Skinvent's Bane

He was a dishevelled old man with a terrible gait as he walked up the path to the cottage that afternoon. It was the first of January, the first day of a year and was as new as a nail.

Winter crows guzzling seed seemed to writhe away as the old man trod with old boots way too big for his whippet legs.

His long ancient gabardine was stained and burnt and tied at the waist with fraying string.

It reeked of something like gunpowder and cardinal sin.

"Morning Madame, Villbleed's the name. Mind if I take a winter apple from your tree, for which I'll trade you this bag of dust?"

Skinvent the woman stared at the stinking vagrant for a second or two but saw no harm in letting him take an apple.

After all there were far too many for her this year, a fecund crop of pudgy bakers, which even her three cruel uncles couldn't manage, save if she she cooked them all and gave them bellyache from one huge pie.

Shaking away her wishful thoughts, she replied from the candlelit doorstep.

"By all means do take an apple or two Sir. And no need to give me anything in return. Tis New Year and all."

"Why thank you kind lady. Most benevolent of you. But I insist, if I scrump I must leave you this dust. Its been swept from my house last New Years Eve it has, by my dear dear departed, and will bring bad luck to whomsoever you wish."

"Bad luck?"

"Yes, for the pesky irksome oafs we all have to endure in our lives. Maybe they deserves a bit of misfortune eh dear? I say, let's forget our manners, to hell with them all and begin anew!"

Skinvent considered his strange but reasonable thesis and conceded its attraction. She could indeed deploy the dust to some good use.

She smiled.

"Take your apple and leave me the dust."

Items so exchanged, the tramp and the woman parted company, but as he left the lady was certain she spied scarlet skin beneath his sleeve.

Thinking nothing of it more the day bled into night.

"Where's my tea you slovenly sow!" bellowed Uncle Stomach, named as such by her dear departed Mother, his Sister, on account of his insatiable and revolting appetite. 

Stomach would eat anything and everything, with not a care for anyone else. They could starve for all Stomach cared. A selfish, heinous gobbler; a stealer of meals; a greedy, belligerent pig-bag, who, like the rest of Skinvent's Uncles, was the bane of her life.

"Bring my fuckin tea!" He roared and slapped his niece across her face with his tablespoon. 

Used to Stomach, but sick of him entirely,  Skinvent had no hesitation whatsoever at mixing the bag of dust into his gravy, which it thickened admirably and fell in fat drips over the dish of hot food.

No sooner had Stomach tucked in he began to choke. He stood up suddenly and grabbed his throat, huge globules of dusty meat erupting from his frothing maw.

"You, you fuckin...."

He glared at Skinvent and she could feel his hot hatred. He knew for sure she'd done something to him.  But it was too late for the greedy man, who died on that very spot, liquefying slowly like lard around his gut, a steady reduction of tissue and bone, eventually leaving nothing but his bloated stomach, the acid sloshing out as it fell on its side like a discarded haggis.

"Hmmm. My my. Well I never did see such a thing!" said Skinvent beaming from ear to ear.

She carefully hung the dripping stomach on a hook inside the pantry and blew out one of the candles in the window, a pair still burning for lonely strays lost in the dead of night, strays bearing wonderful gifts perhaps.

"One down, two to go!" she whispered as she closed her eyes and endured the agony of her remaining pair of Uncles for another long, dreadful dozen months.

The next New Year's day, as Skinvent had prayed for every night, Villbleed returned seeking one of her succulent Christmas apples.

Goatsuckers coughed as he strode by, a spring in his step they had perceived and scarpered to the woods to watch.

"Good Morrow sweet Miss, tis I again this start of the calendar, in need of another of your wholesome fruit if we can agree a suitable trade."

"Ah, yes, of course Sir. For certain an apple is a small price for ....?"

"A pot of glue rendered from a nag, my dear departed, just yesterday on New Years Eve. This too will engender harm on whom you choose and will adhere to it, I swear."

"A deal!" She laughed.

"Please scrump old Sir and give me that glue!"

Villbleed turned to the tree and Skinvent was sure she glimpsed a wisp of smoke rising from his coat.

That night the table set, she felt her Uncle's hand cup her breast, his other hand guiding hers upon his bulging ballsack.

"Come here you whore and spread those legs. You're gagging for some Uncle Chestnuts I can tell!"

Skinvent winced but played the part for Chestnuts, so named by her sweet late Mother for his hideous man-bag, which, seldom in his trousers, had banged upon the family whole; girls, boys, women and men. He wasn't fussy whom he entered, his insistent nadgers happily decanting every time.

The Uncle shambled to toilet himself and the niece went to the counter, prepared a drink and quickly basted his seat with Villbleed's glue. 

"Sit my good Uncle for a cup of punch and then you may have your fill".

Chestnuts sat down and immediately began to quiver and quake as he stuck fast. 

"What the ....!"

He fumed, he raged, he blasphemed and conveniently burst into flames and was handsomely consumed leaving nothing but his pink testicles steaming on the stool.

"Good Lord! Good grief! That is truly a sight for sore eyes!"

"You've well and truly roasted your chestnuts this time Uncle!"

Skinvent chuckled and picking up his sizzling balls she hung them in the pantry on a hook beside Stomach's wincing gut.

"A right pair of Uncles you are now eh!" She howled and blew out a candle, leaving just one alight in the window.

Her dreams were eased but nowhere near fully, as the worst of the Uncles was left, the pugnacious and violent Knuckles.

Skinvent feared him the most and suffered another gruelling year, her open wounds and loosening hair the trophies of Knuckle's unwanted attention.

The world turned whole and New Year came full circle, and like the clockwork dark, Villbleed appeared on January's frost.

"Tis I sweet dear, another year passed and I yearn again for your apple's tang. May I partake today?"

"Oh yes, wise Sir, please do! My apples as always are yours to plunder but I wonder so what you'll trade this year?"

"Ah, the best I feel, the best for last, a tonic for the hands and feet I reduced myself, from my dear departed, to smooth away the evil in your midst but I shall not rub it in my lady"

"Done!" She roared! 

"Please eat old man and give me that tonic!"

As Villbleed scrumped a final time, Skinvent was sure of the fork in his tail she witnessed flick above his boots.

With no time to think Knuckles appeared, punched her square and dragged her to the house,whilst yelling at the tramp:

"Fuck off you old cunt and don't come back. This punch-bag's mine!"

Skinvent was thrown to the flagged floor of the parlour, where she clutched the precious tonic.

"What's that fucking bottle you useless wench?"

"It's for my hands Uncle, a potion for tired skin on hands and feet: to make them tough, something I have always wanted!" She wailed,  hoping against hope that the ruse found purchase in his brutish brain.

It had.

"Fuck you, you scratty old tart, it's my skin it's dressing, not your sissy sack! And when they're even tougher you're gonna get the beating of your pointless little life!"

Feigning resistance, the niece shrieked as Knuckles wrestled the bottle from her, cruelly kicking her in the softest parts and daubing it over his hands and feet in front of her.

"See you minger! Look at your Uncle's iron hide now!" Bragged Knuckles as he clenched his gritty fists and walloped Skinvent fully in the mouth.

She cried and nursed her bleeding teeth and prayed for .....

It began with a welt, then a rash of boils.

Before long Knuckles' whole face was a raft of buboes, scabbing over, then falling off to leave rents exploding yellow puss across the room. Knuckles screamed from a lipless mouth as his entire body, save his hands and feet, gave way to a mass of crusts and blisters, which he frantically tried to pick away, only to reveal deep necrotic holes of gangrenous jelly.

Uncle Knuckles fell to his knees like a dying crab, looked up at Skinvent and wept, the tears loosening his face, which came away completely, landing between his legs.

Splat!

His ravaged body shook and he reached out to his niece, his fists dreadfully clenched one last time, only to find them fall off his wrists and land on the floor like two hams.

Splat!

A shambling sacrifice, he tried to stand but his feet came away from his ankles with a snap. Faceless, handless and without feet, the monstrosity still persisted and staggered towards Skinvent on bleeding stumps, before collapsing at her skirt, crusting over and blowing away in the winter's wind.

Skinvent laughed and laughed and laughed as she stared at what was left: just his terrible fists and feet, harmless and incomplete.

"Oh yes! Oh My! How absolutely awfully wonderful" she howled.

Picking up her Uncle's limbs she skipped to the pantry and tying together sinews, she hung them out to dry like shoes on two of the three remaining hooks.

She admired her handiwork and touched each one in turn, making them swing ever so slightly: Stomach, Chestnuts, Knuckles and feet.

Skinvent shed a tear of joy and smiled in disbelief.

There was one spare candle to extinguish but she kept it lit that winter night and every night the following year, a year of bliss and rightful power, of eating and sleeping without any fear.

But as the Christmas season came, shining brighter than she'd ever known, Skinvent's niggling doubts about the winter vagrant scratched her mind like claws and as December waned they coalesced into full conviction. 

She was sure of it, he was coming and wasn't finished, so by the pregnant light of December's final night, Skinvent was ready for the horrors he would surely bring.

And like a leech that's left an empty pond, Villbleed slithered up the path that January first.

"No Uncles left my dearest Lady but apples galore I see!"

"Yes, a fertile tree it is for sure, my mother's in the soil protecting me."

The vagrant nodded.

"So what to trade this year I wonder; what's now an apple's fee?

"How about a hot dinner for you kind Sir?"

"Ah, warm food in your homestead. I do so miss my late dear departed's cooking and everything else I bid her to do for me."

"Well, come in the house."

Villbleed smiled widely, his crammed and copious tapered teeth revealed.

"Oh, I plan to come in my dear. I plan to do so much more besides. Now get that fuckin' sweet ass of yours inside!" He bellowed.

Skinvent had known for certain the man would change; had fully rumbled his ruse a year before but she was still shocked by this terrible switch, his sudden avarice and a whiff of something far far worse, but to her credit and good fortune, she'd seen this jumped-up Trojan tramp for what he really was; just another conniving bastard and bastards well she knew.

Once beyond her door the man took off his fetid mack to reveal his hellish form, the flaming red horrendous figure of Satan himself, his tail thrashing in excitement and his huge member engorged like a crimson canon.

"Now, you wimpering bitch, where's my fucking dinner? If it's decent grub I'll spare you my sharp tongue where it hurts and get straight to the forking. My knackers ache for relief and my late departed mistress just lost .. well, the knack with them, her arid cleft her unfortunate end and I'm fucking starving for it now. Yet fear not my apple-whore, as you can see I have risen to the occasion splendidly and as planned, your three Uncles' charming souls, God bless 'em, came to me like giddy lambs and gave me the lift I so dreadfully needed to stiffen my resolve so to speak! Ha ha!"

The Devil chuckled, steamed and smiled, his sharpened teeth a hyena's.

"Now fetch me my fucking food, wench!"

Satan sat at the table smoking and Skinvent brought out the meal she'd prepared earlier, secretly garnishing it with a hefty dash of the tramp's fell trades saved for such a very day; the dust, the glue, the tonic. They all went in the stew, along with the balls, fists and feet, all served on an empty stomach. 

"Yes," she mused "my hateful Uncles get to play one more part .... or several!"

The Devil gorged himself on the hot casserole, demanding seconds, sucking little bones and finally licking out the stomach. He sat back and burped, his taloned hands caressing his fattened paunch.

"Excellent fayre, my thanks to you trollop. The juicy meatballs and hocks were glorious! The butcher should be complimented on his choice of cuts."

"And now for pudding!"

He rose to his full height, clutching his swollen sceptre.

"You will now know the agony and the ecstasy of the Tartarus cock, so pull up your skirt sweet harlot!"

Satan swept everything off the table with his tail and threw Skinvent over its edge face down, her skirt ruffled around her naked behind.

"Aaah, that's a fine rump I must say, like one big apple for me to core; far better than the last scrag end I shafted. This is a plump harvest for pressing to be sure. Oh hell, my glorious pups will fill your quim to its brim!"

Barely in control the Devil yelled aloft.

"Yes! Let's get to it!"

He gripped her sides and readied himself for the thrust when, suddenly, he stopped.

"What? What's this? You witch! What have you done?"

Satan staggered backwards and stared in disbelief as his turgid member shivered and shook without his hands and he urinated jet black blood. 

His horns sank into his head heading straight for his roasting brain and his tail flew in a circle and shot straight up his burning arse.

His balls tied a clove knot in themselves and he forcibly stuffed both his hands down his throat, where he grasped his intestines hard and pulled himself inside out, the whole gelatinous mess breaking down entirely and running over the steps out of the house.

The birds began to drink.

Slurp!

All that was left of the Devil was his furtive cock.

Skinvent stopped shaking and howled with laughter as she prodded the steaming phallus with her foot.

"Not so cocky now eh! you old twat! Gives a whole new meaning to the Fallen One don't you think!"

She laughed and laughed as she carefully lifted her heavy scarlet wrinkled bounty and hung it on the biggest pantry hook she had, where it shook and swung and suddenly went slack.

"Not so thick now old Nick you fucking prick!" She howled and closed the pantry door on her prize possessions. 

After all, you never know who might come scrumping the next New Year!