by Edward Lee
A small queue gathered about an elevated stage for one Hawberk, the Sword-Swallowing Man! First, objects less substantial disappeared down the artist’s throat: a candle, glass shards, even a summer squash. Hawberk himself seemed older even than the wretch O’Slaughnassey but corded with cable-like muscles. Meager applause followed each demonstration, until one young heckler piped, “Aw, this ain’t nothin’! I want my money back!” At this, Hawberk smiled & hefted finally a sword of extraordinary length, then dropped it into his mouth where it easily disappeared to the hand-guard. When he extracted it, the summer squash came with it–quite a trick–and the crowd applauded more heavily; but the brazen heckler’s harassment did not abate. “Aw, I seen that trick a hunnert times at shows better’n this, old man!”
“Oh, have ye now?” Hawberk retorted. “So jest ye tell me, whippersnapper! Have ye seen better than this?” & in a sudden lurch, the oldster buckled over, & from his mouth shot a shimmering, 6-foot-long black snake which slapped hard on the floor, & the appearance of which sent half the crowd running for the exit & the other half jumping back several yards. The snake side-wound itself beneath the stage as applause rose like surf. It was quite a formidable spectacle, but outside Bliss chucklingly explained that 1) the brash heckler was actually a “shim,” i.e., a low-order carnival employee whose insertion into the crowd was deliberate, & 2) the “snake” was really just a rubber prop whose exit was effected by invisible fishing line–visually believable thanks to the power of suggestion. In all, a wonderful illusion.
Other tents could less be described as “wonderful”; indeed, impressively grotesque was more along the mark. There was Betty, the Human Blood Vessel, or a relatively well-proportioned young woman wearing only tin cones over her nipples & the tiniest triangle of glittered fabric over her privates. What made her remarkable was this: a veritable outbreak of venousness, so complete that every square inch of exposed skin was webbed by beating blue veins; the deliberate coverage of her skin with oil intensified the effect to a gleaming hideousness. Next was a man who impossibly ejected both eyeballs from their sockets & switched them; & next, a woman billed to have been pregnant for seven years, her bare belly protruding no smaller than the volume of a medicine ball (Bliss later informed me that a benign tumor was responsible for her excessive abdominal girth, not pregnancy); & next, another performer I recalled from the advert: Cadaveressa, Revived From the Clutches of Death By African Magic! Espying this unfortunate woman in reality was far more disturbing than the sketched replication on the poster. She was literally a living skeleton, pallorescent skin stretched over bones, & a head like a skull dipped in pale waxen paint. The image was worsened by complete nudity, revealing emptied skin-flaps for breasts, & painfully jutting pelvic bones buttressing the fleshless groin & grim folium that could only be her sexual access-way. To Bliss I expressed my doubt that African Magic had anything to do with her condition but more than likely a willful abstinence from the consumption of food. “Oh, but, Howard,” Bliss explained. “Her real name’s Mary and she eats like a pig. It’s just that she upchucks it all afterwards.”
Charming.
Hence, the show’s promised “oddities of nature.” But then Bliss added as she crutched along, “You said you like weird things, Howard—”
“Weird tales of imagination, yes. It’s curious to ponder exactly why such things are fascinating to some.”
“Well, I just wanted to say, there’s more”–she seemed to be smiling crookedly, as though hesitant–“but for that, you’d have to go to the Red Walk.”
“The Red Walk?” I queried.
“The adults section. It’s where I work.”
We stood aside from the flow of boisterous passersby. Bliss pointed to a larger tent egress guarded on either side by stolid-faced musclemen. RED WALK — 25-CENT ADMISSION. This must be the part of the show which housed the peep tents that Nate had referred to. & prostitutes & other lewd displays. Where Bliss does her own show, I sadly recalled.
“But please don’t come to my tent, Howard,” she appended. “I wouldn’t feel right.”
“I would never circumvent your wishes, Bliss,” I assured her, remembering all-too-well Nate’s brow-arching description. “And as for the other attractions . . . well, weird or not, I’m afraid they’d rupture my financial situation.”
Her hand disappeared into a pocket, then she slipped me a lengthy strip of tickets.
“Why, Bliss, I could never–”
“Take them!” she whispered. “You’re quite a gentleman but still a man. I want you to have a good time, Howard. Just . . . don’t go to my tent.” She batted her luxuriant lashes. “And I’m so hoping you’ll stay awhile. I hope you can stay and see me again after my show’s over.”
“I shall do exactly that–”
Her expression intensified. “I’ll only be an hour.”
“Then an hour it is, Bliss. I’ll meet you here at that time.” The information seemed to elate her, while I was already more than elated by her desire to see me one last time. Before more parting words could be uttered, she kissed me quite passionately on the mouth, then ambled off on her crutches, disappearing beneath the canvas transom of the sinisterly named Red Walk.
Suddenly I stood alone behind the clamourous human tide, unnerved. Without Bliss’s company I reverted to my misanthropic manner, on proverbial pins & needles. The woman-child’s kiss left me painfully stoked, my privates gorged & damp from embarrassing leakage. A vertigo infected my vision; I was staring at the mysterious doorway which hinted at the most forbidden witness & promised grotesqueries far more potent than previous tents. Consciously, the idea of entering–even with the costless tickets–filled me with apprehension; yet now I found myself at the mercy of my subconscious. I was utterly bereft of forethought when I approached the over-muscled lummoxes guarding the entrance, stoically handed over my admission, & stepped into eerie red-tinted darkness. It was not another tent I had entered, it was another world.
A world of shadow-shapes, wisps of sound, & unwholesome scents; a world of canvas corridors, wan red-lensed lamps, & prowling figures; of cringing desires, scintillant despair, & incognito transgressions–and it was into this undertow that I allowed myself to be sucked. Far more this place was than a den for deviates; it was a murk-ridden conclave of satyrs, incubi, & lust-daemons, which perhaps we all were beneath our brittle human faces. More strong-armed sentinels lined these cryptic passages, each fabric wall showing a line of lit dots from where peep-holes had been punched. “Piss party, right here, bub,” one beefy sentinel notified; then another, “Dog show right in a-here, only two tickets.” My belly seemed to prolapse at the insinuations. “What’sa matter, fella? Don’t’cha wanna see a dog fuck a girl?” I staggered off, nearly stumbling. The most muffled squeals resounded with periodicity, then louder, ghostly moans. Indeterminate shapes that were men with their backs to me, staring into the eye-like holes, clearly masturbated as they feasted upon the visual delights within. When a hand firmly grabbed my shoulder, the tinted face of another sentinel warned, “Can’t just loiter about, Mister. You can look or you can do, but both cost.” He pointed to the channel’s end like Dickens’s spectre. “Doin’s down yonder, a fin-bill and up, dependin’ on what ya want. Lookin’s here, for two tickets a peep.” I could scarcely form words against my jaded daze. “In my lack of experience, perhaps you could make a recommendation,” I stammered and conveyed the requested tickets. The block-shape of his face nodded. “I can tell by the way ya look, this ‘un here’ll float yer boat,” he retailed and then urged me toward a glowing hole. Trembling, I peered in, only to be struck by an image like a cudgel’s blow: a fat nude man on hands & knees, his back a veritable matt of fur; behind him knelt a younger, almost lissome man whose right arm lacked a hand. The larger one tensed as his rectum became a place of insertion for his collaborator’s stump.
I tore my eye away & wobbled off. The miscreant sentinel chuckled.
For staying, for even entering this soul-dead p
lace, I had only the deepest self-condemnation. But I knew why my darkest Id would not license departure.
Bliss.
“Bliss,” I demanded of one of the musclemen, wagging the string of tickets.
“She’s doin’ her show now,” the spiritless voice grunted back. “Then she’s off from 11 to 12. After that ya can turn a trick with her but ya gotta get on the list.” He jabbed a finger down toward the area meant to serve as a bordello. “And the cost depends on what’cha want.”
“Her show,” I said. “Where?”
He snapped off 2 tickets & pointed to the next section of peep-holes, though most were already tenanted. In dreadful slowness, then, & in complete abandonment to my promise, I brought my eye to the hole . . .
Surely it was some imp of the perverse that forced my face to the ratty canvas. Through the hole I spied a circle of oil lamps guttering about a table on which a shinily naked Bliss lay reclined on her back. Her skin glowed like fresh white chocolate, her nipples plump & red as strawberries. The plenteous bosom rose & fell rapidly; she licked her lips & rolled her eyes in some cringing pleasure that at first alluded me, but then I noted the top of a man’s head between her legs. The activity in which he engaged couldn’t have been more lewdly apparent, along with the wet licking sounds which companioned the action. Yet while this ensued, all 4 of her limbs moved in an almost engine-like precision. This, Nate had already expounded upon: 4 more men stood at each corner of the table, lean, leering, naked men, displaying trenchant genital erections. They may as well have been faceless. The stout penises of the 2 men at her shoulders she stroked with her hands. The other 2 men she stroked with her deformed feet. The sound of this quatro of masturbation, coupled with that of the urgent cunnilingus, reminded me of ravenous animals feeding.
Perverse & unnatural as the spectacle may have been, my own arousal was almost too much to bear. The watchers to either side proceeded to manually satisfy themselves without inhibition. I was tempted myself but just couldn’t bring myself to do so. Meanwhile . . .
Bliss’s performance heightened my ability to inspect the severity of her foot-binding. I’d read of a variety of processes, yet hers was clearly the most grievous, her wicked father having clearly mastered the art. Her feet completely rolled in on themselves, which indicated that her arches & toes had been repeatedly broken & re-wrapped for the desired effect. A queer flexibility seemed evident as well–Bliss was able to adjust her “grip.” All the while, the sheer weight of practice demonstrated her seamy, slatternly skill; her strokes picked up to a fever pitch, then at last all 4 men ejaculated on her at nearly the same time; indeed, the “climax” of the show.
Or was it?
When the spent men retreated out of view, there still remained the oral suitor whose ministrations continued. I could detect the rhythmic movement of the man’s head, & the plot of blond fur just visible at his lip-line. Bliss kept her twisted feet aloft, her belly sucking in & out at manifest waves of pleasure; her hands cosseted her inflamed breasts, massaging the deposits of sperm all about in a glue-like glaze. She shrieked, then, & nearly curled into a throbbing human ball when her own climax broke. But when the quake of her release abated . . .
Her suitor rose.
It was Septimus, the colossan. His angly physique seemed to unfold as he, first, stood up, then climbed upon the table, hideously kneeling between Bliss’s legs. Naked, this titan of a man looked otherworldly, a gut-sucked, long-boned creature more daemonical than human in aspect. The small, beady-eyed head declined from the long rack of bony shoulders, to intently spy Bliss’s glazed nudity, & of his genitals.
They were as unnaturally huge as the rest of him.
The erection reared, a snouted serpent; as if on cue, Bliss fondled it with her misshapen feet, kneading drool from its terrifying tip, squeezing the meaty shaft with her unnatural clench. Then she awkwardly strained open her thighs & guided the foot-long-&-then-some organ into her sex–guided, I mean, with her foot.
Septimus’s gaunt form tensed as this aberration of the procreative act commenced. In slow, grueling strokes, the entirety of the penile shaft slid into the tiny, tender seat of Bliss’s womanhood. One stroke after the next, all the way in, all the way out. At the finish of each insertion, Bliss reacted as if being reached into by an arm; her eyes bulged, her hips bucked, even her tongue indecorously jutted–all from the enormity of the violation. My own reaction from watching nearly dropped me into a swoon. Eventually, though, Septimus stepped up pace to the point of coital violence, begetting from Bliss’s throat a staccato of shrieks amid the grotesque slapping of groins. Yet even in the obvious discomfort, the woman-girl plucked her nipples with one hand & dabbled desperately at her clitoris with the other, somehow milking pleasure from what must have been eyeball-rolling pain. However, more than pleasure was milked next, when, sensing imminent crisis, Septimus withdrew the monstrous organ, hitched forward, & then Bliss’s deformed yet adroit feet masturbated the pulsing shaft as she herself leaned closer with eyes closed & mouth opened. A literal salvo of opalesescent spurts emptied directly into her mouth–an inhuman volume. Then the single throb of her throat signaled her swallowing it all.
When I backed away from that awful peep-hole–truly the eye of Hell–I dazedly noticed all of the other peepers had departed, leaving lines of their own spent seed on the tent canvas. The madness of what I saw–indeed, the madness of this entire wretched enterprise–left me mad myself, mad as a babbling alley vagrant. Common sense was now beyond my ken; at once, I knew what I must do: I must somehow smuggle Bliss out of this infernal place, & take her away forever. I would spirit her away to Providence with me. I would discover some way to see to it that her life of forced debauchery at the hands of her petty satrap of a husband would be over forever. I would find a way to support her even in the harsh light of the truth that I could barely support myself.
Oblivious now to the roiling crowd & boisterous chatter, I waited outside the entrance of the execrable Red Walk, my mind’s eye bruised from the outrage of what I’d witnessed inside. An hour’s time had passed since our last meeting, & an hour was what she’d asked me to wait. An utter nervousness overcame me. What would I say? How could I convince Bliss–a beautiful woman in spite of her disabilities–to come away with me, a writer of the poorest strata, a spindly form & otherwise unemployable recluse & none-too-handsome nervous wreck?
But the hour had passed, then so did half of the next one, yet Bliss had not yet shown herself. I began to pace back & forth along the midway’s edge, oblivious to the barkers, jugglers, stilt-walkers, etc., deaf to the screaming clang of railed thrill-rides thundering overhead. Soon it was as though my volition had been expropriated by some supernatural agency, & when my watch told me Bliss was now more than an hour late, said agency puppeteered me back into the guarded maw of the Red Walk. Blank-faced, I paid another entrance fee, then waded through the familiar red-lit murk. “Back again, eh, Mister?” one of the rousters jawed at me. “So it seems,” I replied, then he: “Back for more lookin’, or is it doin’ you’re after now?” “Doing,” I blurted. “Previous counsel has led me to believe that time with a woman can be arranged at the end of the walk. Might this be true?” “Previous counsel, huh?” the ruffian chuckled. “If you got the copper in yer pocket, yeah. Down there. They got gals who’ll do things ta yer willy you ain’t never thought of.” I passed him then, as though his very existence had expired, cantering my way to the terminus of the carnal labyrinth. The tent-flap leading to what could only be the bordello seemed to glide toward me rather than me toward it, where the largest of the musclemen stood guard, massive arms crossed. One side of the brute’s face was scar-lined; in a pure Irish dialect he asked, “Top a the evenin’ to ya, Sir. What’ll it be?”
“Bliss,” I said.
“Aye, she’d be for all of us if we had our way, but not for you, not tonight.”
In an instant, I grew enraged. “And why not, Sir? This is a business enterprise, is it not? Where the compa
ny of a woman may be procured in exchange for funds deemed sufficient?”
“Oh, I know what it ‘tis you’re after, lad. A dick-suckin’ from Bliss is a sweet deal indeed, and she’s sucked mine on many occasion–and likewise sucked on my billfold as well”–he laughed, while I remained deadpan. “Aye, you must’a heard that she’s got not a tooth in her mouth.”
“She was born without them, yes–—he informed me of that.”
An accented laugh rumbled like tumbling stones. “That may be what she told ya, man, but the truth is O’Slaughnassey himself pulled all them choppers out years ago.”
The words turned me to stone. “He . . . deliberately . . . pulled them . . . out?”
“A’course, lad! Once he married her proper, that is. She weren’t but a lass of twelve or so back then–well, maybe eleven. But with her feet the way they is, she gets every pervert this side of the pond sweet on her, and that dandy mouth with no teeth in it?” He laughed aloud. “Don’t tell me you ain’t been thinkin’ about it. O’Slaughnassey’s a right smart man. Yankin’ them out made her the best dick-sucker this show’s ever seen. He makes more money whorin’ her than he makes the rest’a the whores all together, that he does.”
The bruiser’s grinning face seemed to contort into something half-Mephistopholian. I hoped, even prayed, that his horrendous exposition was just a carnal-house lie, but somehow the sheer evil in his cast told me it was not.
It was truth.
& with that truth, I could’ve collapsed, muttering aloud my own despair. “What kind of a world could let such horrors be? The girl is pure innocence, yet fate gave her a father that bound her feet & a husband who pulled her teeth? Surely the cosmos should prolapse and suck this pest-warren of a planet into abysmal voids of uncreation–”