The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

of the club, I can see the bodyguard silhouetted against the strobing light, guarding the gate like St. Peter.
    â€œOnce in a lifetime…’”
    I am thrusting into her now, and she screams. I grab her hair, but instead of long tresses of yellow, I get something short, clumped and stiff that tears out in my hands. My arms are shorn of tattoos, and the moans, muffled by my hand, reverberate against the silence. Shit, I’m fucking Nancy. What am I doing? This is not the kind of mistake you can get away with. Fucking a psycho is as good as killing one. There are consequences, repercussions, prices to pay. In strobing flashes, I see Nancy’s face gazing up at me as she sits on the bathtub, her legs opening and squeezing shut, foaming wet like the jaws of a ravenous dog. With every flash, her face grows more and more distorted, more twisted and inhuman, more … demonic. That’s the right word. My body keeps moving, fucking her hard, but my mind is screaming for it to stop.
    This is it. I’m fucked. I’m screwing the devil. I’ve sold my soul.

    â€œAnd you may ask yourself, ‘Where does that highway go?’”
    Someone bites the cartilage of my ear. I think it is Traci, because I like it. She grabs my choker and pulls my head toward hers. Her breath, hot and moist on my ear, whispers: “I want you to come inside me.”
    The music stops, the flashing stops and I come inside Nancy like a bouquet of milk white lilies exploding in a funeral hole. Her face is dead and emotionless. Her eyes are like burned out flash bulbs. Is that where the flashing was coming from?
    â€œAnd you may ask yourself, ‘Am I right? Am I wrong?’ And you may tell yourself, ‘My God! What have I done?’”
    Â 

to all the people who didn’t die
    M ALDOROR WAS VIRTUOUS DURING HIS FIRST YEARS, VIRTUOUS AND HAPPY . L ATER HE BECAME AWARE THAT HE WAS BORN EVIL . S TRANGE FATALITY ! H E CONCEALED HIS CHARACTER AS BEST HE COULD FOR MANY YEARS; BUT IN THE END, BECAUSE SUCH CONCENTRATION WAS UNUSUAL TO HIM, EVERY DAY THE BLOOD WOULD MOUNT TO HIS HEAD UNTIL THE STRAIN REACHED A POINT WHERE HE COULD NO LONGER BEAR TO LIVE SUCH A LIFE AND HE GAVE HIMSELF OVER RESOLUTELY TO A CAREER OF EVIL … SWEET ATMOSPHERE ! W HO COULD HAVE REALIZED THAT WHENEVER HE EMBRACED A YOUNG CHILD WITH ROSY CHEEKS HE LONGED TO SLICE OFF THOSE CHEEKS WITH A RAZOR, AND HE WOULD HAVE DONE IT MANY TIMES HAD HE NOT BEEN RESTRAINED BY THE THOUGHT OF JUSTICE WITH HIS LONG FUNERAL PROCESSION OF PUNISHMENTS .
    â€” Comte de Lautréamont, Maldoror
    F OR weeks after the trip, I was depressed and terrorized, stalked and successfully captured by Nancy. I let her make creative decisions for the band and, even worse, fucked her all the time behind Teresa’s back. The sex was good, but I didn’t want it. Somehow, every direction I turned, she was there. And every time she was there, she wanted to get naked. I was completely possessed. She had me doing things I knew I shouldn’t, like taking acid again. This time it was before a performance.
    I had gotten a call from Bob Slade, a punk-rock DJ in Miami with a Monkees-style bowl haircut. We didn’t have a manager at the time, so I was mishandling our business affairs.
    â€œListen,” he said in his nasal, obnoxious radio voice. “We need you guys to open up for Nine Inch Nails at Club Nu.” Club Nu was a guido bar in Miami that we all hated.
    Though we only had seven songs, Brad was still learning to play bass and Stephen hadn’t bought a keyboard yet, I agreed. It was too good an opportunity to pass up just because we sucked. Before the show, Nancy handed me a tab of acid. As if the fourth of July had just been a bad dream that had nothing to do with drugs, I stuck it under my tongue without a second thought—until afterwards.
    On stage, I wore a short, orange dress and dragged Nancy around by her usual leash and collar. For some reason, I didn’t freak out on the acid: Nancy did. She cried and screamed throughout the show, begging me to beat her harder and harder, until welts rose up on her pale, anemic back. I was frightened by what I saw myself doing, but excited too, mainly because the crowd seemed to be getting so much enjoyment out of our psychedelic sadomasochistic drama.
    After the show, which I don’t even think Trent Reznor watched, I ran into him backstage.
    â€œRemember me?” I asked, trying to