Ken pops the scorpion in the battle-drome. Next the giant centipede. Then he leans over it, leering and thirsting for blood, like a dirty old man with his face pressed against the floor of a shopping mall trying to catch a glimpse of a teenage school girl's panties as they ride the escalator. Am I confusing my metaphors? Hungry old men? Horny scorpions? Insect Panties? No. They all fit, it all fits. It's a male thing, you see. Sex and blood, violence and hunger, there all linked to us. It all spills from the same cup. Sprouts from the same seed. Spurts from the same...well. Attraction and appetite, they all seep from the same place.

And although Ken is too young to feel sexual desire, he is fully old enough to understand lust. And this is what he experiences as he watches with open mouthed glee as the scorpion and centipede close the distance between them. If he was old enough to generate an erection he would have done so. But he is only a boy, and the white nippled clutch on the grassy knoll will have to do. The drool that leaks from his open maw will have to do. The sweat that beads on his furrowed brow will have to do. "DIEEEEEEEE!" screams his mind, but his voice is silent lest his mother hear and ask him if his homework is finished yet.

The scorpion slams it's stinger into the arena that has seen so many stingers before. The centipede narrowly avoids certain death and circles around. And Ken's lip is twitching, and his eyes are bulging wide, and he wants it to be long fight, a gruesome fight. He wants them both to suffer, suffer for him, for his pleasure. And Ken knows the power of life over death. Ken knows the vice of the romans... Hell, the vice of hu-MAN-ity. The cruelty is burning through him as the centipede scuttles atop his prey wrapping himself around the scorpion. The scorpion, veteran of the battle-drome, Ken's champion, has never been defeated and Ken longs for his death, for his humiliation!

"Oh, he has you, old friend, your day has finally come!" the word's spit like venom from his young mouth. "Ohhh, yesssssss," he drools over the plastic cage he had long ago dubbed the battle-drome. "You gonna die, champion, no one lives forever!" Ken's spittle splashes against the plastic sides of the drome. Two bugs enter one bug leave. The centipede has curled around the scorpion it's mandibles penetrating it's hard shell. "Oh, shhh, my champion, shhh, it'll all be over soon, just let the claws PE-NE-TRATE your flesh. Merely yield to the centipedes mastery and this will all be over." Ken is twitching, sweating, spitting, dripping hate he rolls in the pain of his subject's suffering.

And the he hears his mother's voice.

"Ken Charleston Grieves, you get in here this instant! Your room is a mess and you still haven't started your homework."

Ken wipes his brow, "Just a minute, Mom!" This is going on too long. The champion won't die. "Why won't you just DIE, champion?" Ken decides it is time to make things interesting. He takes out his lighter and fishes around in the bushes for the remains of his plastic bucket. He starts the flames under the bucket and held it high above the arena. The plastic melts, and oozes and drips, and drips...and drips...and drips.

"My God, where have you been, Kenneth? You look like you've been through the wars. Now hurry up and clean your room."

Ken's hair is stuck to his forehead with sweat, his eyes are blood shot, his knuckles sore from clenching, but he feels relaxed. The battle had come to a head. His champion was dead, and a new champion awaits his pleasure. The battle was long and bloody and good, and now Ken is tired. He has well and truly blown his load. And tomorrow, tomorrow is another day. Another day with his face pressed against the mall floor. Trying. Just trying. Trying for glimpse.