Death: A Biography

Chapter 21

The fine pleasure of a cigar

In the quiet of his apartment, Nom was in paradise. He was sitting comfortably on his sofa, a glass of red wine in his left hand, and a copy of the Socratic Dialogs in his right. The only sounds to be heard was the soft thrum of the air-conditioner filtering his air to a delightful chill. The taste of a true Cuban Romeo Y Julieta cigar still lingered. Though illegal in the US, with Canada only a few miles away, they were not difficult to acquire, only expensive.

Twenty minutes before, he had sat on his patio watching the sun set, not giving a damn about what his neighbors thought about this particularly delightful habit. Not two minutes after the first satisfying mouthful, the sliding door to the balcony above his unit had slid open. He knew that the tiny little shrew who lived there with her pet Neanderthal would have several choice comments to make about the sinfully delightful aromas he was gifting her with. He had heard her criticism before on several occasions, fortunately, he did not have to listen to her this time.

His neighbor's name was Kristal Fox, despite being almost thirty, she had never lost the pixy frame of a prepubescent junior high girl. Nom had been guessing that she was anorexic, but as he reached into her with his gift, he found out that he was wrong. No, she simply had a very low estrogen level and a rather high metabolism.

"Strange." He thought. "She is so feminine in her life style, and yet she barely has a drop of girl juice in her."

She drove a pink car, had painted her apartment in a blinding assortment of girlish hues, from blushing pink to black eye blue. Worse she kept her curtains open, and Nom had to see the artistic crime every time he walked in from his car.

Still her morning exorcises were enjoyable. She might not have much in the curve department, but what she had, she enjoyed flaunting to the last degree. Every morning she posed herself in front of her balcony for the whole world to see. It was very important that everyone knew she enjoyed a strict yoga routine.

That was something Nom enjoyed too. Not that he did yoga himself, no, he enjoyed her doing it. Most mornings, she unwound with a pose of almost impossible flexibility. It had her bending over between her legs to the point that, had she wanted, she could have literally kissed her own ass.

Nom felt the tendrils of her mind and could feel the thoughts forming there. She was going to give him a piece of her mind like no other. For more than a month he had been away. Now she had to come home from work and find this creep polluting her clean evening air.

Normally, Nom would have told her to blow it out her ass and then sent a rather large smoke ring at her. In all his research he had found no: law, ordinance, or complex rule, that said he could not enjoy Cuba's greatest gift to humanity out on his patio; excluding the Cuban embargo of course. But this time, he decided that since he had god-like powers, well, he would give her a god-like punishment. Her door had been closed, and the wind would have cleared the offending smoke in a matter of minutes after he finished. If she had had the good sense to leave that door closed and turn on her air-conditioner; the smoke would never have offended her. Perhaps, cooled to a human temperature, her temper would not have been as raw.

Kristal was so proud of her microscopic ass, that she had spent so many years carefully sculpting and honing into a masterpiece. He could feel that pride in her. He stroked it. Feeding pride into her prefrontal cortex, he dialed down the rage she felt for him through a natural feedback loop.

Why was she so angry? She should instead focus on something more important.

Straining, Nom reached into the tendrils of her mind with a clarity and fidelity that he had yet to match. He saw what he was looking for and made the connection. Narcissism. Her true love was herself. Her expression of that love was the care she gave into caring or her body, sculpting it, caring for it. The chief achievement of that work was what she saw as the perfect ass.

Nom stood and walked to his neighbor's door. She had a private stairway leading up to her unit above his. He knew from months of listening that she never locked the door until she was getting ready for bed. He had not wanted to hear, but the walls were so thin that even a gnat farting in the unit above his could be deafening.

Blowing a cloud of satisfied smoke, Nom opened Karen's door and climbed her stairs. He found her in a meditative pose in the middle of her living room floor. Nom walked past her and sat on her moronic green, bean bag chair.

At the sight of it, he was shocked that a grown woman would choose so juvenile an item of furniture. But then she had the body of a child. The paint scheme, when he could manage to see it without being blinded, certainly seemed like the choice a teenaged female would make. Why not a chair to match?

When he sat, Karen's eyes slowly opened. She turned her head from the window to look at him. With her inhibitions shut off she spoke her mind. "My body is perfect." She said.

Nom didn't say a word he simply blew smoke in her face.

Smoothing her gag reflex, he triggered a gasp of inhalation, so that she would be forced to breathe in that which she despised. With a pristine look of calm, she slowly turned her head and looked out the window again. Tails of smoke trickled from her mouth and nose.

Nom reached into her mind, and, while keeping her calm, eliminated her ability to think rationally. He inhibited the blood flow to the outer folds of her cerebral cortex. He then reached into her hypothalamus and raised her perceived temperature to an unbearable one hundred ten degrees.

"Karen." Nom said, as she began to sweat profusely and squirm. "If it is so hot, why don't you take off your yoga pants?"

Nom took a moment to enjoy the view. She may not have much to look at, but what she had was very well built. "Kristal." He said after taking another puff. "Can you tell me the name of a yoga pose?"

"Yes." She said in a placid tone. "If I know it."

"It's the one you do at the end of your morning routine. You bend over with you head between your legs."

"It has no official name." She replied. "I do it as a challenge for my glutes. I call it 'The End of the World' pose. It looks like I'm kissing my butt goodbye. My yogi said it was a dangerous move, but I like how it pulls."

Nom nodded. "I see. Show me how you do it?" He asked.

Kristal walked to her spread yoga mat. "I have to build up to it." She said and began to go through her twenty-minute routine.

Nom sat and watched the show. In the past, he had seen her from a distance, usually when walking up to his apartment, or when leaving for work. Now she was upfront and personal. The view was a little better, but not by much. Yoga pants left little to the imagination. Other than learning whether Kristal shaved her pubic region, there was little new to see.

As it turned out she didn't, she trimmed it to a stubble. With her body feeling hot, blood flooded her skin and muscles to try and bring her temperature down. Her normally translucent pale skin was flushed to a scarlet red. She was drenched in sweat, and having trouble maintaining the slow regular breathing her routine required.

After twenty minutes, she faced the window, announcing: "I am beauty!" to the world. With her legs spread wide and her arms held aloft she breathed in ever shallower slow breaths. Slowly she walked her legs in from their spread stance while spreading her hips. When her feet were a little more than shoulder width she stopped and slowly lowered her head. Nom watched in fascination. Not only was this a highly enjoyable erotic show, the sheer act of such contortion skill was fascinating to see up close and personal.

As she made her way down, Nom decided to ask her a question. "Kristal, do you love your body?"

"Yes." She replied. "It is perfect."

Nom took another puff. "And do you bend over like that, so you can see your ass, and know that it is perfect without a mirror?"

"Yes." She replied.

Nom nodded. "Why don't you show your ass that you love it?"

"How?" She asked.

"Why don't you kiss it?" He asked.

When she did, he felt a mental twinge of humor. Here was another experiment. Just how far could he take this one?

"Kristal would you stand back up for me please?"

Without a word or an emotion on her face, she slowly flowed out of her pose. She rose till she was standing in a sublime pose with her legs partially spread.

"Kristal. Would you face away from me and crouch like a toad?"

Slowly she did as she was asked. Nom had to admit, the bit of body she had was perfection. Mentally, he reached into her body and felt. No, she had not eaten today. A glance at the counter confirmed his suspicion when he saw the formula bottle. She was on a cleanse. Her intestinal tract was empty. He short circuited a few smooth muscle control neurons, and watched as her backside began to open.

"Kristal would you stand, and face me again please?"

When she did, the look of serenity had by the tiniest fractions been polluted by confusion.

"Now, would you please do the 'End of the World' pose again?"

Slowly she slid into position, first turning to face the window, as if that was the only direction she could face when doing it. When she was bent over, she faced her still widening anal cavity.

"Now Kristal, it is a shame that your ass is so small. No matter how hard I try, I can't get your ass to open up any wider. I had hoped to have you put your head in there for real. You seem to keep it there all the time. Oh well."

Nom stood and walked over to her. "I'm going to help you sit down. I need you to go straight down, but only bend your knees and hips. Keep your head where it is."

For a few moments, she struggled to reach the new untried pose, but, with Nom's help, got it.

"Now, I want you to lean back a bit." He said pressing back and down on the small of her back. "See how there is still space between your face and your back side, but your head is resting on the floor?"

"Yes." She said.

"Good." Nom said. "Now, let's finish your new… No… Your last pose." Putting one hand on the small of her back, and the other on the back of her head, he squeezed. With the help of gravity, he slid her nose and mouth into her beloved ass.

"Good." Nom said, and patted her forehead with a condescending tone. "Now, I want you to relax all the muscles in your body. Just let gravity hold you in place."

She vaguely nodded her head a bit and relaxed completely into her final pose. Relaxing utterly, not once did she squirm.

"Oh…" Nom said taking his half-used cigar. "Here." He put the cigar into the lips of her new face. "You just enjoy that cigar." She blinked her blue eyes in thanks. By the time Nom stood and headed for the door, she was turning blue. In a few minutes, he knew that she would be dead.

Nom thumbed through her phone as he walked down the stairs. The demented shrew had failed to set up a basic screen lock. He found a text from her sub human troglodyte of a boyfriend. The knuckle dragger would be staying with some buddies for the next three days. Apparently, they had a keg, a lake, and meant to murder as many fish as they possibly could.

Now Nom had a silent apartment, a nicotine buzz, and a wonderful memory of taming a shrew, to mull over.