Utter Rot

The sounds from the chamber emanated out down the long night halls of the sewer, grunts and squeals and screams, the suck and slap of flesh on flesh, the squelching, splashing sounds of bodies roiling in murky depths. They ricocheted down subterranean corridors of metal and stone, bouncing echoes that grew in confusion till they had lost all point of origin.

The sounds went on for a long, long time.

Chapter II - Madison Beaumont meets Mama

Madison approached the building gingerly, conscious of the loud clacking her heels made on the asphalt. The parking lot was empty save for her own white Mercedes and, off in one corner, a dilapidated pickup truck that looked like it had been cobbled together by mad scientists, probably long abandoned. Madison felt an eerie wave of unease wash over her as she registered the near-total desertion of this patch of South Chicago, and as she neared the building's front door she asked herself for the thousandth time why she hadn't followed her instincts and called the police, rather than following through with Natasha's strange and darkly cryptic instructions.

Madison's relationship with her boss may have been professional, but it went deep. In selecting a personal assistant, Natasha Delacosta had followed the same rule she applied to all her business dealings: distract with looks, then attack with intellect. Madison had been an attractive co-ed of 19 when she first stepped into the offices of Len Donovan & Co. -- blonde, with full lips and high cheekbones, dark eyes and the slim, toned body of a dancer. Under Natasha's watchful tutelage, Madison had sharpened her look, her walk, her mannerisms until even the powerful CEOs and lawyers who passed her desk were drooling for a glimpse of her long legs. And then, of course, there had been the surgery. Natasha had encouraged it; had insisted on paying for it when Madison agreed. "You know your best asset is here," her boss had said, touching her own temple. "But keep their eyes down here--" placing one elegant finger on Madison's chest "--and they'll never realize it." Madison had had to buy all new bras, of course, but at least she no longer looked flat-chested next to her boss.

In the here and now, though, the look Natasha had cultivated was doing Madison no favors. The high pumps made difficult going on the asphalt, and her short skirt and tight blouse left her feeling chilly and exposed, despite the spring sun. Nervously, she reached into her handbag and touched the can of mace she kept nestled there. She would have preferred Natasha's chrome-plate derringer, but despite her boss's long absence -- it had been nearly two weeks now since Natasha had failed to appear in the office -- Madison did not yet have the courage to rifle her superior's desk.

Hell, she barely had the courage to knock on this building's grimy front door. Its empty windows -- many of the panes cracked or shattered -- stared out at the world with vacant malevolence. Why on earth would the CEO of Len Donovon & Co., one of the most powerful figures in city's corporate sphere, have named a run-down dump of an office building in written instructions left in trust for Madison's eyes only? "No police," the instructions had read. "No authorities of any kind. Come alone, but be careful." The memo had also detailed an eye-popping sum, now folded neatly in the small black valise Madison carried under her arm.

What have you gotten yourself into? Madison wondered, unsure, suddenly, to whom the question was directed.

She took a deep breath and knocked. The sound boomed through the building's empty interior, sonorous and metallic. She waited for a full minute but her knock was answered only by silence.

She thought about simply walking away. Of going back to her car, calling the police and letting them do their job. But what if Natasha was in real trouble, trouble that, as the note suggested, only Madison and the funds she carried could rectify? There wasn't much amity between them -- Madison wouldn't have dared to call them friends -- but didn't the note signify some kind of bond, a form of trust? More than this, Madison knew, she needed her boss. Natasha had created her; Natasha was still the lynchpin of her elevated life.

Before she could change her mind, Madison took hold of the door's rusting knob and twisted. A latch clicked heavily and the door swung open with a groan.

The hall beyond was dark, lightless, but a fan clicked overhead, the only sign of life in the building so far. It certainly looked abandoned. The linoleum on the floor was cracked and filthy, with small piles of rubbish lying in drifts against the walls. About halfway down the hall a staircase led up to the second floor.

"Hello?" Madison called. She listened, and thought she could hear something -- muttered voices, the shifting of floorboards. It seemed to be coming from above.

Her trepidation deepening, Madison crossed the hallway and began to climb the stairs. She gripped the mace tightly inside her purse, her thumb feeling for the trigger.

The light was a little stronger on the second floor, filtering in, she saw, from two grimy windows at either end of a long hall. The sounds had stopped, and the building was silent save for the whisking of the fan. As she gazed down the hall, though, Madison saw that one of the doors was slightly ajar, and from it a faint glow spilled out onto the patchy carpet.

She approached the door with careful steps, grateful, at least, that the carpet went some way towards muffling the sound of her heels. She could hear a faint murmur coming from inside the room, not loud enough to be human voices. She reached the doorway and peered through.

What she saw was an office -- or, rather, the wreckage of an office. The battered furniture was half-buried under piles of garbage, pizza boxes, balled paper and empty bottles, mounds of waste buzzing with flies. Yellowish gunk of indeterminate origin splattered the walls in places and, she saw, the desk and sagging easy chair as well. The smell of the place was low and cloying, rotten. It looked like a crack den, she thought, one in which not one but many addicts had met violent ends.

A flicker caught her eye and her gaze was drawn to a television behind the desk. It's screen was illuminated, it's image wavering and too far away for her to make out.

She pushed the door open gingerly, tensing at the faint squeal of its hinges, and stepped through. Here she saw something curious -- a sliding door, the kind you might find on an industrial meat freezer, was set into the right-hand wall. It seemed to her as she stood in the doorway that the muffled sounds she had heard were coming from beyond that door: Grunts? Voices? A cry? She took a few steps closer before her gaze was drawn again to the television.

It appeared to show some kind of security feed. The camera's eye looked down on a rectangular room little bigger than a prison cell. A cabinet was set into one corner, and there was a figure -- a person, but out of focus -- standing by the left-hand wall, fidgeting strangely.

She drew closer. Yes, there was someone -- or something -- in the room. But if it was a person, there was something horribly wrong with it. It appeared to be naked, turned away from the camera, and Madison could see that its back was horribly lumped and twisted. The rest of its body was similarly warped, its limbs gnarled and and ropey with muscle, its head divotted as if with a hammer, jerking at the end of a scrawny neck. It appeared to be twitching, no, convulsing, lunging against the wall with frantic energy, it's hips gyrating into...

With sickening horror, Madison realized that there was a second figure, partially obscured by the thing's misshapen bulk, trapped between it and the wall. Pale arms stretched upward, wrists secured to a ring in the wall by a pair of heavy manacles. Slender legs twisted between the thing's own lunging thighs, jerking to the spastic rhythm of its convulsions.

It was a girl. Oh my god, thought Madison. There's a girl in there and that thing is fucking her.

As she watched in horror, the thing leaned back, giving her a glimpse of its ugly, grinning face, and, reaching one hand into the woman's black hair, wrenched her head back to its shoulder.

Madison knew, even before she saw the face, that it was Natasha. There was no mistaking the way that rich dark hair cascaded down her smooth back, or the lithe, toned figure that had become the face and calling card of Len Donovan & Co. Wasn't it Natasha's own near-perfect body that Madison held in her mind's eye every time she sweated hot fire in the gym? And to see her here, naked and bound in a concrete cell, under assault by some kind of mutant thing...

Madison's head swam, and the mace slipped from her fingers. She groped for the desk, feeling dizzy.

"Heya baby," a gravelly, gutteral voice spoke from behind her. "Wanna dance?"

Madison whirled and let out a sharp cry of surprise and fear. Towering over her was an enormous man, at least six and a half feet tall and so wide he seemed to block out the room. He was dressed in grease-smeared bib-alls and a stained undershirt. Small, sunken eyes glittered out at her from a pitted, mongoloid face, it's nose overlarge and bulbous, the forehead lumpen and somehow too small. It was a face that could have been plucked from a brother's Grimm story, a giant or an ogre -- the kind of story where the heroine meets an ugly end.

The giant took a step towards her, it's oversized gut brushing her as it swung forward. She retreated, colliding with the desk and sending a pile of wax wrappers and old newspapers cascading to the floor.

"Well hot damn, ain't you just a treat," the giant lisped, its big hands clenching and unclenching at its sides. "What's a purty thing like you doin' in a shit-heap like this?"

"Please," Madison gasped, "I'm looking for my boss. Please, I'm sorry, I didn't mean..."

"Boss? Ain't no-one boss around here cept Marv, and he's out," the giant said, eyes narrowing. "Just me and Lessy here. Us'n th' girl." He took another step forward, looming over her, his bulk nearly crushing her against the desk. She could smell the stink of unwashed flesh rolling off of him, could see, close up, that his skin was riddled with pockmarks and strange, discoloured lumps. "We're keepin' her company," he drawled, his face splitting into a crafty and somehow obscene grin.

Waves of unreality crashed over Madison. This was a nightmare, couldn't possibly be real. Nothing in it made sense -- it was all unhinged. She was shaking like a leaf, too terrified to bolt, too terrified for anything but one last desperate appeal.

"That's her," she said, her voice wavering. "The woman. My boss, Natasha."

"Her?" the giant asked incredulously, nodding towards the television behind her. "You come to get her?"

Madison swallowed and nodded. She didn't dare look away from the giant's glowering face. "I have..." she started, raising the valise.

"Nah, nah nah nah." He shook his head. "Now, why would you want t' interrupt when she's havin such a good time?" He took another step forward, and suddenly his gut really was pressing into her, pinning her to the desk.

"Tell you what girly," he said, his voice low and darkly eager. "Hows about you and me go somewhere private, get to know each other a little?" His hands came down on her shoulders, gripping her with savage strength. His head dipped towards her, his stinking breath blasting into her face. "I'll show you a real nice time," he rumbled. "Whattaya say? Wanna date?"

With a thin groan Madison fainted, the giant catching her as she slid towards the floor. He lifted her easily and slung her across one broad shoulder.

"C'mon, baby," he said. "Let's go meet mamma."

* * *

Sometime later -- how long, the unconscious mind cannot say -- Madison woke up on an enormous bed in the middle of a windowless room. Strings of lights -- christmas lights? -- ran along the edges of the ceiling, casting a fractured mosaic of reds and yellows across the walls. Overhead, a single lamp glowered down, its fixture the iris in a baleful yellow eye.

Madison tried to sit up and, with a sickening jolt, realized that her wrists and ankles were bound tight. Duct tape, she saw, looking down. Her clothes had been stripped off of her, and she was wearing only the white lace bra and thin panties she had picked out this morning. Someone -- him? -- had added to this a pair of white, semi-transparent stockings that covered her legs to mid-thigh. The thought that it could have been the giant -- her stomach lurched as the memory of the office returned -- filled her with terror-stricken revulsion. He had had his hands on her, had stripped her, dressed her, and now she was god-knows where...

She cast frantically around the room. It was in poor condition, off-yellow paint flaking from the walls, the ceiling stained and sagging in places. The coverlet of the king-sized bed where she lay smelled old and musty, with a hint of something that made Madison think of hospital wards, invalid homes. There was a single doorway in one corner, showing only darkness beyond.

Facing the bed, hanging midway up the wall, was an enormous framed portrait. It showed a woman -- an exceedingly ugly woman -- seated in an easy chair, glowering outward. Scraggly grey hair fell around the sagging face, dark creases ringing sunken eyes, the heavy lips twisted in as snarl. A blue-print dress hung over the creature's dumpy, ponderous body. The look she saw in the glittering, sunken eyes struck Madison as sickeningly familiar.

"Mama warned you." The voice came from the doorway, and Madison snapped around. The giant was standing there, shirtless, his fat gut spilling over the waistband of his sagging, unbuckled bib-alls. On his face he wore the same snarl as the woman in the picture, and Madison thought deliriously that with a wig on his head, they might have been twins.

"Mama said little girls where all trash. Little sluts is what she said. Said they had to be punished. Said we should teach them a lesson." He took a step into the room. "You a slut, girl?"

"No," Madison gasped. "No, I..."

He surged forward with startling speed and slapped her, sending her reeling across the bed. "Liar," he said casually. "Liar liar, pants on fire. Mama says little sluts like to lie. Like to lie and put evil notions in your head to steal you away from your mama." He turned from her and started unbuckling his belt.

"No, please!" Madison gasped, squirming away from him on the bed. "Please, I have money!"

"Money? You ain't got nothin but those pretty panties you're wearin', and pretty soon you ain't even gonna have those," the giant mused. It dropped the bib-alls around its ankles and Madison saw with horror that a bulge was forming in the crotch of its filthy drawers.

"I'll tell you what, though," the giant went on, kicking the bib-alls away. "You do something fer me, and maybe I'll let you go. Whaddaya say?"

"Yes," Madison whispered, her head still ringing from the slap. "Yes, ok. Whatever you want."

He grinned, and the expression split his face in half, making it somehow more horrible, the face of a demon. "I want you to suck my cock, bitch. I want to to suck my fucking cock."

The shorts dropped to the floor and his huge, engorged erection sprang free. Still grinning, the giant mounted the bed, ancient springs groaning in protest under his weight. Cowering under his shadow, Madison scrambled backwards, away from him, but he caught her by the ankle and dragged her back.

"That's the deal, little slut. You suck me good -- and I mean good -- and I'll let you go free. Whaddaya say?"

The huge member was inches from her face now, long as her forearm and nearly as thick. Madison could see that it was already dribbling cum -- cum that looked too viscous, too yellow, and smelled faintly revolting. Thick veins stood out along the shaft, knotting their way up to the purplish, swollen head. Green lumps were clumped thickly among them, and under her horrified eyes they pulsed and oozed.

"Well?" The giant's voice was darkening. She saw his hand going up again.

"Ok!" she gasped. "Ok."

She drew a deep breath and raised her bound hands tentatively.

"Wait," the giant commanded suddenly. He reached forward and crushed one of her breasts in his large hand. "Lesse those titties first. I got plans fer them." His hand slipped from her breast to the elastic band between the opal cups, and with a single wrench he ripped the brasier off of her and tossed it into the corner.

"Yeeaaah buddy, them's some beauties," he breathed, glowering down at her, taking in the full, flawless orbs of her breasts, pressed together by her bound hands. She turned her face away, suddenly more repulsed by his leering gaze than by the swollen cock still dangling in front of her. The giant grinned. "Well, get a move on darlin'," he lisped. "I know it's pretty, but I didn't take it out for air."

Steeling herself, Madison raised her hands again and wrapped them around the swaying member, feeling it pulse appreciatively in response. "That's riiiight," the giant lisped. "That's real good, slut. Just like yer daddy showed ya."

She squeezed her eyes shut and started to stroke the thing, using both hands, veins and warts rippling under her palms. Just get it over with, she thought desperately. Just get it over with and he'll let you go.

The giant groaned and leaned back, the bed squealing under him. She came with him, so that she was kneeling between his splayed thighs, bent over his lower anatomy like a supplicant. Tentatively, she parted her lips and placed them on the head of his cock.

The taste of his precum on her tongue was foul, somehow corrupt, but she ignored it, taking the engorged head into her mouth. She sucked it carefully, still stroking the shaft, encouraged by the guttural sounds of satisfaction coming from the heaped creature before her. The sensation was unpleasant, but -- the current situation notwithstanding -- not wholly unfamiliar. She'd taken plenty of other men in her mouth during her rise in Len Donovan, back before she met Natasha and still thought of such small favors as rungs in the ladder to success. She sped up her strokes, taking a little more of his shaft into her mouth, the thing sliding in and out between her parted lips.

Suddenly, she felt his huge, meaty hand on the back of her neck. She had one moment to register panic, and then he was forcing her head down, impaling her throat on his swollen shaft. It blocked her windpipe and she gagged, convulsing, forgetting everything for the moment save her need for air.

He held her for a moment longer, then let her go. She came up gasping, tried to recoil, but he held her by the hair. They locked eyes, and her spirit recoiled from the seething lust and madness she saw there.

"C'mon now girly, it ain't a blowjob without the deepthroat. Ain't you ever watched porn?" he lisped, and spittle ran down his chin. "Yer a sweet an' innocent thing, ain't you? Don't worry, though. Ol' Merl here's a real good teacher."

He surged to his feet, jerking her to her knees in front of him. "Now open those lips, bitch. I'm gonna teach you how to suck like a slut."

Madison's lips parted reflexively at the command and he drove his cock into her mouth with such force that the head buried itself in her throat. He gripped her skull with both hands and began to fuck her mouth in earnest, cock plunging, heavy scrotum slapping against her neck. She gagged and struggled, hands sinking into the fat folds of his lower belly, but he paid her no mind. "NnnnnNNNHHH!" he grunted. "Take it, you high-class bitch!"

Just as she thought she might lose consciousness, he pulled out. Still holding her by the hair with one hand, he seized his cock with the other and began to pump it savagely.