Cruising down PCH, the wind in their hair, and Christian Death is blaring through the stereo of the old Pontiac. In the backseat, Samantha is licking Frankie’s neck, sending shivers down his spine, chilly as the October breeze. Johnny is twisted around in the front seat, watching them, their raw movements, visceral clawing, and Samantha’s pink tongue darting around Frankie’s pale flesh.
Hunter jerks the wheel, irritated that Frankie’s under the spell of this succubus. Ever since they picked her up, she’s been giving Frankie way more action than the three of them combined has seen in months. Not that Hunter is really surprised. Frankie’s always the one who gets the chicks first. He’s the lead singer and a motherfucker on the guitar.
“Hey, asshole,” Frankie scorns through clenched teeth, as Samantha is unbuckling his belt and rubbing his cock through his tight, faded black jeans. “Watch it.” Hunter scowls at Frankie in the rear view mirror.
“Where the fuck we goin’?” Hunter asks, his question partially muffled by the Camel wedged in his lips.
“It’s a bonfire up here in Malibu,” Samantha says, her voice sugary, sickly sweet. Hunter doesn’t trust the bitch. “You’ve got a ways to go.” Hunter glances up in the rear view mirror again and meets her bottle green eyes. As she turns her head back to Frankie’s cock, he catches a glimmer of her shimmery hair, dark as the night the Pontiac creeps through. Johnny’s still compelled by the live porno action in the back seat, and Hunter thinks about jerking the wheel again.
Down below, the waves crash onto boulders, drawn by the mystique of the full, orange harvest moon. Hunter breathes in the now settled smoggy air, tinged with salty, crisp ocean sky and rubber and road. He tries to remember how they got this far away from Venice; it seems like years since they finished the set and saw her waiting for them outside.
At first, she isn’t much to look at. Just a thin, wispy girl with a little bit of an ass, black hair that hangs around her hips…but those jade cat eyes and lush lips were too much.
She says her name as she exhales a curly tendril of ashy smoke: “Samantha Hain.”
Now, as PCH twists and turns just past Santa Monica Pier’s electric-neon amusement park lights, Hunter reflects on that name.
That name. Samantha Hain.
It’s the end of summer, and Hunter has to push the sleeves of his jacket up around his elbows. It’s cool but not quite cold.
He remembers this time last year, the memory sparking as if ignited by the bright fun-park lights.
Last year, an Indian summer still lingered, wearing out its welcome like an unwanted guest. Hunter had taken a girl to the Pier. It was sunny, hot. She wore a green sundress, his favorite color on her. He’d won her a stuffed purple monkey with excessively long limbs, bought her cotton candy, rode the roller coaster with her.
Appeased her. Worshipped her.
And even hid from her, hiding his true emotions under the Halloween costume of his blank expressions and dark moods.
She didn’t put up with it for long.
Hunter glances over at Johnny, who’s practically drooling over the back-seat display. Hunter can see the outline of Johnny’s hard-on because he’s wearing pleather, the idiot. Hunter loathes Johnny sometimes; the wild tufts of unnaturally bleached hair, mismatched Converse, and over-the-top clothing makes Hunter grit his teeth. If he weren’t such a decent bass player, Hunter would choke him until his tongue stuck out between his thin, sticky looking lips.
Hunter hisses at Johnny, and Johnny looks over languidly, like a sun-stoned lizard. He shrugs and smiles.
“What?” Johnny croaks, and cocks his head to the side, a move only he thinks is endearing. Samantha Hain’s muffled moans emit from the back of the Pontiac. Hunter looks up and sees her pop the head of Frankie’s cock out of her mouth, then pop it back in. He even hears Frankie breathing harder.
“Fuck,” Hunter groans, disgusted.
“That’s totally what’s gonna happen!” Johnny says, giggly. Hunter glares at Johnny a little too long; a flash of light whips across Hunter’s face. He looks back to the road and his heart leaps up to his throat, a stone cold rock. He snaps the Pontiac back to the right side of the road as the angry Porsche honks its frustration.
“Jesus Christ!” Frankie bellows, and Johnny’s now in a fit of laughter.
“We could have totally mowed that Porsche over!” Johnny says as he catches his breath between fits of laughter. He’s high as a kite and Hunter hates him when he’s this way. Hunter looks up at Frankie’s reflection, which is a gumbo of shock, sexual glow, and fear.
“She fucking bit me!”
“Pull the car over.” Samantha’s syrupy voice sounds thin in contrast to Rozz Williams’, which surprises Hunter almost as much as Frankie’s reaction. The sludge synth of “Dogs” trails on as Hunter’s throat fills with cotton and he searches for a place to pull over.
Hunter glances up in the mirror again to see Samantha’s lips streaked with crimson. “You swerved,” she says, her tone flat and zombie-like.
“Bullshit!” Frankie’s voice is loud and quavering.
“It’s not that bad,” Samantha hisses, and the gravel crunches under the Pontiac’s tires. Hunter twists around and grimaces when he sees Frankie’s bloody lap. Samantha’s lush lips curl upwards on the left side in a devious smirk as she wipes her mouth. Johnny’s not laughing anymore, but his maniacal grin is still in place.
“Heya, Hunter. You got a cigar-ette?” Hunter hates the way Johnny emphasizes the “-ette” as if he is trying to be some high-society European fuck.
“No, dipshit. Everyone out of the car,” Hunter orders, his voice gruff. Hunter keeps his eyes on Samantha, whose mouth is still streaked in Frankie’s blood. She makes no move to hide her tits; instead, she exits the car topless, her jeans situated low on her waist.
She is a temptress, her hips swaying side to side as she makes her way around the Pontiac and saunters up to Hunter. He notices her full bust, her small nipples tightened into pink rosebuds, her tapered waist. She moves closer and he smells her, something like cloves and old pennies intermingled. Her breath is hot on his neck and he feels a twitch in his crotch.
No, he thinks. I won’t let her tempt me. I won’t show her the hold she has over me.
“You will,” Samantha Hain purrs as she gives him a kitty lick to the neck, and Hunter’s under her spell. Frankie spills out of the car, still grabbing his bloody crotch. A weak whine escapes his lips and he falls to the ground. A small puff of dust surrounds him like an aura, but now all Hunter can see is green, pulling him into her mystifying realm like powerful emerald stones.
Samantha rakes her fingernails down Hunter’s massive tangled muscled chest, dragging the neck of his shirt down, down. He hears a wet, meaty rip and he’s not sure if it’s the shirt or his own flesh.
Johnny moves behind Samantha, kissing her neck, running his hands up the arc of her waist, up to her firm tits. He tweaks her hardened nipples and she sighs, throwing her head back in ecstasy. Hunter hears the waves crash rhythmically on the shore, now seeming so distant, and PCH is another world.
Samantha is kneading Johnny’s crotch and now, Hunter can only watch. Without turning to face him, she expertly pulls his hardened member out of the confines of the pleather and strokes it. Johnny groans through a mouthful of flesh, and Samantha never takes her eyes off of Hunter. Johnny’s thick, pearly bead of pre-cum makes it easy for Samantha to glide her hand up and down the shaft, and Johnny looks like he’s about to unload. He pushes his hips into her apple bottom and spurts, and then Hunter sees it.
The cotton in his throat expands until he feels as though stuffing will seep from every orifice. Samantha has plunged a long, red crescent thumbnail straight into Johnny’s piss hole, and he screams bloody murder. Her self-satisfied smirk never falters. Her eyes are averted, and Hunter twists his body to see what she is looking at.
In the distance, a tangerine fire licks the inky skyline. The bonfire. And now Hunter knows. He has to appease her, worship her, and expose himself to her.
Sacrifice himself.
There’s no other way. She’ll just be back next year for him. For all of them.
Resolved, all three follow her, Johnny and Frankie both limping, down the jagged rocky cliffs, down the sandy coast, through the dissipating California summer, and towards the warmth of the autumn fire.
