'Yes, I noticed he's one of the few people you've said “no” to when he asked you to be naughty with him.'
'Well, my dear, something you'll learn once you've found this true love of yours and started fucking in your own right, just like you said you wanted to, is that there are some things no woman should be subjected to more than once. And Aleister did all of them.'
'But you do all kinds of filthy things.'
'Believe me, there are some things even worse than being anally penetrated with a loofah, which, up until that happy night when I was wrenched from my sleep to find Uncle Aleister on top of me with a box of balloons, a fire extinguisher and a pound of Roquefort in his hands, which showed how strange he was, for who in their right mind would want to hold cheese when they could get a handful of me? Or two handfuls of me, for that matter. Anyway, the loofah incident had, until the night Uncle Aleister tried to rape me, been the top of my list of experiences I did not wish to repeat. But not afterwards. Oh no. You, of course, were knocked out by the stench, which is why, lucky you, you have no memory of what a madman can do with some cheese and lots of pressurised foam. I've never really like cheese since then, something about the whole thing rather put me off. Which is probably why I don't screw French people. And anyway, have you ever seen a cheese-mite? I have, and they’re not pretty. I mean they're like tiny . . . Hello, it looks like there's a receiving party. In the form of a really rather dishy young woman, may I say. I feel, Nina, that I may want to become better acquainted with her, if you catch my drift.'
'Oh, if you must. But can you at least be quick?'
'Well, I'll give it a go. Ahem, I believe this calls for the subtle approach.' And so, sticking her chest out even more, which was quite a feat, given how much it stuck out already, she sashayed over to the attractive young woman and said, 'Hiya, toots. I'm Unity. I assume you're here to meet me?' The young woman smiled a little and said,
'Why yes, and I'm happy to make your acquaintance.' Unity said,
'I didn't know the Shoggoths had taken to employing humans. How very enlightened of them. After all, not everyone takes to talking to a formless blob of protoplasm. Which, of course means you must have some special talents,' with a very significant emphasis on the word 'special'. The young woman coloured slightly and said,
'Oh, I don't know, I'm very ordinary.' Unity replied,
'I'm sure you have hidden depths. And I want to plumb them,' which she took as sufficient statement of intent, and so switched to action by grabbing hold of the woman and putting her tongue down her throat as far as it would go, while caressing all of the woman's curvy bits. The woman gave an initial 'Mmph!' of surprise, but almost immediately slumped into acquiescence, and seemed to be quite enjoying herself, which was not surprising, as the people who didn't enjoy making out with Unity could be counted on the fingers of no hands. But anyway, things seemed to be going swimmingly, and Nina was just settling down for a good hard sulk when she noticed that the woman was changing shape. Well, that was no surprise, as people who did nasty things, like fornicating, were in Nina's opinion, capable of anything. But then the woman grew and grew until all that was left of her was an outline pressed against Unity's body, behind which was a vast protoplasmic mass which seemed, in as far as Nina could tell, to be intent on engulfing Unity alive. At which point she decided that, in her considered opinion, it was time to be scared. So she screamed.
Unity, who had been beginning to get an inkling that something a bit out of the ordinary was going on, as her lovers, though putty in her hands, did not often take the metaphor so literally , wrenched herself away from the woman and, seeing what she had become, said,
'Oh fuck, I've been had,' and jumped back a couple of feet. Then, to Nina's horrified surprise, for she had sort of hoped that they would hot-foot it back to the plane and the, comparatively speaking, wholesome company of Bubbles, it seemed that Unity was settling down for a nice chat. There was nothing for it; Nina started to pray:
'Oh Lord, in this hour of extremity forgive the many acts of moral turpitude committed by this woman and remember that I have always been your good and loyal servant and never admitted, not even to myself most of the time, that I actually enjoy it a little bit when she does dirty, dirty things. But I am mostly pure and…’ Unity shot a filthy look at where her voice seemed to be coming from, then, turning her attention back to the Shoggoth looming over her extended a hand and started to wag it firmly, while saying,
'Right you. Thought you'd be clever didn't you?' The Shoggoth didn't speak, but it loomed in an affirmative kind of way. 'Well that's all very well when you're dealing with the proles, but if there were a party, and, Azathoth, do I wish I was at one, then I'd be in the innermost innerest bit of it. Do you know who I am?' The Shoggoth gave it to be understood, by the way its protoplasm bulged, that it didn't, and it didn't really care either. 'Well that's where you're wrong, because it does matter. I mean, what do you think would happen to you if you engulfed Great Cthulhu's daughter?' The Shoggoth indicated that if that happened then it would be a bad day for Shoggoth-kind, especially that particular Shoggoth, but it didn't really think this was a very fruitful topic, for Great Cthulhu didn't have a daughter, so could they please get back to the engulfing? Unity cocked her hip, stuck out her chest even further, said, 'Oh yeah?' and then waited for the penny to drop. When it did the effect was dramatic. The Shoggoth began to collapse in on itself, gradually shrinking from its Godzilla-like proportions to the size of a small dog, all the while undulating in patterns that indicated something along the lines of,
'Oh fuck, what have I done? They're going to engulf me.' To which Unity replied,
'No: I am.' Which she did, it now being about the size of a cream-cake, saying, almost immediately afterwards, 'Bloody hell. Remind me never to eat Shoggoth again. That was disgusting. Nina? Nina!' Nina was still praying:
'. . . And when I said earlier that I actually found the whole fornicating thing just a little bit enticing and had occasionally wished I could do it myself, I didn't really mean it, I was just getting a bit carried away what with the fear that filled me, which I know is a sin, because you are my strength and shield, and as long as I stay a virgin, which I admit is difficult when I’m close to a woman who sees virginity as a disease, you will let no harm come to me, so please, please, Lord just let me get through this alive and I'll never fantasise about being with my one true love, and having a body, which he slowly undresses before gently, oh so gently, taking me to the heights of ecstasy, and . . .' At which point she noticed that there was no more Shoggoth and also that Unity was wearing a quizzical expression.
'So,' she said, 'Young Nina's a closet sex-fiend after all, is she. Well, I won't complain. It makes you much more sympathetic. I just hope that now your secret's out you'll stop complaining when I take my pleasure and, well, join in. Is that clear? I said, is that clear?'
'Y . . Y . . Yes, Unity.'
'Good. Right then. If they've done that once they can do it again. Remember that anything, I repeat, anything that looks alive is almost certainly a Shoggoth in disguise waiting to eat me.'
'B . . B . . B . .'
'Oh hell, if you're going to go on like that I'll decide I don't like you again. Spit it out woman.'
'But she looked so . . . so . . .'
'The word you're looking for, I believe, is sexy. Come on, say it. You'll have to get used to it now you've actually admitted to being a woman and not an icicle.'
'Sexy, then, if you insist. Oh, dear God in heaven, what have I done?'
'Grown up. And you've just learned a valuable lesson. Just because something speaks to the innermost depths of your being, that doesn't always mean it's good for you. Like ice-cream.'
'What? I'm having a spiritual crisis and you're talking about ice-cream?'
'You can learn a lot from ice-cream. It looks good. It goes down good. And then a few hours later I get terrible wind. So if you're wandering along, down a long, menacing tunnel say, and you happen to see, oh,
I don't know,' she looked around for inspiration and her eye alighted on a cat. 'That cat over there . . .'
'A cat, where?' said Nina. Then she spotted it and all hell broke loose. 'Oh the darling iddle widdy oopsy boopsy uddle snumpkins. Oh go over, Unity, do. It's so adorable I want to love it from up close.' Unity obliged and then, while Nina ogled the cat, which in characteristic feline fashion stropped its whiskers at her, paying no apparent attention to the stream of adulation pouring over it, she took on a lecturing stance and said,
'Now you, being the weak-minded thing you are, might well think that such a cute beast couldn't possibly be harmful. Well, that's where you'd be wrong. What you are failing to consider, my dear, is the inherent improbability of finding a cat in a deep, dark hole frequented by Shoggoth in the middle of Antarctica. No, this is a classic example of a trap or lure intended to attract the sort of person, of whom you are clearly and regrettably one, who finds cats irresistible, and then, just as they fall completely under its spell, to transform itself into a . . . oh fuck, Nina, what have you got us into now?'
For yes, before Nina's besotted gaze the cat was doing the whole swelling and transforming thing. And as the words 'Oosa woosa uggie puggie tuddy pat den?' turned into a scream – if anything marginally increasing the semantic content – it became clear that they were up against another Shoggoth. An even bigger one, from the look of it. And due to Unity having had to get close to the cat for Nina to properly worship it, they now found themselves more or less surrounded by a wall of undulating protoplasm. And Unity had had enough. She was through with playing Miss Only-Moderately-Horrifying. She put her head back, sucked in air, and then cried, in a voice so loud that the dead took it for the last trump and started to rise, only to be terribly embarrassed when they realised that what it was saying was:
'Daddy!'
For a moment nothing happened, and then, just as Unity had reconciled herself to having to fight her way out with nothing more to aid her than a hand-bag, and Nina was too frightened even to pray, there was a sudden flash of light and a sound of trumpets – his signature tune from the good old days when he had been R'lyeh's favourite chat-show host – and Great Cthulhu appeared. He appeared ill-tempered, having been dragged away from some very complicated sums at no notice, the ill-temper not being because he liked very complicated sums, in fact he loathed them each and every one, but because, having had no notice, he hadn't been able to note down where he'd got to, so now he was going to have to do them all again. So he said,
'My dear, I do wish you wouldn't call me at work. If I've told you ten million times, I've told you – oh good grief, what the hell have you got yourself into now?'
'What do you think, Daddy?' shouted Unity with some asperity. 'A Shoggoth's trying to eat me. That's what.' Well, Cthulhu might find his daughter a trial, but if anyone was going to eat her it would be him. No Shoggoth was going to have what was his by right. So, channeling all of his very complicated sum-related wrath into an attack on the Shoggoth, he kicked it as hard as he could, and having, as far as he could tell, attracted its attention, said,
'And what the fuck do you think you're doing?' The Shoggoth indicated, by virtue of some very speaking silence, that it really didn't think that was Cthulhu's business, and could it please get back to engulfing this humanoid? Cthulhu's manner became somewhat austere, and he said,
'Look, you do know who you're talking to, don't you?' More expressive silence, plus some undulations indicative of impatience. Cthulhu became positively snappish and replied, 'No, this is not a mask. I really am Great Cthulhu, the Great Old One, Lord of R'lyeh. So watch it, or . . . what do you mean “And I'm Azathoth?” Why you cheeky bugger. Just for that – if I were, to quote your charming characterisation, three teenagers in their father's raincoat, could I do this?' He extended a hand upwards and suddenly, where there had been solid rock, there was a yawning void, the tunnel having become a valley. 'Oh, now you're all friendly, aren't you, never doubted me at all, did you? Right, so what you can do for me, if you don't mind is bloody well leave my daughter alone. For you Elder Races, she is very definitely a hands-off proposition. If there is to be any laying on of hands, or pseudopods, or extrusions, then she does it first, okay? Okay. Good.' The Shoggoth retreated into a compact lump of quivering jelly, which, in as far as anyone can diagnose the emotional state of several tonnes of undifferentiated goop, was probably indicative of how it felt. Cthulhu turned to his daughter and said, 'Now my dear, I won't say I didn't warn you, because if I did you wouldn't listen, just like you didn't listen all those times I warned you. So, do I want to know why you're here, or will it just upset me?'
Unity happily said,
'Oh, I'm still looking for an orgasm.'
'Oh nether hells, I thought you'd have given up on that by now.'
'Oh no, it's going really well. I've discovered that it's all something to do with unity.'
'But you're Unity. At least I thought that was what you were called...'
'Daddy?'
'Yes, my dear?'
'Shut up, do be a dear. Now I wasn't talking about me. I was talking about Unity. The unity. You see,' she said as undulations set in, undulations that would have done a Shoggoth proud, 'That proves it. I have to regain contact with the unity and then I can have an orgasm, and please, Daddy, will you get this Shoggoth to tell me if he and his noxious friends can spare a few seconds from trying to eat me to help me on my quest?' Cthulhu was dubious. He had gone all serious on hearing her speak of the unity and seeing the startling confirmation of her words writ large upon her bosom. But he just said,
'Well, why not be ambitious? And if it means I can go back to the old place, why not? Hey! You!' He kicked the Shoggoth, which cringed away from him. 'I want you to talk to my daughter. And none of that wobbling stuff you do. I mean actual words.' There was a brief pause, while the Shoggoth obviously did whatever you do instead of thinking when you don't have a central nervous system, and then it formed itself into a young man. Unity looked at him appraisingly and said, under her breath,
'Well, I suppose he'd do if I were desperate. And I am feeling a bit unloved, but then again, I've got Bubbles waiting for me, so no.' Cthulhu sighed at this evidence that some things would never change, and said,
'Okay Shoggoth, or whatever you call yourself, what do you know about the unity?' The young man looked troubled, opened his mouth vaguely a few times, said,
'Nothing,' and returned to silence. Then Unity said, the pitch of her voice rising as her speech progressed,
'You mean that I've been through all this, coming back to this benighted planet, flying out to Antarctica again, being forced against my will to make mad passionate love to someone who makes Nina look bright, nearly engulfed not once but twice and been sorely disappointed in the process, and for what? So you could bloody fucking well say that you know nothing? Is that it? Nothing? The wisdom of the Shoggoths comes down to that: nothing? What the hell do you lot do all day?' The young man again spoke haltingly.
'We eat. We merge. Sometimes we tell jokes.'
'Jokes?'
'Lightbulb jokes. How many Shoggoths does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One, because all the Shoggoths are one. But anyway, we prefer the dark.'
'Ho bloody ho. I bet that went down big on open mike night. But wait, if you're all one, perhaps you are the unity?'
'No. All we know of the unity is – the Elder Things made us in imitation of it – that is why we are one but many, everything but nothing.'
'The negation of negation,' she said quietly, then in more usual tones, 'Oh fuck, not again.' Which was not surprising, for as Cthulhu said,
'Excuse me, my dear, but I can't help but notice that there are what appear to be angelic voices singing.'
'I know.'
'Twinkle, twinkle little star.'
'Don’t remind me. According to the Elder Things it's the protrusion of the unity into this dimension or something weird like that. Apparently it's going to happen every time I get clos
e to grasping the concept of the unity.'
'Oh,' said Cthulhu, because there really isn't much else you can say when you discover that in addition to having a truth-telling bosom, your daughter has picked up a ghostly version of the Vienna Boys' Choir. Then, shaking it all off, he said, 'So, do you need me any more?'
'No, not really,' said Unity. 'I'll just fuck this guy, then we'll be on our way.'
'Now, daughter, said Cthulhu, I would have hoped that you would have learned from this that you coupling with everyone you meet isn’t necessarily a good idea, because there’s always a chance they might be a Shoggoth in disguise.'
'I don't have sex with everyone I meet,' she said defensively, 'Only nearly everyone.'
'Whatever. I think you need to rethink your whole approach to this sex stuff. Try thinking before you do it, not after.'
'Oh all right, if you insist. Anyway, it was frankly shit compared to Bubbles.'
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