, her C cup breasts exposed and shifting as she struggled against her restraints.

As she fought to free herself, she began to look around the room, trying to find something to aid in her escape. Instead, she saw something that made her gasp in horror. To the left of the bed, in her grandmother's old dining room chair, sat Jerimy. He was perched in the chair with his legs crossed, his body leaning forward at the waist with his elbows on his knees. His pink paws were folded in front of his muzzle as his tail held tightly to a rear leg of the chair. His black eyes were fixated on the struggling jaguar, following every movement she made, taking in every detail as if he were going to draw her. She noticed that he had forgone the jacket and gray band t-shirt in favor of a tight fitting plain white t-shirt. With the jacket removed, she could now see the plethora of tattoos on his white arms, renderings of death and destruction that danced up his arms.

After ten minutes or so of struggling and screaming, Shannon lay still for a moment, locking her eyes on Jerimy. During the entire time, he had not moved a muscle save for his eyes which were still peering out from behind his glasses. She sneered at the possum, snapping her teeth as she asked, "So what...What are you planning on doing with me, huh?" There was no reply from Jerimy, only the silent stare that she had been subjected to for the past ten minutes or so. Shannon was getting ready to make another comment when the possum spoke from behind his paws.

"My god...you really are beautiful, do you realize that? Do you realize what a beautiful creature you are, Shannon?" Jerimy's voice was quiet, almost inaudible to the feline on the bed. As Shannon processed what she had said, she realized that the look in Jerimy's eyes was not that of hunger, but of admiration.

"Jerimy...Would you please untie me? We can forget this ever happened. Just untie me and leave the house, please." Shannon's voice didn't waiver as she suspected it might. She was a strong woman, but she had never been faced with a situation so dire.

"You didn't answer my question, sweetheart. Do you realize how beautiful you are?" Jerimy's eyes were still fixated on the feline as he posed his question again.

Unsure of which approach to take, Shannon ran a few scenarios over in her mind, each with a different response, before deciding on a reply. "Uh...I have been told I am attractive. I guess I do."

Shannon flinched as the possum's paws clapped loudly before dropping down towards the floor, his torso beginning to rock back and forth. He looked at the floor with a smile and shook his head slightly from side to side. After a minute, the possum stood up and moved to the side of the bed, sitting down and placing a paw on the jaguar's stomach, his fingers lightly working themselves into her fur.

"I ride the trains every day and I see alot of beautiful girls. I see raccoons, tabby cats, mice, vixens, other possums, and I have seen just about every kind of dog that you can think of. They're all beautiful, so beautiful. I want to put my paws on them, but I know well enough not to, so I control myself. Still, every now and then, I will see a girl such as yourself. A girl with that kind of beauty that I find I.... just cannot ignore. I know that if I pass up a chance to have you, I would never be able to sleep again without your face running through my head." The possum paused briefly to lock eyes with Shannon. She noticed that Jerimy's paw had moved further down her stomach as he spoke, inching towards her exposed netherlips. As Jerimy admired her, she took the chance to speak.

"Then why not just ask a girl out? Why go through all the trouble of...well...of this?"

Shannon jumped as Jerimy not only let out a shrill, disbelieving laugh, but slid his paw between her legs as well. Shannon squirmed, clenching her legs together as she felt his naked fingers begin to fondle her lower lips, the digits gently caressing the flesh between her thighs. "Because I am terrible with cultivating 'friendships'. I don't particularly care for the time and effort it takes to gamble on somebody liking you. And, sweetheart, answer honestly. If I had asked you if you'd like to spend the night with me, what would your answer have been?"

Shannon looked at the possum in disbelief. "Uhm...Well...I would have suggested we get drinks first or something." She flinched as the possum glared down at her, his paw pressing against her body with an uncomfortable force.

"Lying cunt. You'd have turned me down and you know it. Fuck it...I'm gonna have my way with you and then I am going to kill you." His expression turned into one of anger as he stood up and walked back towards the chair, leaning to down to grab a bag Shannon had previously been unable to see. She watched in horror as he unzipped the bag and pulled out two lengths of rope and a ball gag before tossing the bag back onto the floor.

Jerimy took three steps and stopped at the foot of the bed, his eyes never leaving the items in his paws. The feline watched as he made a loop in the rope and knotted it. He reached through the loop and grabbed her left ankle, pulling the rope over her leg and jerking the loop tight around her ankle. As she struggled, alternating between begging the possum to let her go and screaming for help, Jerimy pulled her leg away from her body and tied the rope off on the bedpost. The possum pulled on the rope a couple of times ensuring that his prey couldn't free herself before repeating this procedure on her other leg. Once he had her legs restrained, Jerimy reclaimed his spot on the edge of the bed, his eyes fixated again on her face.

Shannon opened her mouth to scream again, but the sound was cut short by the ball gag being shoved into her muzzle, muffling the sound tremendously. She struggled and cried out as the possum lifted her head and fastened the buckle on the backside of her head. Her eyes followed him as they began to tear up, watching as he stripped naked on the side of bed. Once he had freed himself of his underwear, exposing his already erect cock, he climbed onto the bed and laid his head on Shannon's chest. He took several deep breaths before raising his head and smiling at her. "You're all sorts of scared, aren't you sweetie?"

Shannon nodded as she struggled against her restraints to no avail. The possum simply looked into her eyes and said, "That's good. No need to worry, though. I never skip the foreplay."

Shannon cried out against her gag as she felt the possum's lips move along her supple breasts, his strong tongue lightly caressing each of her nipples as a paw snaked its way between her spread legs. As he locked his lips around one of the feline's nipples, he plunged a finger inside her, working it in and out as his body shifted positions. As his teeth gently clutched her nipple between them, his tongue lashed at the small nub, causing it to stand up in an effort to receive more of the same attention. Shannon groaned in disgust as she felt the possum's finger sliding in and out of her canal, causing the pathway to become slick with arousal against her will.

Shannon's mind pleaded with her body to stop, screamed at it that it didn't really want this, did everything it could to override her arousal. Despite every effort she made, though, Shannon's body reacted to the attention in the only way it knew how. As her canal became wetter, she saw Jerimy look up at her, the grin on his lips telling her that he knew what he was doing not only to her body, but to her mind. Then, keeping his eyes locked on hers, he began kissing his way down her body, his lips shortly reaching the ones between her hips.

Jerimy removed his finger as he wrapped his paws around the feline's thighs and engaged her lower lips in a lewd kiss, plunging his tongue inside her. Shannon squirmed and resisted to the best of her ability as she felt the possum's mouth violating her body, the tongue moving inside her in an effort to get the best taste possible. The possum's lips rubbed against hers, his small pink nose pressing against her clitoris as his tongue lashed against her velvet interior. With each movement of his lips, the possum made small, wet sounds against the feline's body, the kind that Shannon had heard out of her ex boyfriend not too long ago. As the sounds reached her hears, she whimpered loudly and tears began to roll down her cheeks. Then, without thinking, she let out a soft moan of pleasure.

As soon as her violator heard this sound, his ears perked and he looked up at her. Shannon felt him withdraw his tongue as he sat up and licked his maw, cleaning her fluids out of the fur around his muzzle. Once he had gotten his mouth mostly clean, he said, "You're right, sweetheart. I shouldn't keep such a pretty girl waiting this long." With that, the possum positioned himself between her thighs and pressed into her.

Shannon's eyes widened and let loose a fresh stream of tears as she screamed against the gag. She fought with everything she had as she felt the possum's erect member slide into her body, her walls wrapping around it like a glove to a paw. Her body shook violently in every effort to get away, but the possum had her tied too tightly. He placed his paws on either side of the feline's head and stared directly into her eyes as his hips began to move. Shannon cried as she felt the possum's cock pressing inside her and then sliding out before doing it all over again. Her mind once continued to beg her body to turn itself off as she felt her fluids leaking out from around the flesh inside her, staining the sheets of her bed as the possum 'made love' to her.