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The detective poked the corpse’s cheek, then rubbed away the bags under his eyes. The medical examiner raised a clipboard to his face, stifling laughter. “What? What is it?” Reynolds demanded.
“Nothing,” Stevens said, giggling, “On first glance, the cause of death seems to be blood loss stemming from pronounced genital mutilation.”
“How pronounced?”
Stevens pulled the sheet back.
“Oh my god, they cut off his dick!” Reynolds said, instinctively reaching for and cupping his own penis in empathic pain.
“However,” Stevens continued, “Upon autopsy, the victim’s lungs were filled with fluid.”
“So he drowned, then they cut off his… pee pee.”
“Correct.”
“And what was this fluid?”
“It was coating his entire body, in fact.”
“Okay, and what was it?”
“Very viscous and slimy.”
“You’re not being specific about what it was.”
“It’s not an uncommon compound, certainly.”
“WHY ARE YOU DRAWING THIS OUT?”
“It was semen. He was covered in semen.”
The detective looked at his hands and sighed.
“I’m going to take a shower and draft my retirement letter. Tell Sandy to bump this case to the Sex Detective.”
The phone rang in Lana Nassir’s office. She looked at the Women’s Studies degree from Vassar hanging next to her Private Investigator’s License and wondered which was the greater cause of the stress-based graying of her pubic hair. The call was from the police, another case they were too cowardly or grossed out to handle. A corpse was found in the Presidio, mutilated and slick with cum. They’d identified him as one Alan Burke, a programmer who had moved from the east coast to take advantage of the ever-growing tech bubble. Part of the White Gold Rush, the officer on the phone had said in between fits of giggling.
Lana checked the victim’s social media platforms. The job was easier than her forefathers had it, in these days of crowd-sourced self-surveillance. Instead of staking out a cheating spouse, a PI could let check-ins and tags do the work for them, the world of private dickery converging with the onslaught of public cockery.
He’d been at a bar in the Dogpatch for three nights before disappearing. Lana asked the bartender if there was anything strange or off about him, the bartender explained that Burke had come in with the same group of men each night. They tipped ten percent and one of them opined that maybe she’d get that extra five percent if she smiled more. Also, failing that, he would be willing to give her an extra five inches. The bartender had taken her own revenge by sticking a finger in her asscrack and wiping it on the rim of their glasses, one of those small victories which the service industry allows. One of the men had paid with a credit card, a Paul Bonnero.
Public records indicated Bonnero owned a nearby warehouse. Lana drove past, the entrance guarded by a pale, chinless man who uncomfortably fingered the butt of a pistol secured in his pants, an awkward bulge which carried with it the power of death next to another awkward bulge which carried with it the power of life. Lana pulled the revolver from her shoulder holster, checked the barrel, and spent the next twenty minutes looking for a parking space. By the time she walked back to her destination, a different yet equally chinless man was providing security. The flatness of his pants betrayed that he was unarmed in every meaning possible, so she approached.
“Excuse me, is Steve here?” she asked, “This is where he said to meet him.” There was always a Steve somewhere, and even if there wasn’t, it was easy to believe that a familiar Steve was en route.
“Oh, uh, Steve’s not here yet,” the man said, “You know, you’d look a lot prettier if you smiled more.” Lana drove the butt of her pistol into the man’s skull, and smiled. She slipped in the door and crept through the darkness. At least two dozen men milled about in brown robes, attaching ropes and harnesses to a vast, ornately detailed container next to which sat a semi truck and an emaciated wolf in a rickety cage. She sent a text to the police. A fat, balding man covered in sweat seemed to hold command.
“Speed up, sissies!” he yelled, “We gotta make time if we’re going to dump this baby in the Hetchy tonight. And by what right are we doing this?”
“Men’s rights!” they screamed in unison. Lana groaned, and a lead pipe cracked her hand, sending her pistol sliding across the floor. She dodged another blow and kicked her aggressor’s kneecap backwards. The men massed on her, dragging her to their leader.
“Who’s this bitch?” he said, not addressing her directly.
“Paul Bonnero?”
The man tensed.
“What’s your game, little missy?”
“My name is Lana Nassir, I’m a PI investigating the death of Alan Burke.” Bonnero straightened his robes and smiled.
“Burke was an unbeliever,” he said, “He was going to flush away all our plans.”
“And what were your plans?” Lana hoped he was a monologist. The more dramatic a criminal, the less effective they proved to be.
“You see this?” he said, tapping on the great vase-like object, “Every one who has been ordained into our Secret Society of Men must deposit in the Holy Receptacle, as has been our way since the plight of the great father and prophet, Aldous Menceraits.” A panel slid open and he stuck his hand inside, pulling back a great grey muck. Lana’s eyes grew wide.
“You’re going to… you’re going to dump old jizz into the water supply?” The man roared with laughter.
“By this time tomorrow, the prophecy will be fulfilled, and every dyke feminist butch bitch in San Francisco will be drinking our lukewarm seed! It’s the ultimate power move, the omega neg!”
“So you let Burke in on your scheme, he was going to go to the police, and you drowned him in there?”
“That’s about the long and short of it.”
“And speaking of short of it, what about his dick?”
“Uh, yeah, we, uh, kinda have to feed the wolf dicks. It’s a pretty weird prophecy.”
Bonnero ordered his men to throw her in the wolf’s cage. They locked the door and the animal paced around her, growling. In between planning alternatively the best way to beat a wolf to death and the least painful way to be killed by a wolf, Lana noticed the cage wasn’t secured to the floor. She grabbed the bars and lifted.
“Ha ha!” said a chinless man, “She thinks she has upper body strength!”
Lana flipped the cage over, freeing herself and the animal. They looked into each other’s eyes and came to a mutual understanding. The wolf dashed towards the chinless guard and bit down on his crotch.
The police arrived ten minutes later. Reynolds pulled on a pair of rubber gloves as he walked into the warehouse. Blood soaked the floor, men moaned and cried in high, pretty tones. Lana sat cross-legged by a pile of unconscious goons.
“What the hell happened, Nassir?”
Lana walked to the detective and pushed an invoice into his chest, then let out a long, tired groan which contained all the collective disappointment the female gender had ever expressed towards the male gender. She whistled as she walked away, and the wolf followed, a piece of limp meat dangling between its jaws.
You can find Ivan online at ivanhernandez.net and on Twitter @ivan_hernandez.
This story was written for Give Me Fiction, a prose reading series hosted by Ivan Hernandez. You can follow GMF on Twitter, check out the podcast on iTunes, RSS, Soundcloud, and Stitcher, and buy tickets for the live show which takes place the first Sunday of every month at Lost Weekend Video.
