Some Ind of Tragedy

Herbie knew it was bad news the second he saw her. Of course, coming back to the bar that was his old stomping grounds in college wasn't exactly a recipe for success, but the newly-married man missed his glory days a bit, and wanted to reconnect with some old friends. He played some pool, threw some darts, and was still convinced that he was good, not accepting the fact that everyone was humoring the hulking, nearly-seven-foot-tall behemoth out of a sense of self preservation.

He bored the bartender with stories about his wife, their young twins, and his burgeoning business, but still couldn't seem to shut up, even when that became apparent. Luckily, or so he thought, there were others around who seemed to appreciate a tale of good fortune.

"Never mind the sud-slinger, it's nice to hear of someone so young doing so well. Let me buy you a drink and you can tell me more."

The voice was throaty and smoky, and Herbie knew exactly where it was coming from. He should; he'd spent the last half hour trying with all his prodigious strength to keep his eyes from sliding over to her, even succeeding once or twice. Now, with her directly talking to him, he figured it'd be rude to just ignore her, so he turned to face her full-on.

He was first met with a smirking mouth covered in a dark lipstick, one that set off her lustrous, black hair and deep brown eyes. Of course, he was a few drinks deep already, and his ability to keep focus on her face soon lost to his true desire; staring right down at the magnificent pair of breasts that were about to pop out of the neck in her expensive, peacock-colored, low-cut dress.

Herbie was sure that he'd only ever seen tits like that on the chunkier girls he'd come across in his life, and this woman absolutely did not fit that description. Her slim waist gave her one of those hourglass figures you'd see in old movie stars, which made a kind of sense, seeing as how she had a few years on him. How many, he couldn't exactly say, she was that well-preserved. Beautiful enough to look young, but sultry enough to come off as worldly and mature. She was, in his mind, the ultimate Milf.

It was only after a few seconds that he realized that he probably needed to actually say something. "Um... thanks! I, uh, I'm glad you wish me well, and stuff, but I already have a drink. Had drinks. A lot, I think." He belched to drive his point home. "Even for me."

The woman laughed and touched his wrist with her delicate fingers. "Really? You're, what? Not even thirty yet? And you're so... big. I can't imagine you'd give in so quickly. Well, at least let me introduce myself; my name's June."

Herbie laughed. "Kinda old-fashioned, but I can't say anything. My mom named me Herbert, and everyone calls me Herbie. I feel like a character in a Disney movie sometimes."

June's own laugh was crystalline. "Well, it could be worse. At least those guys live happily ever after, which is rarely the case in real life." She ran her fingers past his wrist then, and up his arm. "It only happens when you get lucky."

Herbie smiled. "Not for me. My mom, Alice, said I was a late delivery because I needed the extra time to get my shit together to take on the world. Of course, her aunt was pregnant at the same time, and gave birth to my cousin, Eugene, first, which pissed her off, even though she never wanted to admit—"

"Wow, you're really forthcoming with the family history." June smiled.

"Sorry." His sheepish grin was boyishly charming, everyone had always told him so, and it seemed to make this woman forget her annoyance, so he kept it up. "My wife, Meg... you know what, forget it."

"No! Tell me! Hell, at this point, bring in all the aunts and uncles, cousins... give me a story about your father..."

"Okay, okay, point taken." Herbie sat back. "Far be it from me to bore a beautiful woman." He smiled. "Short version; my cousin Eugene is an asshole, my wife is amazing, our kids are perfect, and I have no clue who my real dad is. Yeah, one of those situations."

June shook her head. "Nuh uh. That was rough. You are rusty. You owe me that drink now." She signaled the bartender with a glint in her eye.

"To be fair, I'm not rusty, I'm just not trying to pick you up." Herbie looked at the swirling amber liquid set down in front of him then. "But far be it from me to insult you any more than I have." He picked up the glass and swirled the drink. "What is it? Not sure if I've..."

"Something my dear auntie cooked up a long time ago." June tilted her head, playing with the fringe of her dress with one finger, rubbing it up and down over the exposed flesh of her chest. "I guarantee you've never had anything like it. They only make it on special request from... well, me. Now."

Herbie wasn't the brightest bulb in the box, but he wasn't an idiot either. His contracting business was taking off for a reason, and it wasn't dumb luck. He knew this woman wanted to ride him six ways from Sunday, and he knew he wasn't going to give in, but he thought taking the drink was harmless. For someone his size, spiking the liquor to get him to lower his defenses would have taken a bit more than one little glass. And it did smell interesting, after all.

He took a sip, watched by June expectantly, and liked what he tasted. He smiled his appreciation at her and downed the whole thing. "That was... really good?" He grinned back. "But I have to be going before the phone calls start."

"Well, with you gone, this place will be a drag." June held out her hand. "Walk me to my car?"

Herbie took her dainty fingers in his meaty paw. He was a gentleman, and, after all, the moment had passed, he could tell. What was the worst that could happen?

__________

"Ungh, Ungh, Ungh..."

The grunts in his ear were an accompaniment to the feeling of nails raking across his wide, bare back under his unbuttoned shirt. That hurt, but the pain was a pale thing next to the feel of pure velvet squeezing the ever-loving fuck out of his turgid cock. Herbie's entire awareness was reduced to those vying sensations until he opened his eyes to see the blurry world around him. Beneath him, dwarfed by his huge frame, June was writhing, her own eyes squeezed shut and teeth gritted in a mix of pleasure and pain. Her perfect, immense tits, now freed from her torn dress, were rolling across her chest as she flopped about, skewering herself deeper on his cock.

"Fuuuuck..." She whimpered angrily. "Same as him... just like that fucking..."

Herbie only stopped his thrusting with titanic effort, seeing as how the sensations she was giving him were unreal, and he was nearly on the verge of eruption... and looked around. They were in the back of a limo, but he had no memory of getting there. "Wha... what the hell..."

"Oh no. Nope. You're not done yet, you bastard."

June squeezed the dick that was kissing her cervix with expert technique, milking him like a goddamn cow. Herbie groaned and boiled over. His climax mixed with hers, and his back bent as pushed himself all the way in to fill her with his spunk. After a few tremulous after-shudders, he pulled out of the woman he'd just met to the sound of her involuntary squeaks as his huge member travelled the length of her sensitive sheath.

Flat on her back, her sweat-sheened bosom heaving, June tilted her head up to smile at him when he loomed over her once again. "Can't... can't get... enough... huh?" Her labored breathing became a wheezing laugh. "Just like... eep!"

She squealed again, but in shock rather than delight as Herbie scooped her up with one arm and almost casually tossed her out of the limo and onto the blacktop of the parking lot. She glared up at him, rubbing her ass, as she watched him wordlessly slam the door shut, then go around to the driver's door and yank it open, nearly taking it off the hinges. The limo driver was frantically trying to button his pants when Herbie threw him out too, making him roll a good ten feet with his pathetic noodle flapping around in the night air, before the fuming young man got in the driver's seat himself.

June stood, unheedful that her bare tits were on fully display above the ruined dress scrunched around her waist. She pointed a finger at the big man, her eyes lit with fire. "So you fuck me then steal my ca—" She stopped and shut her mouth at the look of pure hate coming from her erstwhile lover. As her hand lowered and she turned her head, the limo peeled out of the parking lot and onto the street, cutting off someone who honked and yelled loudly about rich assholes.

Herbie had no way of knowing, but the chagrined look on June's face wasn't there for long before it was replaced by one of the evilest grins anyone had ever had the gall to form.

__________

Drugged... had to be... what the fuck did that bitch give me...

One thing's for sure, I'm not gonna fuck up my own car getting home...

Amazingly enough, Herbie didn't feel inebriated. He'd been stupid a time or two and had driven after a night at the bar when he shouldn't have, and this time felt nothing like all those others. He wasn't fuzzy. Wasn't dizzy. No blurred vision or dumb ideas; he was just... angry. No, he was pissed. Furious. He was fucking

enraged

. In fact, all he could think of was crushing the life out of that woman for what she did to him. For what she made him do. He knew he should feel guilt for betraying his wife, Meg, and that that was the source of his fury, but there was no room in him for anything other than pure, unbridled hate... which was exactly why he hadn't dared to get to his own car before he got the hell out of that place. If he even lingered one extra second, he knew he'd do something that would land him in prison for a long, long time.

Herbie was hyper-focused enough to find his way home, though parking the stolen limo right on his lawn was less than rational, and he was soon fumbling his key into his front door.

That

was when something, some kind of delayed reaction, kicked in and he felt like he'd been punched in the gut. He staggered the rest of the way inside, and was greeted by a vision from his nightmares.

In front of him, his house looked like a horror movie set. The walls were wet with blood, and crimson light streamed into the widows on all sides. What's more, the floor was full of holes that he somehow knew were bottomless, dropping away forever. Herbie staggered in, his mouth twisting in disgust, and just then two huge snakes popped their heads up from behind the rotting fabric of the sofa and hissed at him, fanged mouths yawing as wide as his face.

Herbie yelled out and immediately sprang into action, grabbing each of the freaky things by the neck and squeezing until they weren't squirming and hissing anymore. That done, he quickly found the stairs and loped up them, needing to find his wife and sons to make sure they were safe, dodging gaunt hands that reached out from the walls all the while. He threw open the door to his bedroom, eyes wide and throat tight with strain, frantically looking to see what fresh hell had been birth in there.

It was a hell all right, but not one he'd ever expected.

Meg, his happy, vivacious, innocent bride, was gripping the headboard of their marital bed with both hands while her body shook and her hair whipped back and forth. It wasn't just her body though, the whole bed shook with the motion that the two on it were making. Meg was screaming and bucking back against a man's hips that were flush on her ass. A man that wasn't Herbie. A man that was, in fact, his cousin, Eugene.

"Get it all!" Meg screeched as she looked back at the man thrusting on her. "Get in there and fill it up! Aaah, God yes! Herbie never got it this good!"

"Does he still think I don't know what I'm doing?" Eugene laughed right as he slapped something hard. "I can dip it better than he ever—"

The rest of the betrayal was not verbalized, because Herbie's roar drowned both of them out. The big man lunged into the room, throwing Eugene off his wife to crash into a corner, before picking up the lying whore he'd married and slamming her head into the wall. Once, because that was all it took. As the light went out of Meg's astonished eyes, he turned to finish the job, facing his cowering cousin.

"St... stop!" Eugene raised his hands up in front of him. "What's wrong with you?"

"ME?" Herbie took a step. "You two were... were..." His gut churned again, and he dropped to his knees, then buried his head in his hands. "You were..." He groaned, not knowing what was happening to him.

"We were fucking painting the room!" Eugene waved at the buckets, and pans, and rollers. At half blue, half brown walls. "It's what we were doing before you left! You... you... oh God... Meg..."

Herbie looked at his cousin. His fully-clothed, paint-spotted kin. Then, despite every bone in his body telling him not to, he looked back at his wife. He saw her, in her work overalls, unmoving where he'd left her, a third, red smear joining the blue and brown on the wall in a trail that led down to her head.

It was too much. Herbie bolted out of the room and down the stairs, barely aware that the walls were not running with blood... not these ones at least, and the floor was not full of empty pits. When he got back to the sofa, and saw what was there in place of two dead snakes... he was done.

A piercing, plaintive wail was all that he had left to give, and give it he did. As his mind shut down and merciful darkness washed over him, he had one thought to cap the tragedy his life had become.

Why?

__________

"The doctors were able to tell that

something

psychotropic was in you, but they have no idea exactly what. It's why you're not rotting in a cell for what you did. Congratualtions, unlike what you see in the movies, almost no one successfully gets off by pleading temporary insanity."

Herbie scratched his bearded chin numbly, barely making himself care that he was being spoken to. After that night, he barely cared about much of anything. Well, not exactly true. He wanted his freedom. Without that, there was no way to get his revenge. That was the only reason he was talking to Paul Tellus, one of the executives of Zero Lymp U.S. itself. Why the man had taken on his case pro bono was beyond Herbie, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"So what does that mean? I'm free?"

Paul laughed humorlessly. "Not quite. The judge took into account both that you were out of your mind... and that you're not now. She said you need to make reparations to the only person left alive that you still can. She was very pithy about it, too."

"Eugene." Herbie groaned. He admitted that he owed his cousin something, though, really, all that happened to the man was a bruised ego. And ass, probably. The problem was, Eugene was always insanely envious of Herbie, and absolutely would not make this easy. Part of the reason Herbie's hallucination took the form it did was because he knew his cousin always wanted Meg for himself, and couldn't accept that his money wasn't just going to buy her away. Now, he'd never get her, and Herbie knew who'd be paying for that. More than he was already, inside.

"...Fine." Herbie shrugged. "It's worth it if I get to walk away free and clear afterward. What do I have to do? Set up a payment plan..."

"Not quite." Paul looked miserable, like he'd have rather been anywhere else. "Man, I have to tell you, you don't deserve this. Believe it or not, I feel a kinship with you, and I wish we could wave it all away, but laws are laws, and even my dad can't buck all the rules. Not publicly. So here it is," the golden-haired man slid a form up to Herbie and dropped a pen on it, "a labor contract to work for Eugene until things are squared away. Ten jobs. A nice round number."

"Yeah, that's all it is." Herbie growled as he plucked up the pen. "There're no stipulations. No rules. No conditions. Just... do what he says."

"He's bound too. He can't just leave you dangling. He has to come up with actionable fulfillments or the contract is nullified." Paul seemed to know just how weak that was, hunching his shoulders embarrassedly. "Just... it's all we can do."

Herbie didn't waste another second bitching about what couldn't be changed, and signed his name. He stood then, staring down as his

savior

before he left. "I thought I wouldn't care, but I can't help it. Why are you people doing this... arbitration?"

Paul smiled weakly. "Responsibility is a many-layered thing, and we at Zero—"

"Fuck. Forget it." He headed for the door. "Don't know why I thought a bunch'a rich assholes would ever give it to me straight."

__________

"My hands are as tied as yours, dear cousin. I have no idea why things ended up like this, but it's on each of us to do our parts."

Eugene sat in his overstuffed chair in his living room and smiled in a way that Herbie was sure was supposed to look sympathetic. It was a testament to his desire to get out from under everyone's thumbs that his cousin wasn't swallowing teeth. Yet. He settled for an annoyed sigh. "Okay, yeah. I hear you. So what's first?" He rattled the little toy that Eugene's daughter, Adele, had abandoned minutes before. The girl giggled in delight and climbed into Herbie's lap to play with the newly-captivating gizmo, though she was just as taken with Herbie himself, it seemed. Poor girl didn't deserve the life she'd have with the father she was stuck with.

Eugene's false smile fell away entirely. "All right, well... it's a question of how to make use of you. You're big, you're talented enough, and you work hard, but you're not exactly a Rhodes Scholar. Helping my company in the boardroom would not be a fitting task." He tapped his chin in thought. "Especially now that I've partnered up with... well, never mind." He eyed Herbie up and down. "No, I think you'll be handling tasks that aren't exactly squeaky clean. Luckily for you, I have access to a legal team that can keep things... discrete."

Eugene's new shit-eating smile was honest. Herbie had to admit that much, at least.

__________

Herbie stared at the marquee above the entrance to the stadium.

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association Presents...

Blah, blah, blah. Another organization with too much money decided to throw it at something gaudy for publicity. In this instance, the NEMA Sports Center. Too bad for them, no one stopped to think that, with sporting events came gambling, and with gambling came corruption, and with corruption came rampant fucking crime. The place looked nice, on the outside, but Herbie knew that the organizational structure was riddled with hand-outs and kickbacks, book-cookers and book-makers, and that any pretty young thing to be seen on the premises that wasn't an athlete was being paid for... other performances.

In other words, it was a big place that was stuffed to the gills with victims of one kind or another. Luckily for Herbie... probably... he wasn't tasked with turning the place into a squeaky-clean, aboveboard operation. He just needed to eliminate an unwanted element. Apparently, one of the shadier types had taken the atmosphere of NEMA stadium to heart, and had claimed the place, like a predator stalking one particularly favored corner of the jungle. People had always disappeared from this area, the usual type that life had spit out and forgot about. Lately, though, this hunting lion had stepped up his game, and people of note were not showing up to places they were supposed to. Ticket-holders out for fresh air, staff, even athletes that had lost a game and had left to clear their heads.

Bottom line? It was bad for the bottom line, and Eugene was losing money on his investment in the area. The cops had come up empty, and there was even some kind of hired consultant who hadn't been heard of in a few days, according to the info Herbie had been given. Hence, why this was his first task.