I went home and began writing.
I spent one entire night in bed by myself. I needed the privacy, I told myself, but it wasn't really that. Dan and Elise had retired early. Together. Later I heard the unmistakable sounds of lovemaking coming from the other bedroom.
Dan pulled me aside one evening.
"Guy, we couldn't bear to lose you. Things have never been this good at home. Thanks to you, I can finally bear to be intimate with my own wife without cringing. To be naked in the same room with her. To caress her bare flesh. To love her and even make love to her. This is an unimaginable gift you've given us.
"At the firm, we're pulling in so much money that it embarrasses me to talk about it. I can't help thinking that it's at least partly due to your influence. You've been a catalyst. You've shaken up the place and supplied a missing ingredient or two. So, I think it's time to discuss binding you to us on a more permanent basis."
Elise and Dan and I were "married" by a real priestess. A Druid priestess, as it happened. Kari was a gray-haired woman who exuded authority. She didn't deny her checkered past, but only smiled when I asked her about her alleged association in the sixties with Dr. Abelian, the notorious "Sex Doctor."
The ritual was a handfasting, a pagan wedding ceremony, and it formalized and legitimized our relationship in every sense but the paperwork one. We were finally bonded to each other. Married. A married threesome. A family.
* * *
STUPID
"Corliss? What kind of stoo-pid name is that?"
When you're an eleven-year-old girl, it's the little cruelties of everyday life that hurt the most.
"It's the damn name my parents gave me. Want to make something of it?"
Back off, said the Voice in my head.
I wanted nothing more than to knock Joey's front teeth, braces and all, straight down his throat but, as usual, the Voice was right. He was bigger and stronger than me, and the teeth getting knocked down someone's throat would probably be my own.
If you hear voices in your head, you've got to be goofy, right? Well, maybe not. Not if you only hear just the one voice and that voice makes sense, mostly, and listening to it keeps you out of trouble.
Sometimes I really get mad at that stupid voice. It's like listening to my parents. "Don't do this, don't do that. Yakkety yak." Boring.
Like the time I wanted find out more about, you know, sex. Of course, I'm curious. It's that big, bad hairy secret those stupid grownups hide from us kids. Like they think they're protecting us from something horrible,
Anyway, my sometimes best friend Marcy wanted me to look at this dirty book her older brother had hidden under his mattress. About naked men and women doing it and . . .
. . . And the Voice said it was all a pack of lies, that this porno stuff was totally screwed up and it would give me wrong ideas and mess up my mind. So, of course, I had to find out for myself and I grabbed the book and looked. Well, I didn't know if I should laugh or barf up my breakfast. Imagine, the man sticks that thing into the woman's . . . Why would anyone want that inside them?
Because when you get older, your body changes. And then you get these feelings. Strong feelings. Powerful feelings. And you're terribly lonely. And you'll do anything to hold on to your boyfriend. Anything. And after a while you want to believe the lies in the popular songs and the TV shows and the magazines. And the lies your friends tell you. And you want to be a grownup and have your cherished dreams come true. And so your spine turns to jelly and you start believing the lies. Romantic lies. Gold-plated lies. Filthy, chocolate-coated lies. And you think that's what love is all about. And so then letting a guy stick that thing inside you maybe isn't so bad, after all. Maybe it's even something you can see yourself doing with the one you love. And, hey, you can't stay a child forever, now can you, and this is what grownups do, after all, isn't it? And you want so badly to be a grownup and get married and keep house and have children. And you're so tired of just playing make-believe games. And you want to experience life as it is, real life. And this is real life. And it just has to feel good (all your friends tell you so, after all). And that's what it's all about. And . . .
Shut up already, Voice. I get the picture. But, you know, maybe I've gotta learn a few things for myself. Without you hitting me over the head with them. For a change.
So, then I got this bright idea. Actually, it wasn't really my idea. This guy Mr. Jones, he had been after me for a while. Actually, I think he was kind of sweet on me, you know. He'd usually find some excuse to see me after school and sometimes buy me candy or presents. He was an old man, must have been like 30, or something. But, you know, he said he wanted to show me things, and I had kind of an idea about what kind of things he wanted to show me. So, I thought, why not? Here's my chance to learn all those secrets about you know what that the grownups have been hiding and that the Voice didn't want to tell me about.
Well, he showed me, all right. Talked me into following him into the attic of his house and then the both of us played show-and-tell. Only I was mostly the one doing the showing and he was the one doing the telling. And it was starting to get really yucky after he pulled down my panties, but by then it was too late for me to scram out of there because he had locked the door, and then he slapped me when I started to cry.
He had me lying flat on my stomach and he was on top of me and I was squirming and trying to get out from under. Then it started really hurting and it felt like he was prying me open and shoving something . . . and I thought I'd lose my mind right then and there, and . . . and then I heard the Voice inside my head.
Be Strong. You'll get past this. Know that I am with you, and I will help you, and together we will survive.
And so I calmed down and just let it happen. Mr. Jones did it to me, and when he finally let me up it hurt and afterward I felt dirty inside.
"This is our little secret," he said. "If you let anyone know, they'll blame you for it because you wanted it. All you girls want it -- that's what it says in those stories I read. And anyway, if I get any grief about it, I'll burn your house down and kill you and your family. Now, get the hell outta here, you dirty little slut!"
It's all my fault and I feel like killing myself.
Get a hold of yourself. Sit down. Take a deep breath. Now, stop blaming yourself. Sure, going with the guy to his house was stupid. But, at your age you're expected to do stupid things once in a while, though not necessarily with catastrophic consequences. That's what parents are for, after all, to provide a safety net. But, once in a while you run into predators.
Why did he do this to me? I trusted him.
You're asking why grown men look to children for sexual gratification. Aside from being just plain warped, such men are socially inept, afraid of and incapable of interacting with mature women. In short, they're very badly screwed up folks, and your only protections against them are common sense and experience. The sort of experience that you pay heavily for. As you've seen.
So, what do I do now?
You'll have to consider drastic measures. This guy will want to get at you again. He'll nag you and bug you, and if that doesn't work, threaten you. That's the way these slimebags work.
So, I should tell my parents?
Under ordinary circumstances that might be best. Unfortunately, these aren't ordinary circumstances. This fine specimen of humanity is potentially dangerous. And, he happens to have considerable financial resources and quite a bit of influence in the community. He'd accuse you of lying, and he'd be more likely to be believed than you would.
It's hopeless.
No! You've got me on your side. Now, here's what we'll do . . .
"No, I can't come over and visit. That didn't turn out so well the last time we tried, now did it, Mr. Jones? Well, all right, if you insist. Look, how about if I just go for a ride with you? You do have a new car, after all, and . . . "
"Gee, Mr. Jones, I see your car has tinted windows. How very convenient."
"Why is it convenie
nt, Corliss?"
Here's what to say. Time to use adult language, and rock him back on his heels a bit.
"Convenient that no one can see who's inside with you. Convenient if you have an underage child sitting next to you, for instance. Convenient for hiding your identity from the neighbors and law enforcement, for instance."
"You have a big mouth for a kid."
"A big mouth isn't all I've got, Mr. Jones. I also have someone very powerful helping me out."
"Who?"
"Would you believe an invisible friend?"
"Ha, ha. You're a strange one, all right, Corliss. Well, let's get started 'cause I've got some mighty interesting things to show you. And maybe we'll take up where we left off, huh?"
It was an interesting ride, all right. He drove us way out into the country, on a lonely two-lane road by the lake, where the older kids go when they want to do necking and all that stuff.
"So, what do you think of what we did last time, Corliss?"
I began shivering all over, but then I heard the Voice.
Trust me, kid. Everything will work out. Now, we'll give him the jolt.
"What do they do to child molesters, Mr. Jones?"
The tires squealed as we came to a sudden stop.
"What did you say?"
"You heard me, Jones. We're talking serious jail time here. And, once you're behind bars, you're the one getting raped. How does that strike you, scumbag?"
His face went dead white and his jaw dropped. He started to reach across to me and . . . I jabbed him in the thigh with the poisoned dart. He stiffened, then slowly slumped over the steering wheel.
"It's curare, Jonesy. This just happens to be a blowgun dart I 'borrowed' from the museum exhibit downtown. You'll stay paralyzed long enough for me to fix you up. And then, believe me, you'll stay fixed up."
I had gone over what to do a dozen times with the Voice, but now that it was time to do it, I was a little nervous. Leave the engine running. That's critically important. Now, get the rubber hose out of the bag you brought, and the gloves, too. They're insulated gloves. Put them on. They'll protect your hands and keep you from leaving fingerprints. Open the door on your side and walk around to the back of the car. Quickly slip the end of the hose over the end of the exhaust pipe and tape it securely. Careful, even with the gloves on you can get some nasty burns. Run the hose along the side of the car and through the open window on the driver's side. Use the roll of duct tape to seal up the opening of the window all around the hose.
Walk off a little way, so you can't be seen from the road. Wait exactly 15 minutes by your watch (the one you got for your birthday), no more, no less. Good. Now, put the gloves back on and go back to the car. Open up the driver's side door. Give Jonesy a hard tug, so he falls out of the car. We don't want him to get enough of a dose of gas to kill him, after all. All right, now you'll walk back to town.
It was a long hike and I had plenty of time to think. To think of who the Voice was. Actually, I'd pretty much figured it out by now. The Voice was me. It was the grownup me, the me I'd be in maybe fifty or a hundred years. It was the future me coming back to help the me in the here and now. To help me get past the hard and dangerous stuff so I could live long enough to grow up and become the me who was the Voice. Kind of like on the Twilight Zone, huh?
I thought of what we had done. Of Mr. Jones being brain-damaged. The Voice told me that carbon monoxide poisoning from the car exhaust would leave him in a fog. He wouldn't be able to bother or threaten me any more. He wouldn't remember what he had done to me or even who I was. He probably wouldn't even remember who he was. He'd need help doing simple things like getting dressed and going to the bathroom. For the rest of his life he'd be stupid.
* * *
WILD CHANGE
Deep in the Black Forest, or Schwartzwald as the locals call it, there stands a small, moss-covered cottage. Its quaint gingerbread trimmings give it a charming Eighteenth Century rustic look. Civil servants of the Bavarian state government maintain the hut and its surroundings, and give guided tours to any hikers who happen by. Nailed to a post out front is a faded wooden plaque explaining, in six languages, that this was reputed to be the home of the fabled Wechselhexe, or Change Witch.
"Sir, could you kindly tell me what that's all about?"
The tour guide slowly shook his head at the young American tourist's question. "My dear fellow, the Brothers Grimm never wrote that particular story down. They considered it unsittsam, indecent. And with good reason. Even in our modern, permissive era, it might be rather strong medicine even for those who consider themselves enlightened. In any case, it is best you do not enquire into matters that do not concern you."
Charlie Mason had a reputation for doing just that. Over the years he had stuck his nose into many a dark corner, and had lived to tell the tale. So, he wasn't about to be put off by an officious middle-aged park ranger in a funny-looking uniform.
That night Charlie was back. The cottage loomed darkly under the full moon, unlit and empty. It was unlocked.
The flickering beam of the penlight showed the same well-manicured interior he had seen in the daytime. There was the open guest book. He looked. His was the last name in it. What the hell was he looking for, anyway?
Secrets? Hidden trapdoors? Ha! This phony hut was just one more roadside tourist trap. A waste of time.
Charlie thought he heard a voice echoing in the distance. Was someone singing?
Outside. There was someone outside. In the bright moonlight, a woman was dancing. Dancing and singing.
He cautiously edged out the doorway. It was a young girl, her long tresses flying above her narrow hips as she twirled, her face savagely alight with the joy of her song. A cloud obscured the moon and it was no longer a maiden dancing. She blurred and her features and form flowed into those of a mature woman, heavy of breast and hips, with a wicked gleam in her eye. Charlie blinked. He looked again. Now it was a hag who was dancing, dried up, wrinkled, with a face that had known far too many sorrows. The dance slowed, then stopped.
"I've heard tell of a witch in these parts."
"Eine Hexe? Bin ich nicht, denn?" the old woman answered.
"A witch? What else could I be?" Charlie heard. He understood not a word of German, but the meaning of what she was saying penetrated deeply into his awareness. He approached closer.
"Na, Bursche, was soll ich denn mit dir?" Well, my fine boy, what am I to do with you?
Her face was no longer that of an old woman. She was a maiden, and a young maiden, at that. Her figure was that of a girl just past adolescence. As she whirled around, she transformed yet again. She was a woman in late middle age, a merry widow exuding lewdness in her every gesture. Her clothes had somehow vanished. "Wagst du?" she asked as she beckoned to him. Do you dare?
He dared.
Charlie lay on his back on a patch of moonlit manicured lawn, just within sight of the cottage. The witch was straddling him on bent knees, her icily luminous locks tickling his face every time she descended upon him. Now she was a young maiden again, taking girlish delight in the feel of his member stretching her hairless slit. Now an aging dowager, cackling as her well-used cunny clutched his boyishly enthusiastic shaft. The moonlight dimmed, and she grew to gargantuan proportions, a immensely fat lecher-woman squeezing every last ounce of pleasure out of him. She lowered herself down atop him full-length, squashed him deeply into her yielding flesh with all 400 pounds of her weight. He blacked out in the agony of unendurable rapture as her hungry thighs milked the vitality out of him.
He awoke, pinned facedown on the ground. "Na, jetzt wird es erst recht knallen," the voice above him intoned. (Now things will really start to pop.) It was a man's deep baritone.
Charlie felt his buttocks parted by powerful masculine hands, and a cry of outrage died in his throat as he realized he was on fire with pure, animal lust. Something hard and enormously large was slowly forcing its way into him, and somehow it was right. He felt his rear entrance
stretch as his gut began to fill with what he knew was the rampant flesh of the incubus/witch above him. "Ja, ja, mein Schatz," he/she purred. Yes, yes, my sweet. "Jezt bist Du an der Reihe." It's your turn now.
Explosive waves of passion ripped through Charlie as he lay there flat on the ground. He cried out once, then twice. Darkness descended upon him in as his flesh rippled and melted. "Wildwechsel!" the witch screamed. Wild change!
Charlie awoke to voices.
"Yes, that is the one. The verrückte Ami tourist."
"You are certain?"
"I gave warning, but still . . . "
It was a hospital room. People were standing around the bed. There was the tour guide from the cottage. A woman in uniform and a doctor flanked him on either side.
The Syntax of Seduction Page 26