-Romance and Erotica novelist-
Kristine Lichtlider
Excerpts from my novels.
I, Demon Slave
ISBN-9781311215451
Excerpt:
There's a sensation of moving through mud, like my body is both infinitely heavy and weightless all at once. Then I'm thrust out the other side, taking in the differences of Earth; The slightly higher gravity, the lack of ash in the air you breathe.
And the cold. I cover up my naked form with my arms and wings, shivering.
The robed figure stands stunned. I do believe he's stopped breathing. Slowly I unfurl my wings and do my best to look impressive. I'm standing on a pentagram drawn with ram's blood. Only ram's blood will do, because of some loophole in demonic law. As long as I'm in the pentagram, I'm technically under his power. I have to answer any questions he has, and use my powers to the best of my ability at his command. However, there's not much one can do within a circle, and here lies the con of demonic summoning.
The summoner thinks he is in control, and can make pacts with the demons he summons. However, these pacts are open to interpretation, often to the detriment of the foolish mortal who made them. Once, for example, a soldier summoned a Baalor to 'watch his back' in combat. The Baalor did just that—he watched while his back was stabbed three times.
However, I've been instructed to play it straight with this boy. Man, really, I see as he doffs his hood. I'm faced with a handsome, high cheek-boned specimen of adulthood. Even beneath his robe—which is of authentic goat's fur, I note—I can tell he's physically fit. That, combined with him being rich should make him too busy with the ladies to bother with something as involved as demonic summoning.
“Who has summoned Empusa, Mistress of Hell?”
“I, Ron Williams, Master sorcerer, have summoned thee,” he says, waving his arms. “I beseech thee and command thee to bend thy demonic might for my will.”
“Look, son, you don't have to talk like that,” I say, suppressing a giggle.
“I—uh, of course I don't!” He points his finger at me. “I would make pact with you, demon!”
“Ah, yes, a pact.” I lean forward, leering at him, until I come close to the invisible barrier separating us. It glows a dull red. “And what are the terms of this pact?”
Smugly, he withdraws a scroll from inside the robe.
“I, Ron son of Job, hereby immediately and for a period of no more than one hundred years, bind this demon as my slave. She will obey me in all things, and serve me in all things.”
The scroll bursts into flames, which I don't think he was expecting. I'm laughing hysterically while he runs about his living room, waving the burning sleeves of his robes. Finally he drags the garment off and tosses it into his bathtub.
“Stop laughing at me,” he says. I stop, though I still snicker. “Come out of the pentagram.”
“I cannot appear on Earth in my True Form. I must needs adopt a mortal form.”
“Then adopt one.”
“So be it.”
I close my eyes and imagine myself as I appear in my true form. Slowly, I make changes, taking away my horns, my wings, and my hooves, straightening my legs, and lightening my skin. Then I say the word of power, and I am transformed.
I look much like I did when I died at the tender age of 22—except, of course, that I'm naked. As I step over the line of blood, I can see him licking his lips as he examines my body.
“Does it meet with Master's approval?”
He flinches like I've struck him. Swallowing, he looks squarely at my breasts and then my eyes.
“What did you just call me?”
“Master.”
He closes his eyes tightly.
“Say that again.”
Kidnapped, Trained, and mad as Hell
There are others, seven in all, making us ten captives. I notice an Asian, a somewhat chunky dark skinned girl I believe to be Indian, and the rest are Caucasian. All pretty, some beautiful, and all of them bound, gagged, and terrified.
Miles cuts my hands free from the zip tie, and I groan in relief. My wrists are cut, but not deeply. I only have a moment to examine them before he and Eduardo pull my arms roughly behind me. My hands are manacled, and they use a little wrench to screw them shut. I'm bent over a low metal anvil set into the floor. I wince when I see a hammer being lifted over my head, but it's only to bend a steel bar around my neck, forming a collar. The chains between my shackles is attached to the collar by a convenient ring located in the back. My hands are pulled up uncomfortably, but not painfully, between my shoulder blades.
Next they hammer shackles around both my ankles. I am really not liking the look of this. They attach a chain barely ten inches long, forcing me to stand awkwardly.
I vomit as soon as the bar towel is taken out. Miles surprises me by offering me a drink of water from a bottle. I tilt my head back and greedily swallow the cool liquid. Any gratitude I may have had is short lived, as he then rudely shoves a huge ball gag into my mouth. He pulls it taut, and then uses the little wrench to screw it on as well.
As it turns out, I'm not so lucky. I have to stand against the wall while the two men prepare the rest of the captives in a similar fashion. When it's the redhead's turn, she bites down on Miles's finger so hard she draws blood. I catch a glimpse of the mangled digit, and realize he'll need stitches. Good for you, Red.
Or maybe not. Once she's been chained and gagged Miles selects a five-bladed whip from among the crates. He steps on her long hair to pin her in place and proceeds to lash her brutally. He doesn't draw blood, but her skin is stripped and streaked in scarlet. He doesn't stop until Red is sobbing uncontrollably, burbling like a baby behind her gag.
Each of us is forced to our feet and made to get in line. During the brief moment some of them were ungagged, there were those that tried to plead and question our captors. They were met with stony silence.
At least I get a good look at Sheila. She's a dark-haired, slender woman, with hard gray eyes and a mouth that looks incapable of smiling. Some men would no doubt find her beautiful. From the longing looks Eduardo is giving her, I'd say he certainly does.
She doesn't earn any points with me when she approaches and loops a wire around my neck. It slides shut and I choke. She releases it about a half centimeter and then loops it around the next girl's neck, and the next's. We are then led in coffle out of the cinderblock room.
The hallway we pass through has a bare concrete floor. I can hear, and smell, what's happening before I can see it. The narrow hallway opens up suddenly into a room roughly the same size as the first. We are led past pillories, slanted rails, wooden horses, and things I cannot name, most of them occupied by a naked and helpless woman. I can hear the sharp intakes of breath behind me as my more sheltered companions soak in the debauchery before us.
One blonde woman is bent over a rail, her arms and legs bound to the floor. A hairy giant of a man stands behind her, pants around his ankles. Little grunts escape his bearded mouth as he takes her ass hard. The blonde can't complain, though due to the large black man shoving his cock down her throat. Biting him isn't an option, not with the ring gag buckled so tight.
Another woman, a brunette with a porn star's body, is astride one of the horses. Balancing on her tip toes, she struggles to keep her weight off of her pussy. Her hands are chained up behind her just like ours. A line of drool slips past her gag as she sobs for release.
I can't take in all the horror. Women with their mouths held open by cruel devices, unable to stop the hot load of spunk from sliding down their throats. Men who apply punishing studded dildos to pussies that already look red and well-used. And all around, from seemingly everywhere, the squishing sounds of sex.
I know what's being done. Leading us past that room wasn't an accident. This is psychological warfare, something I'm quite familiar with. Once we're past what I can't help but call the Rape Room, we enter another hallway and then pass by a few empty chambers. At last, we are led shuffling amid the jangling of our chains into a roughly circular room. Racks, chains, and posts mingle with modern gym equipment. The floor is padded with a foam rubber substance, spongy beneath my bare feet. There seem to be a lot of stains on them, but I smell fresh cleaning solvents.
We're forced to line up against a cold wall. A man enters from a door directly across the room from us. He's wearing a black suit in a spartan style, his gray hair slicked back. His mouth is smiling, but his gray eyes seem hard. After nodding brusquely to Sheila, he takes something from Miles. It's a small metal can, probably used to hold coffee at one point. He rummages around inside of it and withdraws something small, flat, and white.
“Lana Brown,” he says, reading my license and looking up at me. I do my best to cringe and look fearful. He holds the card in his palm and withdraws another one.
“Sarah Joel,” the man says, this time looking at the fiery redhead. He goes on down the line, reading each of our names in turn. Then he sets the can on the floor and motions to Miles.
“These people no longer exist.” Miles hands him a can of gasoline. The man pours a little in the can holding our licenses, and then sets it ablaze with a match. The young black woman, named Tenisha, begins whimpering anew.
“I am called the Director,” he goes on to say, walking up and down the line of us and meeting us all with that steely gaze. “You have no names because you are nothing. You will be trained to become something once more, a being who lives to please men. But only after you have been broken.”
The dehumanization is apparent. He wishes us to believe ourselves worthless, and that our old lives are over. It's a common tactic for brainwashing, and I'm certain I can resist it.
But my companions? I'm not so sure.
“The next two weeks will be brutal,” says the Director. “You will be kept bound twenty four hours a day. You will eat, sleep, shit, and fuck in your chains. After two weeks, if you are worthy, you may be allowed to move up to your Training phase. Those who are compliant will be rewarded. Those who are not...”
As if on cue, Eduardo shoves a stumbling, naked woman into our view. Her hands are chained behind her like the rest of us, and her gagged mouth pleads for mercy right up to the point that the Director pulls out a pistol and shoots her in the head.
The Incredible Sextons
Meanwhile, Thaddeus Sexton had no idea that his arch nemesis was plotting his destruction. This was partly because Dr. Despair was supposedly incarcerated in the People's Republic of China, and partly because he was busy taking care of his new maid.
Ensconced in his lab, he sat before a computer console. His hands were folded across his chest, because he didn't need to use the keyboard; His power allowed him to directly input commands mentally. Seated between his knees, Tina bobbed her head up and down on his cock. Her head was sheathed in a Sextile hood, only her mouth exposed. Occasionally she would come off of him for air, sucking it in through her ring gag amid a spray of cum, but then the collar on her neck would activate and shock her painfully. Then she would go back to work on him, often sobbing around his member. Of course, she couldn't remove the hood with a Sextile single glove holding her arms firmly behind her back. It gave Dr. Sexton the time he needed to deal with his latest addition.
Lena Payne hovered naked before him, suspended in a gravimetric field. Her eyes were furious as she stared down at him, but he had quickly discouraged her from verbally berating him by using the field to hold her jaw closed. Now she could only grumble and glare.
First he created the Real Life decoy of her, using a vat of stem cells he kept bubbling most days of the year. Being who he was, he decided to improve on the original. Lena the clone was identical physically, but her libido and sense of shame were greatly reduced. He did this almost without thinking, and then set the clone to congeal overnight.
Then he went to work on the real woman. Using a pair of spray emitters, he coated her body with liquid Sextile. Lena groaned in alarm, but was held perfectly still while her body was coated. It was particularly terrifying for her, because at first the Sextile just covered her like a skin tight cocoon. As it covered her mouth and nose, her eyes stared wildly at Dr. Sexton, pleading. She couldn't breathe! She-
The Sextile parted around her nostrils, just enough so she could breath. Dr. Sexton's voice carried easily through the slick, rubber like material.
“You've been coated in Sextile, an unstable compound I came up with. Basically, it has nanites suspended in a material similar in feel to latex. These nanites will monitor your position and vital signs twenty four hours a day. In addition, they can re-assemble themselves to suit whatever task you've been assigned. For example, I really need this place dusted.”
Dr. Sexton adjusted a small screen on his wrist communicator, and changed the settings. He configured the Sextiles to 'maid' with a restraint factor of Severe. He declined to allow her to speak, and set the garment to provide her with a gag as well. Then he hit the enable key and watched his handiwork, putting a hand atop his daughter's head.
Inside the cocoon, Lana groaned in alarm as it shifted over her skin. For a moment she was almost free, adorned in a black rubber maid's uniform, complete with head scarf. Then the costume shifted again, the nanites exerting a magnetic pull that forced her to fold her arms painfully behind her back in a reverse prayer position.
“It hurts! It-” something shoved its way in her mouth and expanded, feeling a great deal like a penis. It filled her mouth and inflated until she was gagging in alarm. She could snort air in through her nostrils, but it seemed as if it were barely enough.
It got much worse for her. The uniform bared both her breasts, and the skirt shortened until her shaved labia were exposed. Lena threw her head back and screamed into the gag as a probe shoved its way up her ass. Turning about in a circle, she resembled a dog chasing its own tail as she tried to catch sight of the feather duster now sprouting from her butt plug.
“Success!” Dr. Sexton cleared his throat. “I mean, naturally! Do get to work dear, there's a lot of dust.”
Sexton pulled Tina off of his dripping cock and turned off her shock collar. The hood came off next, and he wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumb.
“Have you learned your lesson, lady?” he said sternly.
“Yes, daddy.”
The woman was quite the sight for sore eyes. Seamus crept low through the foliage, eyes fixed on the lovely creature bathing in the creek. Sunlight filtered through the canopy created a pattern on her dark skin. From her deep bronze coloration, he figured she was from Sun People stock. Her nose was wide, but in a pleasing way. Thick hair like a lamb's wool covered her head in a shaggy mane, but her privates were shaven.
Only two types of women put lather and razor down there; slaves, and prostitutes. He figured the girl for an escaped slave, judging from her ornate collar. Her brown eyes peered about, as if she knew she were being watched. His hiding spot was up to par, and she returned to her bath.
A pile of rags nearby were her likely garments, and seemingly her only possession. With a snicker, he scooped them up, sniffed them once, then discarded them into the brush with a disgusted grimace. If he decided to allow her clothing, it would be something much cleaner.
There was a rule about escaped slaves, after all; finders keepers.
Seamus watched the woman, growing sweaty. How long had it been since he'd been with a woman? That whore back in Blue Moon? And that fat, old cow hadn't been so lovely as this specimen.
The girl finished her bath and gingerly stepped past the sharper rocks on the riverbed. He smiled as she put her sandals on first, lacing them up past her calf, before searching for her garment. Alarmed, she snapped her head to and fro, legs spread out in preparation to run.
“Hello, love,” he said, stepping into her sight. She glanced down at the sword at his side, then at his pockmarked face, and shuddered.
“Please,” she said in the Northern tongue “don't hurt me! I don't have any money.”
“Of course not,” Seamus said with a smile “Slaves aren't allowed to have money.”
“I'm not a slave!” The girl crossed her arms over her chest and jutted her chin toward him imperiously. “If you don't leave me alone this instant, I shall scream!”
“And who's gonna hear you, then?” Seamus laughed. The girl tried to run, splashing through the stream, but Seamus moved quickly for a man of his size.
Seizing her by the arm, he dragged her kicking and screaming until he caught her around the waist. Tossing her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, Seamus carried her to dry land and dumped her in a patch of high grass.
“You're an escaped slave,” Seamus said. He took note of a few half healed whip marks on her calves and winced. “Had it rough, have you? Well, I'm not much for whipping my slaves unless they deserve it. If you're good...”
She shuddered as he ran a hand down her cheek. Laying on her back, limbs splayed wide, she was such an enticing sight he felt his heart hammering in his chest.
“....then I won't have to hurt you.”
Suddenly the girl moved to bite Seamus. However, he was an expert animal handler, and easily snatched his thumb away.
“The hard way it is, then.”
With a sudden slap to the cheek, he dazed her. Flipping her onto her belly as if she weighed nothing, he pulled her wrists behind her back and used a relic from his bounty hunter days to secure her; a pair of slightly rusty thumbscrews. The girl's hands were now bound behind her back, and without tools she wouldn't be able to get free...assuming she could manipulate them in such an ungainly fashion.
Once, however, Seamus had taken a bounty for one notorious Roach. She had a small body, like that of a child—an unkind sort would call her a midget—and taking her had been easy.
Keeping her had not. Three sets of manacles, two sets of thumbscrews, and a missing earlobe later he and Finnick had finally wrapped her in about a mile of hemp. They just kept tying knots until their hands were tired.
Needless to say, at that point they were keeping her naked. To make sure she hadn't any more lockpicks or concealed knives of course. Still, there were naughty bits poking through the rope that were just too tempting not to tweak and twist and nibble.
Somehow, the Roach had gotten even out of that ridiculous bondage. They had awakened to find her and all their money gone. A letter thanked them for their amorous attentions and lamented that she could not be their guest longer.
After that, Dragon hunting had seemed a much easier bet.
Drawn back to the present by the struggling maid beneath him, Seamus connected the thumbscrews to her collar with a bit of chain. Not satisfied, he manacled her ankles a short distance apart as well.
Bending the girl's legs back until her knees were in her face, Seamus ran his finger over her gleaming pussy lips. She shuddered, whimpering as he unbuckled his belt.
“Oh, don't worry love,” he said reassuringly “I'm not going to stick it in your arse, at least not yet.”
“Gods damn you, and ants take your eyes!” she hissed as he pressed his cock against her mound. Oily secretions oozed over the tip, making his mouth go dry.
“I don't fear your heathen gods,” he said mockingly.
“Don't you dare!” she snarled.
“Your mouth says no,” he said, sliding inward. She gasped, body straining against his own, and a slight smile touched her lips. “But your body says yes.”
“No!” She struggled fiercely, but he held her fast. The cruel thumbscrews pinched her ebon flesh and she gasped. “Don't fuck me! Take it out! Take it out NOW!”
“Okay,” Seamus said, pulling most of the way out. Just as the girl sighed with relief he thrust himself back into her with a vengeance. “It's out. Now it's back in. And now it's out again!”
The girl screamed, and her struggling reached new peaks.
“Oops, wrong hole,” he said, shoving himself deeper into her ass.
“You did that on purpose!” Then she grunted like a rutting hog when he jabbed himself even deeper.
“Perhaps.” Seamus pulled himself out slowly, then jammed two fingers up her arse just to watch her squirm. Moving around to her front, he flopped his cock onto her face. “Lick me clean.”
The girl's lips trembled, but she did as she was bade. In fact, she performed with the sincerity and skill of a woman born to please men. Long after his flesh was slickened clean by her saliva she kept up her attentions. When he came, she accepted the load and swallowed it without complaint.
“Good, good girl,” Seamus said. He undid the manacles on her feet, but decided to leave the thumbscrews on for now.
Dragging the girl to her feet by her hair, he shoved her toward the spot he'd left his wagon, and other traveling companion.
“Get moving,” he said harshly when she hesitated. “My brother will be done with his errand soon, and we have a schedule to keep!
Tiffany awoke with a start, snorting in air through her nose. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
She remembered the Limo, and the glasses of wine which made her muzzy, and tried to sit up. Her head only moved a few inches before it was held fast.
“What in the hell?” she tried to say, but nearly choked instead.
It was dark outside the limo, but the interior lights were on enough that she could see her predicament. There was something covering the lower half of her face, held on with wide leather straps. The device held what felt like a rubber ball deep inside her mouth, tickling the back of her throat with its length. Her nostrils flared as she struggled to remove it, only to find she couldn't move her hands.
She twisted her spine and craned her neck, while trying to bring her arms around in front of her. Tiffany squealed when she saw that her limbs were restrained in a leather sheath, which buckled to her shoulders. Her palms were held together behind her, effectively glued in place. Something akin to a dog collar was padlocked—PADLOCKED—around her neck, with a short chain tethering her to the limo's back seat. Tiff's legs were restrained as well, bound wide apart by a metal bar attached to leather cuffs around both ankles.
Tiff wasn't stupid. She'd seen Fifty Shades, she knew what bondage gear was well enough. What she couldn’t figure out was why she, a woman who hated—HATED—bondage was doing wearing it.
“Comfy, Ma'am?”
Tiff's head snapped around as the door opened. Barry squeezed inside and sat opposite her, leering as he ran his eyes up and down her figure. His gaze lingered on her panties, so exposed in her humiliating position. She struggled in vain to close them, to squirm away so he couldn't stare, but it was hopeless.
She was panicking now, and found that only breathing through her nose made her dizzy. Her hear hammered in her chest, and went up in tempo when Barry grabbed one of her pigtails and jerked her head forward.
“God, you're really something,” he said, pawing her breasts. Tiffany screamed behind the gag but even she could barely hear herself. “You could be in Playboy, without any airbrushing.”
She tried to kick him, but the ankle spreader was attached to the floor of the limo.
“Mmm, feisty,” he said with a grin. His fingers toyed with her nipple, which made her squeal all the more angrily. “I like that! After all, it's no fun to reel in the fish if it doesn't fight the hook...”
Tiff squealed as Barry slipped his hand between her thin panties and her pussy. His middle fingers probed her smoothly shaven labia and pinched them hard. Tears welled in her eyes as she fought helplessly to escape his grip.
“Does it hurt, bitch?” he asked, pulling her face close to his own. She was forced to smell his fetid breath and nearly vomited. “Get used to it. Your life from now on is going to be all about pain and getting fucked.”
Tiffany's hopes rose when Barry started messing with the ankle spreader, but they were dashed when all he did was unsnap the d ring from the floor of the limo. He seized her by the hips and flipped her over onto her belly as if she weighed nothing. Her face was crushed into the foul smelling upholstery as he lifted her skirt.
“Mmm, what a tight ass!” Barry said. His palm cracked across her bare buttocks, and Tiffany screamed. “Look at those cheeks dance! My god, I love my job!”
Tiffany hadn't been spanked in her life—as in EVER—and found the experience to be utterly humiliating. The pain was bad, but it was her dignity that suffered with each resounding blow on her ass. Soon her bottom was blazing with pain, and there was nothing she could do about it.
“You won't be needing these,” Barry said, ripping of her panties. They snagged on her waist and cut in almost enough to make her bleed. “What view this is.”
Tiff groaned as his finger traced around her rectum. Her flesh pimpled with goosebumps at his touch, on an intimate area she never allowed ANYONE to get near. Barry probed the orifice, working it inside slowly in spite of Tiffany's desperate struggles.
“So tight,” he said with a snicker. “Hey, are you an ass virgin?”
Tiffany screamed into her gag until her throat was raw. It was too much! This wasn't supposed to happen to her. She was upper class. Surely someone saw her get into the limo outside the hotel and was looking for her even now.
She kept praying that help would arrive, but his finger slid deeper.
“I asked you a question, you fucking slut,” Barry said in a gravelly voice. He kept his finger jammed up her ass, and grabbed a handful of hair with his free hand. Tiffany felt her head jerked up until she was forced to stare her rapist in the eye. She shuddered at the expression of utter lust on his face.
“Are you an ass virgin?” he asked again. “ANSWER ME!”
He shook her head roughly. Tiffany tried to say “no you asshole” but the gag only allowed her to gurgle and drool.
“Just nod your head yes, bitch,” he said. “We both know a stuck up cunt like you would never let a bloke near your pretty little asshole. You're an ass virgin, aren't you?”
Tiffany felt her hair released, only to have his hand glom onto her throat. Fearing death, she managed to nod slightly.
“I knew it,” Barry said, releasing her throat and allowing her to breathe again. “Well, not for much longer…”
He shoved her face back to the car seat and fumbled with his belt. She groaned when she felt his already dripping member rub against her ass cheeks.
“Feel how big it is, baby?” he cooed. “You're going to squirm when it goes in. All the bucking….makes for good fucking!”
Tiffany squealed around the rubber packing her mouth. Her hands remained glued behind her in the leather sheath. There was nothing she could do as the head of Barry's cock pressed against her anus.
“That was a good joke, bitch,” Barry said, yanking her head back by her pigtails. “Why don't you laugh?”
Barry slammed his thighs into her ass, driving his cock deep inside. Tiffany's feet squirmed about on the floor, digging her toes into the carpet, but she couldn't budge the much larger man from her back. Barry's cock slid in and out, gaining speed as his lust took hold.
“Uh...uh...uh...” he grunted, sickening her with the animistic quality of his voice. Tiffany tried to interpose her single glove between the two of them, but Barry grabbed her arms and shoved them to the side.
“Nope,” he said between thrusts “you aren't going to stop this. Nothing you can do but lay there and take it. Stuck up cunt. All that money, and what did it get you? Ass raped, that's where.”
Tiffany's mind still roiled at the damage being done to her ass, but her traitor body responded. She was close to an orgasm, and her own disgust with herself did nothing to abate the feeling.
“I think your pussy is getting wet,” Barry said, rubbing his hands all over her twat. “Why, yes it is. You must be an anal slut.”
Still inside her, Barry pulled back on her hair and twisted her neck until she was barely able to see him
“Say it,” he said. “Tell me you're an anal slut.”
Tiffany's eyes narrowed and she grunted in rage. She would never say such a thing, never!”
“SAY IT.” Barry reached around her torso with his free hand and mauled her breasts. He seized a nipple and stretched it so far Tiffany was certain it would rip right off. “SAY IT BITCH!”
Tiffany resisted, shaking her head in denial. He might take her body, but she would not give him the satisfaction of hearing her declare herself a slut, anal or otherwise.
“Fine,” Barry said, shoving her head back to the seat. “I don't have to break you. Not my job. I'm just the delivery boy.”
Barry returned to fucking her asshole. She hadn't seen his cock yet, but by the feel it was huge, at least eight inches long and half as wide. Or maybe it just felt huge, since her asshole was so tight. She'd only went all the way a few times before, and had never lowered herself to sucking cock or allowing assplay.
“Oh, god!” Barry said, his body tense as a bowstring against her. With a gasp he released his spunk inside her. Tiffany could feel the jizz deep within, and silently prayed that the man didn't have AIDS or something worse.