Tmev

Mama’s pacing the kitchen, phone pressed to her ear, when the front door creaks open. My girlfriend—gods, she’s been gone a whole month—stumbles in. She looks wrecked. Empty eyes. Clothes all twisted, rumpled. She don’t even say hi. Just drifts past us like a ghost toward the bathroom, and the door clicks shut.

Then I hear it. The crinkle of a plastic wrapper. A pregnancy test.

A few minutes later, the bathroom door swings open. Serenity’s leaning against the frame, holding that little stick with two pink lines glowing bright as a goddamn sunrise. She’s got this dazed, messy-mouthed smile, like she just had the best sleep of her life. Mama snatches the test out of her hand. Her face goes white.

“One month,” she breathes. “One month. Who did this?”

My girlfriend just shrugs, licking her lips. “I need to go back.”

We pile into the car. I’m in the backseat, watching my girlfriend's fingers twitch in her lap, her whole body humming like a live wire. Mama’s driving fast, cussing under her breath. The address my girlfriend gave us leads to the outskirts of town, past the old warehouses and into a dusty dead-end street. There’s a small house there. Mismatched windows. Chipped paint.

Even from the car, I can hear the noises.

Mama kills the engine. The air’s thick with a wet, sticky smell—something raw and salty, like the inside of a mouth. Serenity practically falls out of the car before it’s fully stopped, stumbling toward the front door. It’s not even closed all the way. Just hanging open a crack, flickering with shadows.

Mama shoves the door open.

And there he is.

A little boy. Can’t be more than three feet tall. Diaper sagging low on his hips. He’s buried between the legs of a woman splayed out on the floor—no, wait. There’s three of them. Four. They’re everywhere. Legs in the air. Hands clawing at the carpet. The women are moaning like they’re worshiping him, their bodies jerking and twitching, squirting arcs of clear fluid across the floorboards like broken sprinklers.

The little boy doesn’t even stop when the door bangs open. He glances over his shoulder with these big, bright eyes—totally innocent, if you ignore the mess dripping down his chin. His penis is monstrous. It should be impossible. Thick as a grown man’s forearm, slick and glistening, wedged so deep inside the nearest woman that her belly bulges with each thrust.

My girlfriend drops to her knees right there in the doorway. Her eyes roll back.

“I’m home" she whispers.