The Itch

The Itch

Keri’s breathing was shallow and she had tunnel-vision from the lack of oxygen getting to her brain.  She was a senior at Arizona State University.  She was pretty but not model-pretty.  Keri wasn't the greatest student either.  She did well enough in most of her courses, but just didn't care much about school any more.  Her long, dark hair was smeared across the greasy alley concrete where she was lying, but she didn't really care about that either.  The only thing Keri really cared about these days was smack.  That and masturbating.  In her mind, there was nothing closer to heaven than getting high and rubbing her clit for hours on end.  There were some nights she would rub herself raw.  It hurt but it felt so good at the same time. She had gone to a doctor once who examined her down there. He told her that if she kept masturbating so much, she might rupture something or get an infection, but that didn’t stop her. He had asked if she had a boyfriend, but Keri couldn't be bothered with a boyfriend. All they wanted to do was interfere with her fun. Who needed some slobbering idiot hanging around, using up her stash and lasting only 5 minutes or less in bed, assuming they could get erect?

She tried using sex toys and they were okay, but nothing felt as natural and as good as the pointer and middle fingers of her right hand.  She could squeeze her clit between her fingers, rub it side-to-side or up-and-down, and occasionally plunge them deep inside to hit her g-spot.  She even liked to taste her fingers, taste her own juices.  That only made her hotter and wetter.  The more Keri did this, the more she experimented.  She found that while under the influence of heroin, she could endure more pain.  She began pinching her nipples or biting her shoulder or her left hand while she masturbated. 

Keri had always liked to try new things.  Even when she was a kid, she loved trying new ice cream flavors, new bike tricks, and reading new books.  So it wasn't much of a stretch when she decided to try heroin for the first time.  She had already been smoking pot, drinking, and doing cocaine.  It was the best decision she ever made. 

Keri had a favorite place she went to get high.  She was kicked out of the dorms a few weeks back, and was not allowed at her parents' place, but that was okay with her.  That part of Keri’s life was done and gone.  Now she flopped wherever she could.  Usually, she'd just do a few back-alley hand-jobs and get a cheap room at the Hacienda Motel on University Drive.

Keri’s favorite place to get high was that same alley that she was lying in right now.  It was quiet, and nobody ever bothered her.  Some of the people on the street said that alley had been the site of a murder 20 years ago.  Supposedly, some guy found out his wife was cheating on him, and he took her to this alley and stabbed her 17 times, then killed himself.  Keri didn't care about bullshit rumors.  The streets were full of meth-heads and other people that should be institutionalized.  They made up all kinds of bizarre and sick stories.  There was another rumor that the alley was built over top of a spot used by a mass murderer to bury his child victims.  And one other that claimed the alley was cursed by a Chinese immigrant fortune teller.  Keri thought they were all bullshit.

Keri didn't care that she was lying in a dirty alley with grease-rainbow water and dog shit in her hair.  She was high.  Maybe higher than she had ever been, and it felt so good.  The syringe lay beside her, and the strap was still around her arm.  She could feel that usual sensation of pulsing ecstasy throughout her body.  It was like an old, good friend.  It was the same each time.  The waves of euphoria would eventually turn their attention to her genitals.  She could feel her blood pounding into her hips and buttocks.  Keri's groin began to throb.  She felt the unique sensation of itching and tingling engulf her crotch.  The blood swelled her clit, filling it with the itch and lust.
Keri vaguely heard a high-pitched squealing sound as she sluggishly reached for the drawstring on her sweatpants.  She thought she heard the faint whispering of several voices.  Maybe someone else had stumbled into this dark alley, saw her, and wanted to watch.  She really didn't care.  She fumbled with her drawstring and finally untied it.  She clenched her ass and shoved her pants and panties down far enough to give her access.  She could hardly stand the wait now.  Keri’s clit was aching to be touched.  She wanted to scratch the itch, hard.  The whispering and squealing sound seemed to get louder.  She sometimes heard and saw strange things while she was high, so she tried to ignore it.  She definitely sensed someone watching her.  But she didn't give a shit.  If they wanted to watch some dirty junkie finger herself in an alley, so be it.  She arched her back slightly and her shaking right hand reached down between her legs.
"Unclean," said a quiet, smoky voice.  Keri stopped her hand from reaching her crotch and opened her eyes somewhat. Her head was swimming, but she didn’t see anyone.

"Shudda fuck up," she said, slurring.  She jabbed her filthy alley fingers into herself and began rubbing her clit as fast and hard as she could.  Keri wanted to, needed to scratch that itch.  "You...just....shuddup....and...watch me...you filthy...fucker," she gasped, as the spasms of pleasure arced electric pulses into her brain.  It hurt, but it felt so good too.  Keri was rubbing and squirming against her fingers.

"Unclean," said the wavering, smoky voice against a background sound of squealing metal-on-metal.  Suddenly, Keri was sober and clear-headed.  She only realized this for one split second before the pain slammed into her.  It felt like acid all over her crotch.  The burning spread up inside her, burning her female insides like a spreading wildfire.  It was a pain she could not enjoy.  It was a pain that cannot accept its owner being conscious.  Keri succumbed to it, and passed out writhing in agony.  Her middle and pointer fingers were dark reddish-purple with large, pulsating veins protruding through her dirty skin.

When Keri regained consciousness, it was almost dawn.  The light seared through her eyes into her brain.  Through the surreal mind-fog of waking, she became aware of the pain again.  The angry, red, throbbing pain that sliced up her body from her crotch.  Keri immediately doubled-up into the fetal position on the cold, hard ground, and cried out in a strangled howl.  The pain inside her was so intense, she wept.  She wasn’t high, and she was experiencing the feeling of a knife slicing her open starting at her vagina.  After a minute or two, she heard footsteps.  Someone was in the alley with her.  She could hear the shuffling footfalls coming closer, splashing through the left-over rain and discarded garbage.

"You okay, sweetie? I heard ya screamin'," said an old, gravelly voice.

"Fuck off," she grunted, "I'm fine. Leave me alone."

"Is that blood?" said the voice, sounding worried.  She struggled up onto one elbow, still doubled over.  She saw the blood all over the walls of the adjoining buildings, garbage cans, and the concrete around her.  Her breath was coming back in ragged puffs of agony.

"We should getcha to a clinic, little lady," said the little old man.  He was scruffy, dirty, and scrawny.  He had the leathery skin and ragged clothes of a homeless street walker.  Keri had lived on the streets long enough to know you couldn't trust anyone - even if you really did need help.

"Get lost y'old fucker, I can take care of myself!" she managed to curse.  He reached for her arm to help her stand up.  She turned her upper body and grabbed his bare arm with her right hand to push him away.  She wasn't going to let any greasy street walker touch her.
When Keri’s fingers wrapped around his arm, the old leathery man howled like a madman and jerked his arm away violently.  She felt a vaguely familiar itching and burning sensation in her fingers and the blood pounding in her head again.

The old man stumbled back away from her and looked at his arm where Keri had grabbed him.  The bare arm had two large red marks where her stained fingers had touched his flesh.  Spidering out from those welts, his veins were necrotizing slowly up toward his head.  The veins turned dark red, then purple, then black within seconds.  The old man grimaced in pain as he fell to his knees and croaked out vainly for help. 

Keri sat up, her pain rescinding quickly at the same time she watched the old man dying.  His blackening veins finally reaching his face and head.  The crawling blackness invaded his eyes and mouth, silencing his croaking pleas.  He was writhing on the ground in pain, and clawing at his arm where she had touched him, digging at his flesh.  The weight of the situation combined with her sobriety slammed in Keri at once.  She had somehow killed this guy by touching him. 

As the man's struggling moans began to fade, Keri looked at her right hand.  Her middle and pointer fingers were ugly red and pulsating with thick, purple-black veins down to the second knuckles.  She turned them over and examined the back of her fingers.  They were the same on the back side.  She looked up again at the body of the old leathery-skinned man.  His body had collapsed into a seething pile of skittering cockroaches that scattered and skittered across the concrete to find solace in the walls of the surrounding buildings and trash.

Keri gasped and shuffled back away from the body on her elbows and butt.  The stench of the alley then assaulted her nostrils as she rose to her feet and ran past the body and out of the alley onto a side street.

Keri didn’t remember how long she'd been running.  She remembered some of the faces she passed as she ran, like a weird, blurred montage without any sound except that same high-pitched squealing.  She finally came to a stop as she ran into another alley.  It was still dawn and nobody was around.  Keri gasped for breath and began to weep as she looked at her disfigured, disgusting fingers.
The swelling had reduced somewhat, but they were as red and menacing-looking as before.  She tried to wipe them off on her dirty blouse, but it didn't help.  Without thinking, she jabbed her fingers into her mouth to try and clean them off.  It felt like she had just shoved a red-hot iron poker in her mouth.  The pain exploded inside her mouth and quickly spread to her head.  Keri dropped to the concrete, writhing in pain, her head feeling like it was going to explode.  The pressure was building behind her eyes and she could feel a familiar sensation of itching in her entire body. 

The itch she had to scratch. 

Keri screamed in agony as she clawed at her face with one hand and her crotch with her right hand.  She couldn't help herself.  The skin began to come off her face as she frantically tried to scratch the fire out of her flesh.  The fire was her flesh. If she shed her flesh, she thought, she could stop the pain.  The blood flowed freely from her maimed face and splashed down her legs from her mangled, blackened vulva.

Keri continued to twitch on the ground for a moment then let out a gasp of sudden release and then was still.  Her body began to writhe and seethe then collapsed into a mass of skittering cockroaches. The metallic squealing and the smoky voice were the last things she heard.

"Now you are clean," it said.