The Teratologist

by Edward Lee

  “Of what?”

  “Mr. Farringworth’s endeavors, to be released long in the future, when he dies. It will be the mark he leaves on the rampart of history. You needn’t worry. All your needs will be taken care of—” Michaels turned at the sound of a door clicking open. New tragedies were being wheeled in to the bed: a seven-foot-tall woman with acromegaly, a two-headed conjoined twin, a Thalidomide woman…

  “—Including your sexual needs.”

  Gagging and other strange noises came from the beds. Several men were led into the room, faces flushed, a rage in their eyes, erections gorged. They looked crazed with lust. They climbed onto the beds and began to…

  Aw, Christ, Bryant thought, stomach tensing. But then his brows shot up when Michaels came around behind. The British attendant was unbuckling the straitjacket.

  “You’re thinking that I’m either very confident about my abilities to defend myself,” Michaels began, “or I’m very stupid. I’m taking this straitjacket off and giving you full reign of the house, to move about as you please. And when you find your friend Westmore, please advise him of the current situation.”

  The jacket’s canvas straps came loose. Bryant—a very large man—shrugged it off, stood up, and turned, preparing to destroy Michaels in place.

  “Here’s why you won’t lay a hand on me,” and then the Englander handed Bryant a stack of photos. Bryant flipped through them, getting sicker with each snapshot. All my relatives, he realized. Candid outdoor shots—as if taken secretly from a car—showed him his parents, his Uncle Eddie and Aunt Amelia, his sister, his nephew and niece.

  “So you can see, Mr. Bryant. If you fail to cooperate with us in any way, or if I don’t walk out that door in a few minutes, all of your loved ones will be killed. We’ll kill them slowly and gruelingly. We’ll bring them here to do it. We’ll make you watch.”

  Bryant’s shoulders drooped. He’d never felt more defeated in his life.

  “And you’re overlooking the best part. Consider your new alliance with us as a privilege, an adventure, not imprisonment. You see, if you’re lucky, perhaps Farringworth will succeed.” Michaels’ grin seemed to hover in the harsh lights. “You may get to meet God.”

  Bryant sat back down. “You’re insane.”

  “No. I’m not. But Farringworth is.”

  (IX)

  Later.

  The horror had become an accretion. This was Bryant’s research, watching this. This is what I have to write about, he thought. He tried to focus, to be objective, however impossible that prospect seemed. “How can they? How can they have sex with these freaks?”

  Micheals smiled wide.

  “Drugs, Mr. Bryant. The most potent aphrodisiac ever produced. It’s called Metopronil and the pharmaceutical company that Mr. Farringworth now owns developed it. It increases activity in the limbic system of the brain, most specifically in the amygdala, the rage center or visceral brain, which also controls sexual impulses. It raises serotonin levels dramatically causing violent sexual impulses, actually altering normal brain activity giving the subject the brain patterns of a serial rapist. In fact, it was by studying the brain activity of rapists, signature sex killers, and other sexual predators that we were able to develop the drug. ”

  “That is truly fucking sick. So all those trucks we kept seeing coming back and forth. They were dropping off more of this stuff?”

  “Some of them were. Some of them carried more of our guests. Would you like to see the rest of our home?”

  Michaels began walking across the room towards a door on the far end of the hall. Bryant had no choice but to follow. He didn’t want to spend another second in that room.

  “This way to our guest suites. This is where we place our new arrivals until they learn to cooperate.”

  They walked down a hall lined with locked doors before entering a small room that looked like the security booth of a major casino. Video monitors dominated one entire wall with DVD recorders documenting every thrust and moan. Michaels sat down before the bank of monitors and took hold of the tiny red joystick that controlled each camera. The largest screen showed a diminutive Asian man with a shaved head sitting naked in the lotus position. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be deep in meditation but his face was anything but serene.

  Sweat bulleted down his face and his jaw muscles clenched and unclenched. From between his crossed legs an erection was clearly visible. He’d obviously been injected with the Metopronil, but he was fighting it. The effort seemed to be draining every ounce of his strength. Bryant could see him tremble and shiver as if stricken by fever. Across from him lay a woman whose limbs were twisted and bowed like curly fries. She too was nude and her eyes gleamed with want. They both sat silently in the little room, delirious with desire.

  “That’s Sato Masaaki. He’s a Zen Buddhist monk and founder of the Temple of Enlightenment, with followers all over the world. He has enough Metopronil surging through his veins to start an orgy in a Mormon Temple. He’ll break soon.”

  “How long has he been like that?”

  “Mr. Masaaki has been with us for a little over three weeks.”

  “Trapped in that room? With that freak? Doped up on aphrodisiacs? My God.”

  “Yes, poor Sharon is no doubt suffering more than he is. She doesn’t have his will-power and the hypo-osteopesis which has curled her bones has left her incapable of self-satisfaction.”

  “You mean you doped her up too?”

  “But, of course. If it was just his own suffering he had to deal with then that wouldn’t be as much fun. Now though, his obstinacy is causing someone else to suffer as well. She can’t speak, but he can still hear her whimper and groan. He can imagine how difficult it must be for her to cope with the drug because of his own painful struggle to resist it. It’s a hundred times worse than heroin withdrawal. Reproduction is one of your most primary biological drives. Every cell in your body has the desire to reproduce. By resisting the drug he is at battle with every fiber of his being just as she is. And, being a Buddhist, he has no choice but to empathize with her. In his mind she and he are one, just as he is one with all things. Her suffering is his own, magnifying his pain twofold.”

  “But why? Why are you doing all this?” Bryant asked, eyes wide in utter disbelief. In his wildest dreams he could never have imagined anything so sadistic.

  “Just as Mr. Farringworth has said. In order to enrage an omni-benevolent and very vain and jealous deity. To make him angry enough to reveal himself.”

  “But that’s insane! That’s never going to happen.”

  “Perhaps not, but if anything will do it, it would be breaking that monk. He’s the most pious human being we’ve yet to come across. All the rest of them had sins on their hearts, hidden lusts that the drug could bring to the surface. But not this one. He’s as pure as the driven snow in his heart and his soul. Getting him to fuck that crippled freak until she cries out for Jesus, or Buddha, or whoever, would be our greatest achievement yet. Ah, here’s Minister Farrahd.”

  “Minister Far—? You mean the Black Muslim leader!”

  “One in the same. It will be interesting to see how he enjoys our angels.”

  “Angels?”

  “Just look.”

  Michaels pointed to another screen. He swiveled the joystick until the camera landed on the two pale willowy twins. They were so tall that their heads nearly scraped the ceiling. Their ghostly white skin glowed with an unearthly luminescence beneath the bright fluorescent overhead lights. Waist-length platinum hair swirled around the two gigantic twins as if animated as they approached the bald black man whose cock was already urgently erect and glistening with pre-cum. His eyes were wild and he was sweating and twitching with the effects of the Metopronil.

  Bryant couldn’t take his eyes off the twins, the angels. With an audible gasp, he took notice of their confusion of oversized primary and secondary sex organs. He’d never seen more beautiful breasts and their cocks were a porn director’s dr
eam, so long and heavy that even fully erect they were too weighty to stand upright but rather leaned to the left or right swaying like divining rods. Beneath their penises, where testicles should have been, swollen pink labia blossomed like roses around yawning vaginal pits, wide enough to fit two fists and probably the forearms as well up to the elbows.

  “Who the hell have they been fucking?” Bryant wondered, then he answered his own question when the two elegant creatures turned and kissed each other, their tongues lashing out like adders, striking and constricting.

  Their eyes gleamed with an animalistic lust that was truly frightening on creatures so huge. The two hermaphrodites’ massive penises would easily disembowel the helpless Minister. He could see why they called them the angels. They could have been descendants of the Nephilim, the gigantic hybrids of humans and angels that were said to have once walked the earth before the great flood. Bryant found himself both sickened and intrigued.

  “Do you dope up all the freaks too?” Bryant asked, staring in awe at the angel’s tremendous sex organs.

  “Only sometimes, when it’s necessary. Most often it isn’t. They’re usually quite delighted with all the attention they receive from our guests. Not these two though. They aren’t very receptive to others.”

  The minister knelt naked on the floor weeping as he stared up at the two pale devils standing above him. He turned to the east and prayed for Allah to rescue him from temptation. Still, his erection bulged shamelessly as he took in the two beautiful titans.

  “The Minister believes all white men are the devil, mutants created by a mad scientist named Dr. Yacub some five thousand years ago in order to oppress the black race. He preaches separatism and vengeance, hates all things Caucasian. He also believes homosexuality to be a sin. How wonderful will it be when the Metopronil cracks his resolve and he submits himself to sodomy at the hands of two albino hermaphrodites? He doesn’t even realize he’s been drugged. We put it in his food and in his water. He’ll think the weakness lies within himself. In all likelihood he’ll kill himself once we tell him that his sins have been recorded and aired all over the country. That is, if the twins don’t kill him first.” Michaels grinned sadistically as the minister rose from his knees, sporting the largest erection of his life, and advanced on the two gigantic hermaphrodites who stood regarding him with curious detachment.

  Bryant felt some part of himself wilt when the proud minister dropped to his knees and began licking and sucking on one impossibly long albescent cock. Slurping on it like some half-starved infant on its mother’s tit. Bryant had no real love for the Black Islamic tradition in America. He had never condoned its racist politics and practices. He was more than familiar with the hate that hate made. He too had often been the victim of prejudice, but he believed that the answer was not to meet prejudice with more prejudice. That only perpetuated the cycle. He believed that you used love to combat hatred. Still, he could not deny the unifying effect the Minister had on the black community. He had a way of galvanizing people with his fiery speeches, making them listen and want to change themselves for the better. Some part of him had always admired the man’s efforts. He’d given millions of black men something to believe in and, love him or hate him, he had a way of earning your respect. But no one would respect him now. After this tape hit the streets, The Brotherhood of Islam would be dead.

  “Does that drug always work? I mean does it have the same effect on everyone?”

  “Well, nothing is 100% effective, although on males it seems to be. Women seem to be better able to resist it. I guess if Farringworth could develop an aphrodisiac that was absolutely effective on women he wouldn’t need to find God. He’d be God. It doesn’t seem to work on the twins most of the time either. It could be all the female hormones. And when it does work, it wears off quickly. We got lucky today. Either that or they really like that minister.”

  One of the twins was forcing his fifteen-inch phallus into the minister’s rectum while the other fed his cock down Farrahd’s throat. He looked like a pig on a spit. Their thrusts became more forceful, violently raping the Minister’s esophagus and asshole. Soon Farrahd was bleeding from both ends. One of the twins withdrew his cock from Farrahd throat as the other thrust the last seven inches of his erection deep into the minister’s bowels, causing an explosion of gore to erupt from the man’s mouth and splatter onto the floor. Once he’d finished heaving up the larger portion of his internal organs, the other twin once more slid his rigid flesh down the man’s esophagus, fucking his dying corpse until they roared with orgasm and semen began streaming from the minister’s mouth and nose along with the blood. Bryant turned his head. He felt ill.

  “I don’t know if the drug really works on them at all or if they just get in sadistic moods and decide it might be fun to fuck someone to death.”

  Bryant’s stomach lurched.

  “What happens to the women who are immune?”

  “That’s the beautiful thing about women, they don’t really need to consent to sex for it to happen.”

  Micheals pointed to the screen above them and turned his joystick so that the camera zoomed in. The horror just never seemed to stop.

  “The skinny man with olive skin is Yogi Ramakenada. The drug is having a wonderful effect on him. The emaciated scarecrow he’s about to ravage wasn’t so lucky. She’s pretty much immune to the stuff. Her name is Leticia Sum— uh, no need for you to know her last name. She has Malign Hypermetabolism which means that her body does not store fat and anything she consumes runs through her in minutes. Leticia has to eat every 30 minutes or she’ll die. She consumes 125% of her body weight everyday. Her sex drive is non-existent. The only drive she has is hunger. Ever watch preying mantises mate?”

  Michaels was grinning again.

  Behind him, on the screen, a Hindu man in an orange robe was biting through his bottom lip and frothing at the mouth as he fought to subdue the riot of want rampaging through his nervous system. An impossibly gaunt woman danced before him, bending over and grabbing her ankles in an effort to entice him into mounting her shriveled buttocks, which was little more than a coccyx with pale mottled skin draped over it.

  “It looks to me like the drug is working. Look at how she’s flirting with him.”

  “She’s luring prey.” Micheals replied. “Just watch. See, the Metopronil has already broken his will. The Yogi is dying for a piece of her emaciated arse. He’s a Hindu master who can withstand depths of pain you could scarcely imagine without batting an eye. He can hold his breath underwater for nearly an hour and squeeze his narrow frame into a box no bigger than a milk crate. But in seconds he’ll forget all about Dharma and life and truth and he’ll fuck that skeletal witch until she snaps like a twig or until she gets hungry again and starts eating him alive. See, like most who suffer from her particular disability, Leticia’s a cannibal.”

  The Yogi launched across the room almost tackling the woman as he tore his robes aside and his engorged penis bounced free. He mounted her in the position customary to mammals and began hammering into her so hard you could hear pelvic bone striking pelvic bone, echoing like swordplay in the tiny room.

  “Yes. Yessssss.” Leticia moaned and her eyes were glassy with hunger. She pulled the yogi down onto the bed with her and spun around so that they were now in the missionary position without breaking contact for a second. The yogi was thrusting as if trying to enter her womb, testicles and all. Leticia reached out and encircled his neck with her cadaverous arms, pulling him closer. As he buried his head into her shoulder, bearing down so that he could thrust still harder, Leticia opened her jaws revealing a charnel pit of bloodstained teeth that had been filed to sharp points. Her mouth closed on his throat and she began ripping and tearing out huge chunks, immediately swallowing them. The Yogi didn’t miss a single thrust. Even as he screamed he continued to pound in and out of the withered starveling while she ripped more meat out of his neck. Bryant shook his head in wonder as she reached his cervical vertebrae and be
gan trying to chew through that as well.

  Like the monkey with his hand in the cookie jar, the yogi refused to withdraw from her loins even to save his own life. Despite the unimaginable pain, they both appeared to be in ecstasy.

  “I need to find my photographer. Would you take me back to my room?”

  “Of course. You will be provided with copies of all of these tapes and you will bear witness to all the events up to and including the day Mr. Farrington achieves his end.”

  “Yeah…uh…sure. Look, this is a lot of shit to digest. Let me talk to Westmore and we’ll get back to you about all of this.”

  “That’s fine. You can talk it over amongst yourselves, but as I said. You really have no choice in the matter. You are either one of us…” The smile drained from Michaels face. Only then did Bryant notice how cruel the man’s face truly was. Hard angular features with dark eyes sunk deep into his head like Lurch from the old Adam’s Family T.V. show. Michaels gestured toward the screen where Minister Farrahd’s corpse was still impaled on the monstrous cocks of the twin hermaphrodites then to the one where the hyperphagic cannibal was busily chewing off the head of Yogi Ramakenada. She had already eaten away most of his face yet his ass continued to rise up and down, thrusting deep into her with psychotic enthusiasm. The smile slithered back onto Michael’s face. “…Or you are one of them.”

  (X)

  Bryant’s chocolate brown complexion had turned completely gray. He stumbled into the room swaying unsteadily as if he were about to feint dead away. His brow rose. Did he hear something—a tick?—from the closet. He swung the door open, and Westmore about screamed.

  “Finally found you. They don’t even care that you’re trying to hide. You can’t get out. No one can.”