"Well, I like that!" she said indignantly. "I'm only trying to help you!" Her eyes got deadly. She stamped her foot. "The trouble with you, you (bleepard), is pretty plain! You're a JERK! I try to give you a hand and what do you do? You spit on me! You don't know what decency is! Where the hell are your manners? Listen, you (bleepard), you've got the finest sex equipment I've ever seen in my life and believe me, I'm an expert! And do you know what to do with it? NO! You're cruel, obscene, selfish, rotten, mean, perverted, depraved, sadistic, vicious and STUPID!" She stopped. She had run out of adjectives. Her large eyes glared like a panther's. "And besides that," she finished, "you're no gentleman!"
I tried to find something to say. Every word had gone into my skull like a sledgehammer. I wanted to strangle her. But the room was spinning.
"So you haven't got a thing to say," she said. "Well,
that's good, because I have! I came over here today, thinking that in my plight, you could help. You're rich. I haven't even got a job now. I got no job because I'm uneducated. I came over here thinking that out of decency you would give me enough money to go to school. But you're so rotten, you don't have the slightest God (bleeped) idea of anything but wrecking people's nerves. So there's only one thing I can do."
I was horrified that she might put on another record. What came was far worse!
"And you know what I'm going to do?" she demanded. "I am going to stay right here and reform the hell out of you until you are decent enough to at least associate with mangy dogs! I'm going to nag, nag, nag you until you decide there is somebody else in the world besides yourself. I'm going to– – "
"Wait," I pleaded, for I could stand it no more. "What would it take to get you to leave and never come back and never see you again, ever?"
"Five thousand dollars," she said. "I got to finish my education. I live in an attic by myself so living don't cost much, but tuition does. There's a Hong Kong whore that runs a special school that teaches all the ins and outs of sex. I can buy a crash course. Then I'll know what I'm doing! I've got to unlearn everything the psychiatrist and psychologist taught me and everything in the grammar-school sex textbook. And I got to get me some real education! I'm a fast learner: you got to learn fast if you live on the streets of New York and want to stay alive. So I'm quick. She'll take me as a pupil, despite my age. But I need five thousand dollars. Then I can find some satisfaction and succeed in life. I can grow up and amount to something. I can make people happy and..."
Her voice had been literally smashing what was left
of my brain cells into ragged, mangled pulp. I said, "If I do that, will you promise faithfully, swear, attest, affirm that I will never in all my life, ever, ever, lay eyes on you again?"
"Cross my heart and hope to die!" she said.
Oh, Gods, it was worth it. I crept to my money hoard. I counted out five thousand dollars.
She took it. She counted it. Then she put it in the pocket of her cloth coat and pinned it there with a safety pin.
Before I could stop her, she gave me a moist kiss. She pulled back. She smiled happily. "I'm sorry I had to tell you the truth about yourself," she said. "But sometimes the truth pays. Are you sure I can't do anything else for you? Fix you another bhong? Play you some more records? Go down on you so you will have a calm afternoon?"
"Get out of here," I wept.
"Well," she said. "I'm not as ungrateful as you are. If you ever change your mind about seeing me, I live in the garret of one of the old houses in Tudor City." And she gave me the exact number. "All you have to do is climb the fire escape and slide in the window. It's permanently stuck open. Tudor City, you know, is just south of the United Nations and you get there over a bridge from 42nd Street. The buildings used to be kept up and they had little parks of their own and private footpaths, but the last couple of years they've gone to hell and the parks are used to grow marijuana, mostly. At least that's what I use them for. Now, please remember the number." And she gave it again twice. "If you don't mind climbing a fire escape and if you don't mind dust and old trunks, we can just lie there and do it for hours and hours the right way, or if your back gets tired I can use my mouth
on you while you rest up. I'm used to that, you see, and I don't mind a bit, really. And then when your back gets rested, we can do it the right way again. And then you can rest while I– – "
"Get OUT of here!" I wailed.
"I'm going," she said. "I keep my bargains. But don't forget the number." And she pve it to me again. "In case you change your mind. Good-bye, now, although it is a shame with us alone in the house not to use the rest of the afternoon..."
I got my hands over my ears.
She picked up her coat and put it on. She went out the back door and climbed the garden fence. She waved from the top. And at last I was left to my fuddled misery.
How often in life does one go through the first tremors of a catastrophe and never realize that they were but the unheeded warning? Ah, but if only one could change the fleeting moments of a yesteryear. How different would life be. I should have killed her when I had the chance!
Chapter 3
The following morning, I had twice the head I had had the day before.
The reason was not hard to isolate. Preparing me for the proper execution of my duties, Adora had unfortunately heeded my plea that I must have something to drink. My throat had been dry as dust itself. She had found the bhong set up.
"You've been at the Acapulco Gold," she said. "That is what is making you so thirsty." She had come in with a full tumbler of beautifully cold liquid. It looked like water. I had drunk it gratefully, gulp, gulp, gulp.
VODKA!
The effect was almost instant. I not only had no headache, I had no head. It had blown off!
Consequently, I have no slightest recollection of what had gone on that evening. If there were two lesbians who had then become ex-lesbians, I could not tell you to this day. Since, when I woke, I had no bruises on me nor daggers sticking in me and no one was arresting me for bigamy, I could only assume that I had performed.
I felt so bad that even my loss of memory did not disturb me.
I pottered about in the midmorning empty apartment. I got an aspirin. I went out into the garden and gazed with distaste at the sunlit day. I went back in and glanced at the viewers.
Crobe was busy giving electric shocks and the emotion digitals in his viewer kept flashing
SATISFACTION
every time a patient was carted away, sheet over his face, en route to the morgue. Normal Earth psychiatric duties. One never would have suspected that he was an extraterrestrial. Not very educational. I turned it off after a while.
Krak's viewer was completely blank, so I was not disturbed at all. This evidence showed to me she must be miles and miles away, even the North Pole, perhaps.
Heller's was a view of the sea. He was leaning on a
rail, puffing. "Wow," he said, "the lady was right. I've gotten out of condition."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that, Mr. Haggarty. Anyone who can run up to the top of the mainmast and down ten times without stopping can't be said to be in serious shape." It was a gravelly voice and Heller looked sideways. The man had a broken nose and the words Spans Director were on his T-shirt. "I think you've achieved a remarkably fast recovery from those multiple injuries. CIA agents are seldom so resilient."
Heller swept a hand toward the sea. "Where are we, anyway?"
"See those high, towering clouds? Shaped like castles? Now look at the water. See the little scraps of seaweed? And look at its color: indigo blue. We're in the Gulf Stream. That's what makes the weather feel so balmy."
"How long a swim to get ashore?" said Heller. •
The sports director laughed. "You'd have to swim awfully fast to beat the tropical sharks. You're not going anywhere, Mr. Haggarty. The next item on your schedule today is a hundred laps in the sun pool. It's just been refilled with warm Gulf Stream water. So let's go."
I pondered this
. The Gulf Stream. The yacht must be somewhere in the Caribbean. How did it get down there so quickly? No yacht is that fast. The problem made my head ache worse.
Totally oblivious that I had all the evidence of absolute catastrophe around me, I went back to bed.
Some hours later, I was apparently having a nightmare. There was a mighty roll of drums and then a rhythmic beat. The whine and yowl of electric guitars shrieked and dripped with sex. A chorale beat at me:
Do it in the morning.
Do it in the night.
Do it to me, baby
And do it right.
Do it in the water.
Do it in the clouds.
Do it long and tenderly
And make me proud.
Do it, do it, do it!
And do it once again.
Write a day of ecstasy
With your lovely pen.
Do it, do it, do it!
Don't be shy!
Do it, do it, do it!
And gaze up at the sky.
For this must be heaven,
You can hear the angels cry,
"Do it, do it, do it!"
So open up your fly!
What strange music for a nightmare! It must be a nightmare, for everything was black. But it was accompanied by a moist, delightful sensation. I lay there. The music had stopped but the sensation continued. Then the same piece started up again and the sensation mounted. Was the music the sensation?
Suddenly I realized there was something on me. It was moving to the beat of the music!
Hey, this was too real for a nightmare even if everything WAS black.
I ripped at my eyes. There was something on my eyes!
I tore it off.
TEENIE!
She was sitting astride me!
She stopped rocking back and forth and looked at me with her big eyes. "Now you've spoiled it," she said.
"Spoiled what?" I raved, trying to get her off of me.
She sat there, not budging an inch. "I was keeping our bargain. You said you never wanted to see me again, so I covered up your eyes. Now you've taken it off and broken our agreement."
"How did you get in here?" I raved.
"You left the back door open," she said. "And don't scold. I am NOT playing hooky. I went straight out yesterday and enrolled in the Hong Kong whore's school. I'm doing it night school and days. I got A plus on my first lessons and now I am doing my homework."
"Get off me and get out of here!" I grated.
She clung firmly astride. "I learned some nice things. I never knew you could do so many things with muscles inside and outside. And I knew you would be fascinated at the rapid progress your protege was making. Feel this."
She sat perfectly still, apparently, but inside her there was a gentle stroking feeling.
"That's just one internal muscle moving," she said. "It's the yummy-yum muscle. All the muscles have names. If I set another one opposite it going, you would (bleepulate) and we don't want that so quick. So, pretty good for a street urchin, huh? I can see that you liked it. Right now I'm holding you in the 'whoa-boy' position that prevents a 'too-soon.' Oh, I feel I'm getting somewhere, now. Even my parents will be proud of me."
"Hey, I thought your parents were dead."
"Oh, no. They are doing life in a maximum-security Federal pen. They engineered a presidential-assassination attempt that failed and when they went to prison I
was made a ward of the court. But the judge wouldn't appoint a guardian: he kept me in his chambers so I could handle him with oral testimony and relax him in the middle of difficult cases."
I stared at her. This was an entirely different story of her life than she had told me yesterday. What was I dealing with in this female monster?
"You get out of here," I said, "you broke your bargain!"
"No. You broke it. You're the one who took the cover off your eyes. Don't blame others for your own misdeeds."
"Teenie," I said, "you get off of me, put your clothes back on and get the Hells out of here. And take your (bleeped) Chinese positions and muscles with you!"
"This one, too?" she said.
My hand clutched the side of the bed. Then it began to relax. My fingers straightened out stiffly, quivering.
An errant bee wandered in from the garden, buzzed in circles round and round at the window.
A potted plant began to spin.
The buzz of the bee went up and down in volume.
"This is 'rickshaw boy, chop, chop,'" said Teenie in a strained voice.
The potted plant swung faster. "Now I'll let you!" Teenie cried.
The potted plant exploded.
The bee soared off into the sky but it wasn't its buzz I was hearing. It was the expiring croon of Teenie. She raised her eyes to me triumphantly. "Oh, boy," she said, "now I think even you will agree that I will amount to something when I'm fully educated."
I didn't push her off. I felt too weak.
After a little, she said, "Now kiss me." As her mouth
was on mine, I couldn't avoid it. She raised her head a bit. "No, not like that! Here's a proper kiss. Open your mouth slightly, put it in the Q position. Now take your tongue..."
I groaned as a second potted plant began to spin. Then a third one started to turn. Then a fourth one began to rotate.
The second exploded. The third exploded. The fourth exploded.
I conked out, unconscious.
A long time later, a voice said, "For God's sake! It's five o'clock! And you're still in bed!" It was Adora.
I looked around wildly. The effort made my head feel like it was being hit with an axe. No Teenie. I was -all alone in bed.
"Where is she?" I babbled.
"She's in the other room," said Adora. "Both of them are. One is a blonde, the other a brunette, and they're hot as a forest fire to find out what real sex is. This is no time for you to be having wet dreams when the quarry is in the front room. So tallyho. Let's get after the tail!"
"I can't," I said. "I'm totally exhausted and my head is killing me."
"Oh, that again!" said Adora. She went to a table, stuffed and lit the bhong. I searched in vain within me to find energy to object. She came back and put the stem in my mouth. "You want to fool with a bhong, then stop fooling with it. By the numbers, six big inhales. One... hold it, hold it, hold it. Exhale. Two..."
We got through the six. Everything had gone gray and soft. I was floating. Memory was starting to fade. So was the instinct to survive.
"You seem to have developed a taste for music," said
Adora. "Good sign. I'll go out and play the record you left on the stereo."
Presently here it came, booming through the room-Do it, do it, do it!
Adora was there again. She had a pill and a glass. She put the pill in my mouth. I could not object, given the deadly and determined look on her face. "That's Benzedrine," she said. "An ordinary upper. Well, don't just lie there holding it in your mouth, you idiot. The capsule will melt and the stuff is bitter. Chase it down with this."
The pill was bitter. I gulped the liquid convulsively.
GIN!
A tumbler full of raw gin! And I had it down before I found out!
I was gasping painfully from the assault on my throat. Then flame exploded in my stomach.
Adora's eyes held that deadly gleam. She said, "Now get out of that bed and go into the front room. And do it, do it, do it!"
I have no memory at all of that evening. She had said they were a blonde and brunette but they might as well have been horses for all I knew of it.
About 3:00 A. M., it must have been, I heard a deadly voice. "For Christ's sake, stop screaming!" It was Adora. She was standing beside the couch where I now slept in the back room. She was a bit tousled from having been asleep.
"They're after me," I told her.
"Who's after you now?"
"The Fates," I babbled. "They're standing all around the corners of the room with pills and bhongs in their hands."<
br />
"Oh, you're just seeing multiple. It's me, standing
here, trying to give you a sleeping pill. Quit spouting nonsense and take it."
I took it but Adora Bey nee Pinch was wrong. The Fates were after me, as I shortly was going to find out! With shock!
That very afternoon, I had missed my second opportunity to kill Teenie. And the horror of it is, I didn't even realize it until much later-fatally MUCH later.
And right then, had I had my wits about me, I might have seen another Fate face grinning at me ghoulishly.
I didn't even think of Freud and his unerring analysis of dreams. Frankly, I will be candid, that omission was the only mistake I ever made in my entire professional career. Oh, I could weep tears of blood as I recall it now. One should never desert his Gods as I deserted Freud that night. Even two minutes spent on dream analysis would have told me of horrors to come that even now I have difficulty facing.
Chapter 4
Adora awakened me by the simple expedient of kicking me in the stomach. It was morning. I evidently had fallen out of bed. She was standing there, dressed for work.
"Listen, you (bleep)," she said, "you're sleeping too much. Get up and around and stir yourself. Go for a walk. Get some air. A hell of a looking husband you are. You're developing prison pallor. Are you listening?"
"Yes," I said apprehensively, watching her feet at the
level of my face. My head felt like a balloon and I was afraid she'd kick it and burst it.
"I woke you up to give you some good news," she said. "A compulsory attendance staff meeting has been called at Octopus. It's a lecture on abortion with a live demonstration by some new star of the psychiatric world, Dr. Crobe. He's just another (bleeping) quack like they all are, but I know it will go on half the night with Rocke-center drooling. Did you know the (bleepard) fired poor Teenie?"
I was watching her feet carefully.
"The rotten ape was giving a personal staff inspection the way he does every month and he spotted she was full of semen. He had her kicked clear down the stairs."
Something was awry. "That isn't what she said."
"Has Teenie been here?"
"She was on the phone," I lied quickly. There might be something wrong with telling the truth and it's always safer to prevaricate in such moments.
Mission: Earth Death Quest Page 29