The Syntax of Seduction

by Carlos Malenkov

  Sure, it was emotional blackmail. But if it worked, and it had to work, he could deal with the consequences later.

  A week later the letter came. Inside was a single item -- a ticket to the opera. Fred hated opera, but he didn't think he should miss this particular performance.

  The fat lady was singing. She had a magnificent voice, but Fred couldn't understand a word. "That closes the second act of Salambbo," Marilyn whispered to him. She ought to know, considering that she was rich and cultured. And something of a fat lady herself.

  Afterward, sitting and chatting at the table in the restaurant, Marilyn laughed over what she called youthful indiscretions. Yes, she might have done some things she'd later have cause to regret, but the power of money was amazing, wasn't it? Now she got to the point and offered Fred five thousand in cash for any pain and inconvenience that a certain episode might have caused him. Of course, he'd have to sign a few papers, but . . .

  "Marilyn. That's really not what all this is about. I'm not here to shake you down, and money won't heal my wounds. What I want from you is, I guess . . . you. The sight of your bare flesh, well, I think it made me . . . fall in love with you."

  "I was afraid it might be something like that, kiddo." She pulled a hand through her long flaxen hair, then looked across at him and smiled. "You're a right handsome guy, all right, but . . . no. It would never work. Aside from the age difference -- and you are legally still a minor -- I seem to be already spoken for. And, I'm afraid my boyfriend might be a wee bit jealous. Hmm. Let me think on it."

  Later in the evening they were sitting in a parked car outside Fred's home.

  "I'll be in touch," she said. "Meanwhile," she paused, "here's something to remember me by." She pulled his hand around behind her and down, then under her skirt. The feel of her smooth butt cheek lingered on his fingers as he stumbled from the car.

  In fact, she didn't get back to Fred. He found out why a few months later. It was on the Six O'Clock News. Marilyn, it turned out, was a very interesting and a very dangerous person. She and a companion had . . . BUTCHERED THEIR WAY ACROSS SIX STATES!!!

  HIGH SOCIETY THRILL KILLERS!

  WEALTHY FEMALE LAWYER'S MURDER SPREE!

  "SHE MADE ME DO IT," BOYFRIEND CLAIMS!

  Getting a seat at the trial was impossible. Not that it much mattered, since the outcome was a foregone conclusion. Marilyn's boyfriend testified against her and got off with a life sentence. She wasn't nearly as lucky.

  Fred was older and wiser, not to mention quite a bit more cynical. He was a junior at the state college, majoring in criminal justice administration, and was on his third girlfriend in as many months. Alice was even-tempered, affectionate, and most important of all, had a nice ass.

  It had been a rough couple of years before Fred had managed to banish Marilyn (and her ass) out of his mind. Things had finally fallen into place and he pretty much had the rest of his life mapped out. Finish school, get married, and settle into a law enforcement career, though not necessarily in that order. Disruptions in his neat, well-planned life were the last thing he needed.

  The envelope in his mailbox had a State Penitentiary return address. "You have been approved as a correspondent for inmate M. Wickelow," it read. What? Marilyn wanted to him to write to her? To the State Penitentiary?

  "No friggin' way I'm getting involved with that wacky broad again," Fred muttered.

  "Oh, go on," Alice chuckled. "She's part of the dead past, and by now you must have gotten over her. Besides, you have my ass to obsess about now, not to mention snuggle up to when we spend the night together."

  "Well, I suppose I could use her as the topic for a research paper in the Capital Punishment seminar. No problem about making a top grade with something like that." Dear Marilyn,

  I really don't know where to start. It's been years since, well, since that night at the opera, and I've mostly gotten over my juvenile fixation on you-know-what. Lately I've been studying hard and trying to live a something like a normal life.

  Yes, I'd be willing to write and offer what emotional support I can. If you'd like to talk about the things you've done, with a view toward getting them off your chest or whatever, well, I suppose I could make myself available.

  Fred

  Months passed without a reply from Marilyn. Fred didn't even much think about it, since he had been getting his fill of Alice's ass, and after that went sour, Janetta's. Finally, he did get a letter, but it wasn't quite what he was expecting. Gardner, Bates, Boysen, and Cox Associates Attorneys at Law

  Mr. Frederick Holstein:

  Permission has been obtained for your visitation to our client, Miss Marilyn Wickelow at the following date and time . . .

  Visitation? He was supposed to visit her? In person? On Death Row? What in the hell had he gotten himself into?

  "This way, sir."

  The uniformed female guard ushered Fred down the corridor of locked cell doors. There were a few catcalls, but most of the inmates were surprisingly well-behaved.

  "Marilyn?"

  "Fred! I'm so pleased you could make it. Welcome to my humble abode."

  Humble indeed. Her "abode" consisted of a 10-foot square cell containing a cot, a small stainless steel wash basin, and a lidless toilet.

  "Let's have a little privacy -- what do you say, kiddo?" Marilyn nodded at the prison matron, who turned abruptly and went out the cell door, locking it behind her.

  "Alone at last." Marilyn smiled.

  "Tell me if you would, old girl, what's going on here. Let's start at the beginning, why don't we. What exactly do you expect of me? Why did your lawyers contact me? Why did they offer me fifty thousand dollars dollars if I'd agree to visit you? And why did they hint at another, larger payment, for 'unspecified services'?"

  "Fifty thou is small change, little man. Money is something I've never bothered keeping track of. Now, time is another matter. Time is precious to me. I measure it in days and weeks, and, as a certain date draws near, I'll probably start counting the hours. And, that's where you come in, darling."

  "Darling, is it now? Well, I think I'm getting a glimmer of what this is all about. They don't execute pregnant women, do they, Marilyn?"

  "Now, now, Freddie boy, let's just say I'm hot for your bod, and leave it at that. Besides, don't you want to fuck me?"

  "But the guards -- "

  "Have been taken care of. Half million in cash can be mighty tempting to a civil servant making in the neighborhood of thirty thousand a year. Don't worry, we're guaranteed an hour of total privacy."

  There were two blue woolen institutional-issue blankets on the cot. One of these Marilyn draped over the bars of the cell, blocking the view from the corridor. The other she spread on the floor.

  "They say the knee-chest position is best for getting with child," Marilyn whispered. "And it's just the right time of month, too."

  She was on her hands and knees, head down on a pillow, and her bare ass thrust out toward Fred. This was the very ass that had haunted him for years, and just below it her pussy was gaping open for the taking. He took it.

  "Thank you, dear. That was nice. And, you're still hard, I see. It's wonderful to be young and horny. Would you like to put it back in?"

  "Yes, but -- "

  "Wait." She stood up and got a plastic squeeze bottle from a shelf over the sink.

  "Hand cream. How about we try something a little different now, Freddie boy? Lube yourself up with this and stick it up my ass this time."

  He pressed the head of his aching cock against the puckered entrance between her cheeks. The sphincter dimpled inwards, then yielded. He slid into her darkness, into the deepest of her mysteries, and she was tight inside, and she cried out his name, and then something else. It sounded like, "Don't hurt me, Daddy."

  "The first time was for business, and that was for pleasure." Marilyn tousled his hair as they sat side by side on the cot.

  "Why did you do it?" he asked.

  "Do what? Fuck you just now?
Moon you all those many years ago? Or kill the people?"

  "All of the above."

  "Revenge," she said. "I'm getting back at the world."

  ---

  Fred must have been firing blanks because Marilyn didn't get pregnant. All the same, an appeal of her sentence managed to postpone the execution into the next year. Strangely enough, the news only rated a couple of paragraphs on page 8 of the paper and didn't even get into the Six O'Clock News. The public had lost interest in the case.

  Fred tried to arrange another visit, but he hit a stone wall. The prison officials had revoked his visitation rights and her lawyers didn't return his phone calls. Apparently Marilyn didn't want to see him again. She had used him, then discarded him.

  The execution took place without fanfare in the early hours of a drizzly Thursday morning. They still used hanging in that part of the country, and the noose snapped Marilyn's slim white neck cleanly as her beautifully sculpted body dropped through the trap door.

  Two months later the letter came. In the outer envelope was a statement from the lawyers. In settlement of the estate of M. Wickelow and in accordance with her wishes as noted in her Last Will and Testament, the enclosed is transferred to your possession.

  Inside the smaller sealed envelope was a key. It was for a safe deposit box in a bank branch in a nearby town.

  The bank officer led Fred down to the vault as soon as he had identified himself. Apparently this, too, had been arranged.

  The safe deposit box contained a typed letter, a sheaf of handwritten papers in a cheap binder, a number of stacks of $100 bills in bank wrappers, and a loose bundle of what looked like stock certificates. Freddie,

  If you're reading this, then I'm dead and buried. You were the only one I could trust -- in fact, the only one for whom I ever developed anything like affection. If I had been capable of love, I think I might have loved you. Keeping that in mind, I have one final task for you.

  Avenge me! I'm depending on you to even up accounts with the man who shattered my life, who ruined my childhood, who made a killer out of me. I'm talking about my father, of course.

  Harlan Wickelow is the man who took my virginity. He robbed me of my innocence on one bloody-red evening shortly after my eighth birthday. And he continued quenching his slimy lust in me for years afterwards, until I had my first period. Then he turned his attentions to my younger sister.

  Destroy him! Kill my father. Let him join me in Hell so his soul can be torn asunder by the demons that have tormented me for all these years.

  There is $100,000 in cash in this box. That will cover your immediate expenses. The negotiable securities are bearer bonds, which means you can take them to the issuing bank and cash them in without showing ID. They have a face value of $10,000,000, surely enough for you to live on comfortably for the rest of your life.

  No, I don't expect you to get your hands dirty with his filthy blood. Hire someone. Dave Boysen, one of my attorneys, will put you in touch with some people who are in that line of work. The deed will never be traced back to you.

  Do this for me. Destroy the man who destroyed me. Kill him!

  Reaching out to you from beyond the grave,

  Marilyn

  Harlan Wickelow slowly rose to his feet. His face could have been carved out of stone.

  "And, what should I make of this, young man? If it's blackmail you have in mind, you're wasting your time."

  "Fred Holstein's the name, and it's a name that you'll remember the rest of your life. I have no use for either your money or your worldly goods. There's only one thing I want and that's to honor your daughter's final wish. She wanted me to have you killed, but a piece of shit like you isn't worth risking jail time for. I'll content myself with blackening your reputation and good name.

  "I've sent copies of her testament, the one you've just read, to the wire services and to major newspapers all over the country. By this time tomorrow your name will be a household word, a curse word for a misbegotten father who commits incest on his own daughter, a father who abuses the trust of a child, a father who destroys his own family. You were directly responsible for her death and indirectly for the deaths of her victims, and now the bill comes due."

  Fred paused, then continued. "Marilyn left me over ten million dollars. I've donated every penny of it to a foundation that helps incest and rape victims and I'm dedicating my life to hunting down and prosecuting the perpetrators of those crimes."

  "She was my darling little girl!" Wickelow wailed. He had collapsed back into the chair, his face hidden behind clenched fists. "I loved her!"

  "So did I," Fred whispered. He walked out the door and didn't look back.

  * * *

  BACKDOOR JUSTICE

  You can talk about the courtroom dramas on TV all you want. They're crap, I tell you, utter crap. Listen. I know a story that tops it all.

  New York has this peculiar institution known as the Sanitation Court. That's where you report if you get a summons for littering or maybe if you're a contractor who's tried to sneak a couple of bags of renovation debris into the regular municipal trash pickup. And it's where young judges start their career, and where old judges end up when they're thrown on the trash heap. A sad place, and one best avoided, no doubt. Well, one day it was my turn to find out what goes on behind the scenes of this odd corner of the judicial edifice.

  What's this? A ticket for putting improper items out to be collected? Oh, I get it, this is about those bags of wood scraps and plaster from renovating my apartment. Wait a minute! I had called Bulk Pickup to take care of that. Twice, damn it. Once to set up a special pickup and once more to confirm the appointment. It looks like the pickup wasn't made, in spite of all that. And now the friggin' sanitation cops are blaming me. Me!

  ------------------------------------------------------------------

  "Your Honor, how can you just order me to pay the fine? The facts clearly demonstrate that I'm totally innocent of violating any municipal ordinance."

  "Allow me to explain how the system works, citizen. The Sanitation Court isn't about justice, either in the abstract sense or the particular. It's about collecting fines. It's about helping you do your part toward meeting the city's budget deficit. That's all. So, why don't you just be a good boy and trot out that door behind you and pay what you owe at the clerk's window downstairs. Or, if you prefer, you can mail in a check."

  What an asshole the judge was.

  She was tall and blonde. Her apparent age was in the early thirties. There was a hint of a shapely figure beneath her judicial robe. Under different circumstances this might have been a woman I'd have liked to get to know better. Much better. Yet, here she was, giving lectures and handing out fines for petty bullshit and, in general, making like a hardass. What a fucking waste.

  "Just one moment there, mister."

  I had gotten up to leave, but her words halted me dead in my tracks.

  "I'll see you in chambers in half an hour. There are aspects of your particular case that require further elaboration."

  Great! What in the hell did this judge want with me now? To slap me with yet another fine? To give me a speech about law and order and littering? To throw me in the slammer maybe?

  ------------------------------------------------------------------

  I knocked on the ornate wooden door. No answer. Was I supposed to just walk in?

  Dead silence. No one in sight. Wait. There! Behind the desk. On the floor. A black-robed figure on the carpet, and . . . naked flesh. The judge was lying there facedown, her arms stretched out in front of her. She had one leg in the air, languidly bent backward at the knee, and . . . and her judicial robes hiked up way above her waist. Her gleaming bare ass stared me in the face.

  "Well, what are you waiting for? A judicial order?"

  Her voice startled me out of the trance.

  "Why do you think I summoned you here? To slap you with another fine? To give you a speech about law and order? To jail you, perhaps?"

>   She must have read my mind.

  "No, citizen. You are in my judicial chambers for one particular purpose -- to enter into my intimate chambers. I want you. I want you to . . . make love to me in a very special way. I want you to . . . stick it up my ass."

  Whoa! This wasn't exactly something I needed to get involved in. Fucking a judge in chambers. Sodomizing her. Hey, a person could get in deep shit for that. Very deep shit.

  "What? Do I detect a certain reluctance? Does the defendant fear the consequences of enacting an ancient ritual with a justice of the Sanitation Court? Courage, my good man, courage. You might never have this opportunity again. Think of the memories. Of the tales you could tell your grandchildren. Not to mention the exotic sensual pleasures that await you in the here and now."