He sits in his living room, lips twisted into an exaggerated smile.
As soon as his wife gets home from the supermarket, birthday bliss shall begin.
Carlos can barely contain his glee. He acquired the curious item from a kindly Chinese immigrant who owns a dimly-lit flea market on the outskirts of town.
The price for the box may have been astronomical, but the man swore it was worth every penny.
“It’s for my wife’s birthday,” Carlos said to the impossibly wrinkled Chinese shopkeeper. “She’s a hard one to shop for, let me tell you.”
The old man chuckled.
“I have the perfect item for you,” he said. “Please, come this way.”
Carlos, his interest piqued, followed the helpful Chinese gentleman into a dank basement located directly beneath the flea market’s restrooms. Tucked between leaky sewage piping and an elaborate spider web, sat a colorful gift box illuminated dramatically by a naked bulb dangling from the ceiling.
“Oh, my,” the eager customer said, his eyes wide with wonder. “I think this is what I’ve been looking for.”
“Do you know what is inside the box?” the shopkeeper inquired. He gently fiddled with the end of his perfectly-trimmed Chinese mustache.
“I have no idea,” Carlos admitted, “but it must be absolutely wonderful.”
“It is precisely what she is looking for,” the curious Chinese salesman explained. “Whatever she wants, the gift box will provide. Guaranteed.”
“I must have it,” Carlos said. “Of course,” the shopkeeper chuckled. “It was fate that brought you to my shop today, after all.”
Carlos, infatuated with his colorful, perfectly square gift box, didn’t seem to mind the questionably large amount of money that was charged to his credit card. When given the receipt, the enraptured fellow let the slip of paper drift to the floor.
The package, wrapped in a beautiful red bow as fluffy as a marshmallow orgasm, was all his mind could process.
“My wife is going to fall in love with me all over again,” he said to the kindly Chinese gentleman with the perfectly-trimmed mustache. “I just know it.”
“Everyone should get what they want on their birthday,” the shopkeeper explained, his eyes moist from the sting of foggy childhood memories. “Even those who do not know what they already have.”
Starry-eyed and weak with joy, Carlos returned to the glowing streets of suburbia. As he pulled into the driveway of his lovely pre-built home, the thoughtful husband was stopped by his elderly neighbor.
The man was all smiles.
“Say, that’s a mighty fine gift box you have there,” he said as he wagged his finger. “Somebody must have a birthday coming up. Am I right?”
Carlos, savoring the moment, closed his eyes and nodded his head.
“My lovely wife is turning 40,” he explained. “I bought her this gift box. I’m pretty sure she’s going to love it.”
“What’s inside?” the old man asked eagerly. “It looks so nice, so lovely. You must tell me what’s inside!”
“It is precisely what she is looking for,” Carlos said knowingly.
He felt educated, enlightened.
“I bet it is wonderful,” his neighbor said, his voice filled with longing and regret.
Once inside his home, Carlos quickly tidied up before his wife arrived home. He put a load of clothes in the washer; emptied the litter box; killed a centipede he found in his toothbrush; lit a candle to mask his odorous flatulation.
The house never looked better. Barbara will be thrilled, just thrilled to death. Now, sitting in his favorite chair in the living room, his hand grasping the Far-Fetched Collapsible Gift Box, Carlos counts the seconds until she arrives home.
By three o’clock, she said.
When Barbara says she’s to arrive at a specific time, the woman is notoriously right on schedule.
The sound of his wife’s car pulling into the driveway makes Carlos’ butthole pucker with excitement. His hands are swampy and cold, his forehead pulsating gently beneath a thin layer of perspiration.
The anxiety and excitement will surely kill him if she lingers outside the front door any longer.
When the key hits the lock, Carlos immediately gets hard. His erection is painful, his mind locked in a self-fellating fantasy perpetuated by the reaction his spectacular birthday present is sure to generate.
Barbara enters the living room, a sack of groceries in her arms. When she catches sight of her husband sitting in the recliner, she lets out a yelp.
“Hell’s bells!” she exclaims. “You gave me the farts, sitting there like that. What on earth is wrong with you? Jesus Christ, Carlos.”
Her frustration soon gives way to genuine amusement.
“What is wrong with you? Are you okay?”
“Happy birthday!” he exclaims, leaping from the chair and thrusting the gift box in her face. His ridiculous gesture causes the sack of groceries to hit the floor.
“What has gotten into you?” she asks. “And would you get that thing out of my face, please?”
“It’s precisely what you’ve been looking for,” Carlos says in a manner that suggests he’s spent too much time watching children’s programming in the dark by himself. “I drove all the way to the outskirts of town to get this for you!”
“Jesus Christ,” Barbara blasphemes for the umpteenth time. “If I open the damn thing now, will you help me carry in the rest of the groceries?”
“Anything,” he says.
When his wife takes the gift box from his hands, he nearly wets himself with delight. The urge to urinate makes him grimace. “Anything you want.”
Barbara sits down on the loveseat. With a child-like grin on her face, she shakes the box gently. Whatever’s inside doesn’t make a sound.
“Are you sure you put something in here?” she asks. “Because I don’t hear anything and the box is light as a feather. You’re not fucking with me, are you?”
“No, no,” Carlos assures his spouse. He shakes his head for additional effect. “I wouldn’t do that. The guy at the flea market said it’s exactly what you want. He said you would love it. Guaranteed it, even.”
“Jesus,” she chuckles. “Did you get his name? Maybe I should pay him a little visit. Sounds like that guy understands me a hell of a lot better than you do.”
The barb stings, but Carlos doesn’t flinch.
He just wants her to be happy.
He just wants to be loved.
“Go on,” the sweaty, shaky little man insists. “Open your birthday present.”
“All right, already!” Barbara laughs. “Get off my back, my don’t you?”
After untying the ribbon, Barbara carefully removes the lid. A blast of smoke hits his wife directly in the face, causing her to wince and turn away.
Carlos, confused by the unexpected expulsion, is immediately disappointed with his purchase.
“Thanks a lot, Carlos,” Barbara coughs, tossing the gift box onto the floor. “I thought you said you weren’t fucking with me? Not cool, my friend.”
“Wait,” Carlos said, rubbing his hands together with the intensity of nine million mad scientists. “Look inside. You didn’t even look inside the box.”
“I wouldn’t see anything for the smoke,” Barbara says. “You mean there’s something in there?”
Carlos, fighting back tears, says, “It’s precisely what you’ve been looking for.”
Barbara, deeply concerned for the mental well-being of her husband, decides to humor the poor guy by looking directly into the gift box. Although she doesn’t see anything at first, something deep within the package begins to take shape.
“Wait,” she says. “I think I see something.”
Through the thick cloud of smoke shoots a rubbery tentacle, complete a sharp, oily, weirdly phallic dagger organically protruding from the end. It spears directly through his wife’s mouth, exiting messily through the back of her skull.
The walls are instantly covered in gore.
Carlos, clearly horrified, crawls onto his recliner and begins chewing the skin off the tops of his fingers. The tentacle, having made it through Barbara’s cranium in one piece, doubles back and penetrates her anus.
As her small intestine explodes from her stomach and onto their Florida vacation photos, another tentacle bursts from the mystical Chinese gift box.
“Oh, God!” Carlos exclaims to the heavens. “Why on earth are you doing this to me again?”
The second tentacle, as foul and scaly and malicious as the first, takes a trip through Barbara’s firm body by entering her vagina and exiting via a large, wet opening in the top of her skull.
Brain matter showers the happy couple.
As the tentacles wiggle mindlessly about the room, Carlos’ wife performs a sickly dance for her terrified and traumatized husband. All the while, Barbara can’t stop moaning in pure, unadulterated delight.
Something frothy and white oozes from her Godly gash.
Carlos, whimpering and weeping, takes a moment from his complete mental breakdown to notice that the tentacles have positioned his wife directly in front of his face.
Although her mouth is obstructed by unspeakable horror, he almost swears he can hear her say, “Thank you.”
With bleeding eyes, Barbara attempts a smile.
The box sucks Carlos Diamond’s wife into the inky black depths of another world. Her moans still echo in the living room to this day. The distraught husband, now on his knees in front of the box, weeps until his lungs ache.
He doesn’t seem to notice the lid has been replaced and the bow retied.
He is only concerned with one thing and one thing only.
“I’m so glad she liked her present,” he cries.