GOD HATES HEAVY METAL: YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR
YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR
Raymond Kessler’s father was, quite literally, a trust fund. Groomed into a vapid vessel devoid of empathy, Raymond pissed away his inheritance on the finest drugs, the loudest cars, and the trendiest clothes. He replenished his fortune by gutting pensions through the family business and selling conspiracy supplements to men who hated their wives. He believed aliens were real, we live in a simulation, and women were mostly decorative buckets for his sperm.
So when a shadow dealer in Morocco offered him a strange object—carved from jet-black meteorite, with spindled horns and a vaguely feminine shape—he wired $4.5 million instantly.
“It’s not extraterrestrial,” said Dr. Leila Hamdi, the archaeologist he flew in to study it. “This is a votive sculpture. Moroccan. If I had to guess, these horns suggest Aïsha Kandisha.”
He stared at her like she was a bug. “Who the fuck is that?”
She removed her glasses and met his gaze. “Aïsha Kandisha. In Moroccan folklore, she’s a powerful spirit. Sometimes a sorceress, sometimes a vengeful djinn. Some say she was based on a 16th-century noblewoman.”
Raymond slugged a glass of scotch and winced. “So you’re telling me I paid millions for some folk art goat-whore?”
“Essentially,” Leila said, packing up her notes.
His face reddened. He refilled his glass and slammed it back. “Are you sure? How the fuck do I know you even know what you’re talking about? Have you even been to Morocco—like I have?”
Intimidated, she began to gather her things. “Yes, I’m from Tangier. I ha—”
“Fuck!” He hurled his glass across the room, just missing her. “Well, a lot of good that did. My house has two too many worthless Moroccan bitches in it right now.”
She left in silence.
Later, shirtless and drunk, Raymond glared at the sculpture through a haze of liquor and hate. “Ugly bitch,” he muttered. “Bet you’re here illegally too.” He stumbled off to bed and passed out.
In his dream, a beautiful woman with long black hair appeared in his doorway. Her eyes glowed red with lust. Her legs were furred. Horns scraped the ceiling as she mounted him, her gaze burning with centuries of wrath. Her goat-like thighs pulsed, tore, and opened wide around him.
He tried to scream. She silenced him with hooves and teeth.
By morning, Raymond Kessler was ribbons of trampled meat soaked in the finest single malt scotch money could buy. His innards—and his arrogance—were splattered across white marble tiles.
Dr. Hamdi returned for the equipment she’d left behind in the storm of insults. She found what was left of him steaming in the morning light.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t gasp. She didn’t shed even the faintest remorse.
She simply stepped over the entrails, lifted the sculpture from the floor, and smiled.
“Well, Mr. Kessler,” she whispered, “turns out you didn’t overpay at all.”
Art and story by Hal Hefner.
Produced by Catmonkey Studio