Father beat you bloody every day of your life. Mother held you close and made you feel good. Mother did nothing to stop Father, though. Sister put out for every boy who looked at her sideways. (Not for you.) Your teachers tried to put you in "special" classes, tried to understand your feelings, but you felt nothing. You felt nothing at all. 'Cause when you did feel for Sister, you woke up at night all sticky and slimy, and Father beat the evil out of you. But Mother just looked at you with her sick, feline eyes.

You saw the same eyes that night in the bar five years ago. Number One, big-haired and made-up and squirming on the Leatherette stool. Buried feelings crawled up. You took her home with you that night. She never left. You still have some of her in formaldehyde in your basement.

There were more, and you got better - learned how to keep 'em alive longer, keep 'em conscious, what you could extract without fatal blood loss. Then came Number 18. She seemed almost too eager to go home with you, but she had such a pretty face you couldn't wait to start carving.

You spent hours on her. What was this whore's problem? You knew how to hurt people, hurt 'em good, but she writhed in her cuffs and rope like she was getting off on it! She screamed and moaned mockingly - and even after you yanked out her tongue with pliers you could hear her voice in your head, suggesting atrocities you hadn't even conceived.

Then, toward morning, her one remaining eye looked directly into yours, and the ragged stump of her tongue swelled and regrew, and she said, "Stop!" You did. She hung in her bonds and shuddered, and the multitudinous wounds you had inflicted evaporated from her body. She smiled at you with once-again-perfect lips. "Not bad for a juice bag," she sneered. "Was it good for you?" Then she popped the ropes open like they were spaghetti and snapped the cuffs as if they were Play-Doh and came for you....