Slaughterhouse High

Showers were Dex's preferred mode of bathing. He was standing beneath the punishing blast of a shower, yes that was it, his eyes shut, his mouth open against the downpour. She pictured Dex's sweet head angled right, his left earlobe buttoned cutely at the base of his ear, looking (this all in her imagination of course) like a fat blunt thumb bereft of nail and bone.

Tweed gasped.

Don't go there. In the bathroom, both her lobes were naked, as were his. On the right the friendship lobe, kissable, touchable, and viewable in public. And on the left? The secret, naughty lobe that her classmates cracked jokes about by their gym lockers.

Funny how it was okay for it to be unbagged when you were alone. And it was okay for little kids' lobes to be exposed until they grew breasts or their voices lowered.

But otherwise, only wedded twos or threes in the dim-lit privacy of their bedrooms were allowed to fondle that concealed length of flesh. Only there could it be pinched and licked and sucked so that their love partner gasped with surprise and delight, going all gooshy in the down-there place.

A devilish grin widened upon her face.

Everyone thought pretty little Tweed Megrim so innocent. Such a goody-goody.

They were right, of course. Plenty of girls at school, from all reports, were supremely slutty (Peach Popkin came to mind). And it was true that she, Tweed, had only thought exciting thoughts. Never had she dared act upon them.

Until tonight.

She had decided. To get Dex's motor running, she had even hinted.

If he futtered off a choice bit of flesh for her-a nose tip, a lobe, half a nipple, something like that-if he emerged from the frenzied crowd with his miniature cleaver dripping and a special prize clutched in his hand, why then, in the dark quiet of his parents' car, she would let him touch her lovelobe through her lobebag. Maybe she would even let him brush his nose against it.

Or rub his…

By God, she gasped, floating up through the bubbles and exposing the tips of her nipples.

… rub his bagged lovelobe against hers.

Tweed panted and laughed.

Enough of that. She felt light-headed. It wouldn't do to get herself all worked up so early in the evening.

She forced herself to concentrate on the pink-sequined dress that waited on a hanger in her bedroom. On the matching lobebag clipped to the hanger. And on her soft pastel pumps.

Her dad had spared no expense in decking her out.

Why should he? There was only one prom night in anyone's life. Well, okay, if you didn't count teachers, principals, janitors, school nurses, and such. They had one every year.

But they were grown-ups. Odd old folks whose generation didn't matter worth a hoot.

Nope. Tonight belonged to the kids.

She and Dex would survive. They hadn't been chosen to fall beneath the slasher's knife. Some other couple had.

A full life lay ahead for Dex and her, and cruel fate would not step in to cut it short.

The day before, Dex bragged that he would punch the slasher's lights out, he would defend her, if by freakishly bad luck they had in fact been chosen. But Tweed put a finger to his lips and told him, "Hush up now, we won't be."

And she was right.

There was no question.

Tonight would be the most wondrous night of their lives. And many more nights of wonder lay before them.

Downstairs, her dad was singing.

*****

"Take 'er easy," grumbled the sheriff, his shoulders stooped as he footed his cumbrous way down the stairs. The back end of the trough was wide and unwieldy.

Fronemeyer, struggling with the front end, nodded and slowed.

Doggy smell. A high soft whine like the plaintive scree of a clothesline pulley.

In the dim spill of light, the pup looked pitiful. Rib-winded, sick-eyed, underfed. It strained at its tether, eager for companionship.

But the sinkpipe held. Puppy claws scrabbled ineffectually on concrete. Light brown whips of turd swirled up from the floor by the dryer. A long-handled axe lay across the washing machine lid.

Blackburn's eyebrows rose. "You're practicing on a pooch?" he asked.

"There's no law against it." Defensive scum. "I used my own money. At the pound. They'd've snuffed him anyway. They'd've entered him in a dog-cracking contest, sure as we're standing here."

"Maybe so." The sheriff's tone betrayed him.

"I'm planning to work up. Most first-timers do, don't they?"

Blackburn's ears burned but he said nothing.

When they had set the trough near the drain in the floor, Fronemeyer arched his back and let out an exaggerated groan.

The sheriff glared at him and headed for the stairs. "Let's bring 'em in."

Upstairs, Fronemeyer's mates were draped in wifewear ten years out of date. Red-pink checks. Frilly aprons.

Blackburn nodded at them. He passed an end table that held the school's instruction packet, doing his best to ignore the fluxed elders in the vestibule.

It was a relief to hit the air outside. But the art teacher dogged his heels, putting in one small-talk goad after another.