. : HELLACIOUS : .

The Women

William Craven didn't notice his Longevity Juice was missing for several weeks.

Una had already been dismissed from the estate, forced to take shelter with her sisters since her parents refused to house sullied, damaged goods.

Already embarrassed for wasting time and half a fortune on a woman who wasn't The One, Billy had little patience for the tax collectors who circled his enviable estate like hyenas to a steaming carcass.

He prepared his weekly bath and sank into the bubbles with a moan. Water spilled over the sides to compensate for his mass, pooling under the tub. 

The burn left from Kash's chains circled his neck like a noose, puckering with shiny new tissue. Billy fiddled with the strings around his neck, contemplating his next move to find The One. 

Just thinking about his failures and the unmanageable D'Jinn sleeping underneath his house gave him a massive headache. He reached for his tear vial to take a comforting sip.

Only to grasp at air.

Billy froze like a statue.

Realizing he was one necklace short, it dawned on him why Kash had been weirdly smug ever since he'd denied their freedom.

Half naked and covered in suds, William Craven barreled into Kash's cellar like a rhino. His hair was askew, his grey velvet trousers were torn at the knee, and his usually manicured beard had grown into a knotty, moist jungle.

"You!" Billy lunged for Kash and the D'Jinn just barely out paced his wild fists. "You snatched my Juice! My JUICE! I oughta skin you alive and sell you as a rug!"

"Please, please do." Kash cackled. They had nothing else to lose except for the obvious. 

But Kash wasn't even sure if they wanted to live anymore. 

"The tears were delicious. A bit salty, but incredibly revitalizing."

"You're one breath away from a lamp drop!" He bellowed.

"What are you waiting for then? Shatter it! End it!"

Billy's punch finally connected with Kash's temple, but to the man's horror the D'Jinn just grinned back at him with eyes as lifeless as coals.

"Drop it. Drop the lamp, Billy. Do us all a favor. You're never gonna find your perfect woman. Not now at least. Not without your Juice. Chances are I'll outlive you. Is my face really the last you want to see before you die?"

"I'll fix you." Billy darkly promised. "You'll learn your place. I am your Master. I earned the right. I earned you!"

Kash laughed a bitter laugh and clanged their metal food dish against the wall until their Master stormed out in a fury. 

Within seconds William Craven lost the life insurance he'd spent many grueling decades collecting.

.:.:.:.

After Una, Kash lost count of the women. Future Wives, as Billy liked to call them. Kash thought of them as Unsuspecting Victims, but Billy was especially brutal whenever they dared say the word to his face.

Billy's bed was a conveyor belt of wide hips, sweet smiles, ample breasts, warm stomachs and soprano voices.

Billy uprooted and crossed the country with every failed relationship, carting Kash along like a pet. With every woman a new house, a new personality, a new lease on life. 

The only constant was the half burned portrait of the woman Billy was relentlessly fixated on. Kash felt a strange kinship to the pasty girl in the painting. Both of them were hauled along like furniture and used as such, whether for aesthetics, memories, or magically forcing beautiful young women to fall in love with a man they'd normally never give the time of day.