Jenny's Couch, Book 5 Chapter 8 (Lilah's Song)

It had been snowing all day. Lilah watched it out the windows. It started out very heavy - thick, wet clumps of snow coming down so hard she could hardly see the other side of the street. Then the snowfall got lighter but the wind picked up. Lilah enjoyed watching the flakes whirling all around, especially when they changed from white to the secret colors she had no names for. Then the flakes of secret colors turned into tiny dragons and the white flakes turned into tiny white kittens and the dragons chased the kittens trying to set their tails on fire, and the kittens chased the dragons trying to pounce on them and they all danced up into the sky and then the music started, not the terrible music when something bad was happening but the other kind, that Lilah only heard when she was watching something beautiful. That had hardly ever happened when she lived in the bad place but now, in the good monsters' cave she saw beautiful things a lot.

But then something happened and the kittens and the dragons flew away into the sky and instead when she looked out into the snowstorm she thought she saw herself, but not herself the monster but the way she thought she used to be, when she was a little girl. And there was someone else there, someone she felt more than saw, she felt her mommy loving her and with the music it was so beautiful that it made her heart hurt and before she knew it she was crying. But then the snow whirled it all away and then she was just looking at her own reflection in the window, at all the metal stuck through the holes in her face and her tusks and the tattoo that was so ugly sometimes it scared even her. And then she was crying even harder.

The cunt monster saw her crying and asked her what was wrong but she couldn't tell him, she couldn't explain how much she wished she could be a little girl again and how bad it hurt that she knew she was going to be a monster forever. So instead she just untied her ribbon and spread her legs. The cunt monster knew when she did that she wanted him to bite her cunt and so he did, using his tongue so that the good feeling exploded in her, and she wouldn't let him stop because every time he stopped she saw her mommy and tried to reach out to touch her mommy but her mommy always went away, so she made the cunt monster keep using his tongue until the good feeling got so strong that it made her explode and die and everything went black for awhile and when she came back to life she had mostly forgotten all of it.

When she came back to life it was getting dark and it was still snowing a little bit, now feathery fat flakes that drifted down slowly. After the cunt monster fed her she turned on the tv and found the channel of people fucking and she watched that, sometimes laughing at the silly faces they made or the way they twisted their bodies together.

Later on it was time for her to be locked in her cage for bedtime but Lilah had no intention of staying there. She squeezed her butt so she could feel the key she kept in there. It was time for her to visit some of her monster friends again. Lilah had found lots of other monsters in the city. She knew they were monsters because none of the regular people wanted to be around them. If the monsters showed up during the day they got chased away or worse, so they only came out at night. Lilah had spent a lot of time skulking through the city at night and she had found many places where the monsters hung out.

Once the cunt monster was asleep, Lilah was out of her cage and then out of the house, quickly and silently. She stood naked in the snowdrift on the back porch, letting her bare feet get used to the freezing cold of the snow. Her narrow chest and belly expanded with deep breaths, inviting the cold inside her quickly. You couldn't keep the cold out so best to let it inside quickly and then you surrounded it and not the other way around. Her breath huffed out in big clouds all around her. Occasional flakes still drifted down, making tiny spots of sensation when they landed on her bare body. Then she was across the yard and over the fence and there was only the trail of little footprints in the snow to show where she had been.

Lilah kept to the shadows, staying mostly in alleys. She knew all the places where the streetlights were burnt out to cross the streets, all the little parks with bushes and trees she could move through and not be seen. It was so cold. At first her feet burned from walking through the snow, then they went numb. Every piece of metal in her piercings burned her skin the same way until numbness spread from her ears, her cheeks, her nipple and her bellybutton, everywhere she was pierced, until only her cunt was still warm and that only because she kept rubbing it as she walked.

Finally she peered out of an alley. Halfway down the block was the blinking sign that showed where monsters had their cave. The sign was beautiful, pink and yellow and orange that blinked in patterns, and that was perfect because Lilah thought these monsters were beautiful too. The best of the monsters had so many pretty colors all over them - their clothing, their fingernails, even their faces were painted so boldly that some of them were as beautiful as Lilah's face was ugly. Lilah was a little in love with them, but for the most part she just watched them parade up and down the street because what if she went into the cave and it turned out they were bad monsters and it was a cave like the angel helped her escape from? What if they captured her and kept her there and hurt her? Lilah couldn't bear the thought and wouldn't take the chance. So she waited until the street was momentarily empty and then she scampered around the corner, her bare feet slipping on the tramped-down snow, and ran to the middle of the block across the street from the monster cave. There was an empty building there with a deep gallery that went far back and was unlit, where Lilah could watch unseen as the beautiful monsters grew parrot heads or striped tentacles or giant sparking haloes as they made their way down the block to the cave. Every time one of the monsters walked into or out of the cave for just a moment she could hear music, and monsters laughing and singing and doing the things good monsters did.

The gallery was dark and littered with trash and freezing cold, but two of the monsters that Lilah was friends with were there. They were smaller than most monsters, and for some reason they weren't allowed in the club. Their names were Charlie and Cindy and they were brother and sister. Charlie was a sex monster. He wasn't allowed in the club but he would go and wait near the club and sometimes a big monster would come talk to him, and sometimes Charlie would go with the monster and have sex and then the monster would give him some money.

Cindy was not a sex monster though she thought she could be and she and Charlie argued about it sometimes. Charlie said she was too little, which Lilah thought was silly because Cindy was bigger than Lilah and Lilah had sex all the time. They were arguing about this when Lilah walked up this time, but she was glad to see them. She gave them each a hug and then squatted down between them. She was glad they were there because as soon as she stopped moving the cold attacked her all over her bare body and she wrapped her arms around herself and started shivering. Cindy and Charlie were always trying to give her clothing to wear and of course she couldn't because she wasn't the kind of monster that wore clothes, but they each snuggled close and wrapped an arm around her.

Even though Cindy and Charlie wore clothes, Lilah knew they were monsters when she met them. She could tell because they weren't scared of her. She had found the two of them sleeping together under some newspapers right in this same place, of course it wasn't as cold that night. She had lain down between them to see what it was like to sleep under newspapers. Cindy's eyes opened and then opened wide, taking in Lilah's tattooed face and her solid blue eyes and her tusks and her nudity but she didn't scream or try to run away or anything a regular person would do. She just wrapped her arms and legs around Lilah in a full-body hug and went back to sleep.

Later in the night they all woke up together. Cindy asked Lilah's name and she said Lilah and asked where she lived and she said in a monster cave and why was she naked and she said "Rawr!" to explain she was a monster. Then Charlie took Cindy to the other end of the gallery and they whispered together, thinking Lilah couldn't hear them, but her monster ears were really sharp. Charlie thought they should tell someone about Lilah and Lilah got ready to run away but Cindy said, "Look at her. If we tell the social worker her picture will end up in the papers. Whoever did that to her might be looking for her and if they find her..." Cindy just shook her head. "She's skinny but she's not starving, and she's naked because she wants to be. She has somewhere to stay, whatever 'monster cave' means. And look," Cindy dropped her voice even further, "You can see she's not right in the head. But she's getting by, just like we are." And after that they were friends. Lilah came to visit them and to watch the brilliant, beautiful, colorful monsters across the street.

That's what they were doing tonight. Charlie had a bottle of something called Mad Dog and they passed it around. It burned her throat going down and Lilah didn't like that and she hated the taste but it made her feel very warm inside and she really needed that tonight. Then Charlie had his little pipe that they took turns smoking and it was the smoke that Lilah really liked because it let her lift out of her body and watch the world from way up high in the air in a secret place where she was always safe and warm and everything was always beautiful.

Charlie explained he was waiting for one particular monster that he had sex with, one that would let him spend the night and would let Cindy come along too even though the monster didn't want to have sex with her. "I wish I could ask if you could come too, but..." Charlie waved a hand at Lilah, taking in her mutilated body and its fantastical tattoos.

"It'th okay," Lilah croaked, and wiped drool off her tusks. "I'll go back to my cave later." And they sat and smoked and drank and watched the beautiful monsters come and go.

"There he is," Charlie said, and taking a last swig from the bottle he got up and walked - maybe a little unsteadily - across the street. Just outside the door to the monster cave Charlie intercepted a tall monster with long white hair wearing a bright yellow trenchcoat. They fell into conversation. Lilah and Cindy watched from the shadows of the gallery across the street. The two children, one bundled up and one naked, squatted arm in arm. Lilah was gently masturbating with two fingers under the ribbon lacing her multiply-pierced vulva, rubbing gently to either side of her clit.

Lilah noticed the ugly monsters first, because they looked so out of place. Not that the street was all beautiful monsters, there were some regular people too because there were restaurants and stores and places like that, and the regular people wore regular clothes and had regular faces. But these monsters had no faces. Their faces were black and featureless except for pale, round, staring eyes, and they all wore the same black jackets and black pants and big clunky black boots. The only color was their dumb-looking red hats. They came clomping down the street and the regular people got out of their way like they were poison to touch or something.

Lilah got a sick feeling in her stomach, the same feeling she used to get when she knew a monster was about to hurt her, and the sick feeling got stronger and stronger as the black monsters approached the beautiful monster cave. Then they unzipped their jackets and they all had guns!

One of the black monsters had a pistol, big and shiny like the one Lilah had used when she escaped and BANG! He shot the monster in the yellow trench coat. Blood bloomed on his chest like a hideous flower and he slammed back against the brick wall and fell down.

The entire world went jagged and red and it was like knives were stabbing her everywhere and another black monster had a great big black gun and he pointed it at Charlie and Lilah's vision zoomed in on him and for that last instant she saw his eyes, saw terror and anger at the unfairness and sadness at having to go and the terrifying music exploded in Lilah's head, roaring and beating at the inside of her skull so she feared her head would burst open and BANG BANG! There was flash from the big gun and Charlie's head burst open instead. It exploded in a spray of red and gray chunks that splashed everywhere and just like that he was dead and his body fell on top of the yellow trenchcoat. The black monsters pushed into the monster cave and immediately there was the sound of more gunfire and the sounds of the party inside turned into screaming and next to her Cindy was screaming and Lilah heard another voice screaming and realized it was hers.

Without even thinking Lilah was on her feet and running out of the gallery and across the freezing street. The terrible music was filling her head and there was no room for anything but one thought, to save all the beautiful monsters. Cindy yelled at her to stop, to come back, but she couldn't stop herself as her bare feet splashed through the slush-covered street and up over the snowy curb and the monster with the shiny pistol was still standing in the door of the cave and holding his gun out and Lilah jumped into the air and sank her tusks into his wrist and bit down as hard as she could, harder than she had ever bitten down before, and hot blood spurted down her chin and up her nose and the monster screamed and dropped his gun and then shook his arm so hard that he tossed Lilah onto the sidewalk. She splashed onto the dirty slush and the frozen concrete tore at her palms and knees but she landed right on top of the shiny pistol and somehow it was in her hand and she pointed it up at the monster and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in her hand and the barrel smacked her in the face. Blood erupted from the monster's throat and he clutched at it and fell onto his knees. His face was still black and featureless but his eyes were terrifying. Lilah saw him see his death.

Lilah would never have known what to do next but then the most amazing thing happened. Her angel came back! The angel didn't say a word, just jerked Lilah's wet, freezing, naked body to its feet and sent her charging into the cave. Inside was chaos, it was dark and there were flashing lights everywhere, strobing and freezing motion and the colorful monsters were screaming and trying to hide from the black monsters and the black monsters were firing their guns and the flashes of the gunfire were even brighter than the strobes and the bangs were even louder than the screams, even louder than Lilah's screams, even louder than the terrible music filling her head. But in the midst of the chaos the angel was calm and her calm spread into Lilah, making her deadly cold in the center of herself and one by one the angel pointed Lilah's gun at the black monsters and one by one Lilah squeezed the trigger and one by one red erupted on the black monsters and they fell down.

Just as the last monster in view fell down a black arm reached over from behind Lilah and wrenched the gun out of hand. Then a black hand grabbed Lilah by the throat and lifted her up in the air. Lilah was choking, kicking her skinny bare legs futilely. The last black monster had her, and she looked right into his eyes. "What the fuck ARE you?!" he yelled and then as he realized she was naked his eyes changed. Lilah had seen that look plenty of times before and she clawed at the black hand and struggled harder, but it was no use. She couldn't breathe and darkness was creeping in from the edges of her vision. The monster lifted her in the air and slammed her down on her back on a table. It hurt a lot, more than anything had hurt Lilah for a long time. The black monster had his hand around her throat and in his other hand he had a knife!

Lilah was crying tears of rage and tears of fear and she was trying to get enough breath to scream when the monster let loose of her neck. She gulped in air but before she could move the monster grabbed her left wrist. He slammed it down onto the table and Lilah had an instant to see the flash of the knife and then the blade plunged through the palm of her hand and buried itelf deep in the table. The pain was so shocking and so overwhelming that Lilah couldn't keep it out of her head. It rushed in, drowning out every thought and feeling she had. She screamed and screamed and tried to pull her hand away from the pain but that made it infinitely worse, so bad that her vision went red and then faded to black and everything went away.

The world came back too soon. Her hand was still on fire and she could feel blood hot and slick puddling in her curled palm and dripping between her fingers. The black monster loomed over her and there was another pain, an all-too-familiar pain in Lilah's bald cunt. Her voice was too hoarse to scream any more, all that came out were gargling mewls of agony as the monster's cock tore at her insides. He was playing with the silver grommets punched through her vulva, pulling her labia apart with both hands as he shoved himself into her over and over. Lilah's eyes rolled back in her head and the world started to go black again but then the angel was there. The angel was sitting on Lilah's chest and she could see it clearly for the first time and it was so bright and beautiful, much too beautiful for the eyes of a monster like Lilah. The angel touched Lilah so tenderly that she started to cry. The angel helped her push the pain in her cunt out of her head and back into her tough monster body where it was just another thing to feel. Then the angel touched Lilah's hand and that pain left her head too and the angel told her what she needed to do and helped her do it. Her skinny bicep swelled and slowly, slowly, her palm lifted off the tabletop. The knife blade was sliding through the hole in her hand as she forced it up the blade. Blood poured from the wound and ran down her arm. Her fingers twitched and jumped and when her hand snagged on a nick in the blade Lilah almost passed out as the pain flooded back into her head before the angel could push it away.

Lilah couldn't seem to get enough air. She looked down at her naked body, at her chest and belly heaving as she fought for breath between sobs, at the black monster's fingers pulling at her cunt and his monster cock tearing her insides apart. Then she felt the hilt of the knife against her palm. "I'll do this part," the angel told Lilah. The world went gray and Lilah let her eyes drift half-closed. She felt her arm jerk, all the muscles contracting. She felt the blade grate against bone as it was wrenched out of the table. In the same motion she lurched up, swinging her arm up and across her body. She clenched her fist and the knife blade emerging from the back of her hand flashed in her vision. She felt the shock all up her arm as the knife plunged into the black monster's throat. Blood poured down thick and hot, filling her mouth and nose and burning in her sinuses and blinding her eyes. The monster spasmed, his cock still deeply embedded in Lilah's tiny monster cunt, and then he fell forward, slamming down on top of Lilah. The table gave way beneath his weight and the dying man crashed to the floor atop the naked child.

Lilah was suffocating under the suddenly dead weight of her rapist. Her hand was trapped. The knife blade had jammed through his throat and out the back of his neck by the force of his fall and the butt of the knife handle was crushed against her breastbone. There was suddenly a silence in the monster cave, a silence so deep and complete that Lilah's ears rang with the absence of sound. A moan escaped her lips as she somehow managed to slide out from underneath the dead monster, leaving just her hand pressed against his throat with the knife blade stabbed through both. Again her world went gray as the angel lent her the strength to roll the body sideways and then she put her foot against the black chest and with her right hand pulled on the knife. It was caught on something and she had to yank it back and forth, each tug lighting up her overloaded nervous system as the blade tore further into the flesh of her wounded hand. Finally, it came free and Lilah could pull it out of her bloody hand and she dropped it on the floor. She staggered to her feet. She closed her bleeding palm into a fist. She looked around but she was dazzled by the flashing strobes and could see very little. There was blood everywhere, on the floor, on the walls, on the broken bodies lying across tables and twisted on the floor. She turned and in the flashes of light she saw herself reflected in the glass door. Her blank blue eyeballs peered out from a face smeared with gore. It was a sticky film on her tusks. It was even in her hair. Fresh blood dripped from her clenched hand and from between her legs. She felt achy and raw there in a way she hadn't for a long time.

"Time to go," the angel said as first one distant siren, then another and another broke the eerie silence. Lilah staggered to the door and pushed it open, gasping as the icy wind blasted through her into the stuffy, blood-reeking room. She barely kept her feet underneath her as the freezing sidewalk burned against her soles. The first thing she saw was Cindy, lying across her dead brother's body, burying her face in his coat beneath the ruin of what had been his face. Without thinking, Lilah bent and hauled the bigger girl to her feet. Cindy's eyes were wide but sightless and her mouth stretched in a silent scream. There was blood on her hands and smeared across her cheeks. Lilah pulled Cindy away, and at first she resisted. She stretched out a bloody hand towards the cooling meat that had been her big brother. Lilah had to nearly yank her off her feet to get her moving. As the first cop car screamed around the corner the two bloodstained children, one clothed and one naked, disappeared into the shadows.