The moment of truth came.  Sheena took his hand and led him to the middle door.  The one between the whips and the sausage.  Henry, in stride, said he didn’t think he was up for this.  They both stopped.  Sheena pulled something out from her somewhere with her left hand.  She bent at the waist and reached around and tucked it into his right pocket.

“I think you’ll be fine” whispered Sheena.

He awoke and his eyelids were glued together and he heard terrible sounds and he felt wonderful things and he couldn’t move any of his limbs.  He pried at his eyelids.  They stretched and would have admitted light but there was none.  He screamed so that someone somewhere would hear him but sounds of that night drowned out his pleadings.  The wonderful and cruel sensations continued.  Imperceptibly, a warm liquid began to drip on to his face and into his eyes.

Henry’s eyelids stretched again and cracked the elastic substance.  He something or something above him.  His distended senses could only guess what was happening to him.  It’s a cat with a rat squirming in it’s mouth and animal blood is dripping on to my face.

Henry blinked and refocused.  The terror rose up in his throat even as the rest of his body vibrated with sensation.  It’s a bear with a salmon flailing in its jaws and ocean and blood are gushing on to his eyes and nose and mouth.

Henry realized that neither of these things was possible and he let his eyes take another look.  He saw clearly now and was relieved.  Neither a cat nor a bear.  It’s Sheena with something pulsing between her lips and out into the air and dripping down.  It was his still beating heart.

Then he was gone.