Image of the Beast and Blown (2 page)

. The breasts were full but not
large, slightly conical and up-tilted, with narrow and
long, almost sharp, nipples. The breasts were hung upon
a large rib cage. The belly sank inward; she was skinny
about the hips, the bones stuck out just a little. The cam-
era went round, or she pivoted—Childe could not tell
which because the camera was so close to her and he
had no reference point. Her buttocks were like huge un-
shelled soft-boiled eggs.

The camera traveled around her, showing the narrow
waist and ovoid hips and then turned so that it was look-
ing up toward the ceiling—which was covered with a
drape-like material the color of a broken blood-vessel
in a drunkard's eye. The camera glanced up her white
thigh; light was cast into the hollow between the legs—
she must have spread her legs then—and there was the
little brown eye of the anus and the edge of the mouth
of her vagina. The hairs were yellow, which meant that
the woman had either dyed her head hairs or her pubic
hairs.

The camera, still pointing upward, passed between her
legs—which looked like the colossal limbs of a statue now
—and then traveled slowly upward. It straightened out
as it rose and was looking directly at her pubes. These
were partly covered by a triangular cloth which was taped
on. Childe did not know why. Modesty certainly was not
the reason.

He had seen this shot before, but he braced himself.
The first time, he—in common with the others in the
room—had jumped and some had sworn and one had
yelled.

The cloth was tight against the genitals, and a shift in
angle of lighting suddenly revealed that the cloth was
semitransparent. The hairs formed a dark triangle, and
the slit took in the cloth enough to show that the cloth
was tight against the slit.

Abruptly, and Childe jumped again even though he
knew what was coming, the cloth sank in more deeply,
as if something inside the vagina had spread the lips open.

Then something bulged against the cloth, something that
could only have come from within the woman. It thrust
the cloth up; the cloth shook as if a tiny fist or head
were beating against it, and then the bulge sank back,
and the cloth was quiet again.

The Commissioner, two seats away from Childe,
said, "What the hell could that be?" He blew out cigar
smoke and then began coughing. Childe coughed, too.

"It could be something mechanical up her cunt," Childe
said. "Or it could be …" He let the words, and his
thoughts, hang. No hermaphrodite, as far as he knew,
had a penis within the vaginal canal. Anyway, that
wasn't a penis sliding out; that looked like an independent
entity—gave the feeling of one, rather—and certainly the
thing had beat against the cloth at more than one place.

Now the camera swung around at a level a few inches
above Colben and several feet in front of him. It showed
the feet, seemingly enormous at this narrow distance,
the thickly muscled and hairy calves and thighs spread
out on the Y-shaped table, the big testicles, the fat
worm of the penis, no longer lolling against the thigh but
beginning to get fatter and to lift its swollen red head.
Colben could not have seen the woman enter, but he
had evidently been conditioned so that he knew she
would come in within a certain time after he was strapped
to the table. The penis was coming to life as if its ears—
buried within the flesh like a snake's—had heard her or
as if the slit in its head were a detector of body heat—
like an adder's nose pits—and it knew that she was in
the room.

The camera moved to one side so that it could start
with the profile of Matthew Colben's head. The thick
curly gray-and-black hair, the big red ears, the smooth
forehead, the big curved nose, the thin lips, massive
jawbone, chin thick and heavy as the head of a sledge,
big fat chest, the outcurve of a paunch grown with much
stuffing of steak and beer, the down-curve to the penis,
now fully up and swollen and hard. The camera moved
in for a close shot; the veins were ropes run into the
lanyard of lust (Childe could not help thinking in such
images; he fingered concepts with a Midas touch). The
head, fully exposed, glistened with lubricating fluid.

Now the camera moved up and away and took a posi-

tion where both the man and woman could be seen. She
approached slowly, swaying her hips, and came up to
Colben and said something. Her lips moved, but there was
no sound, and the police lip-reader could not tell what she
was saying because her head was bent too far over. Col-
ben said something too, but his words were undecipher-
able for the same reason.

The woman bent over and let her left breast fall so
that Colben could take it in his mouth. He sucked for a
while; and then the woman removed it. The camera
moved in to show the nipple, which was wet and swollen.
She kissed him on the mouth; the camera moved in side-
wise to show her as she raised her head a little to
permit the camera to record the tongue sliding back and
forth into Colben's mouth. Then she began to kiss and
to lick his chin, his neck, his chest, his nipples, and she
smeared his round belly with saliva. She worked slowly
down to his pubic hairs, slobbered on them, gently tapped
his penis with her tongue many times, kissed it lightly
several times, flicked out her tongue to dab its head with
the tip while she held it at the root. Then she walked
around the leg of the Y and between the legs and began
to suck on his penis energetically.

At this point, a tinny piano, like those played in the
old-time bars or in the silent movie theaters, began
Dvorak's
humoresque.
The camera shifted to a position
above Colben's face; his eyes were closed and he was
looking ecstatic, that is, stupidly happy.

For the first time, the woman spoke.

"Tell me just before you're ready to come, darling.
Maybe thirty or so seconds before, yes? I have a beauti-
ful surprise for you. Something new."

The voice had been printed and run off by the police
on an oscilloscope and studied. But distortions had been
introduced into it. That was why the voice sounded so
hollow and wavery.

"Go slower, baby," Colben said. "Take it easy, put it
off like you did the last time. That was the greatest
orgasm I ever had in my life. You're going a little too
fast now. And don't stick your finger up my ass like you
did then. You cut my piles."

The first time the scene had been shown, some of the
cops had snickered. Nobody snickered now. There was

an unheard but easily felt shift in the audience now.
The smoke seemed to get hard and brittle; the green
milk in the light beam became more sour. The Commis-
sioner sucked in air so hard a rattle sounded in his throat
and then he began coughing.

The piano was playing
The William Tell Overture
now. The tinny music was so incongruous, and yet it was
the incongruity that made it seem so horrible.

The woman raised her head and said, "You about
ready to come,
mon petit?"

Colben breathed, "Oh, Jesus, just about!"

The woman looked into the camera and smiled. The
flesh seemed to fade away, the bones beneath were
faintly glowing and cloudy. Then the flesh was cloudy;
the skull was hard and bright. And then the skull faded
and flesh fell back into place.

She leered into the camera and put her head down
again, but this time she went past the corner of the Y
and squatted down below the table, where the camera
followed her. There was a small shelf fixed to one leg of
the table. She picked up something off it; the light bright-
ened, the camera moved in nearer.

She held a pair of false teeth. They looked as if they
were made of iron; the teeth were sharp as a razor and
pointed like a tiger's.

She smiled and put the iron teeth on the shelf and
used both hands to remove her own teeth. She looked
thirty years older. She placed the white teeth on the shelf
and then inserted the iron teeth into her mouth. She
held the edge of her forefinger between the two teeth and
bit gently down. Then she removed the finger and held
it so that the camera could zero in on it. Bright red blood
was welling out from the bite.

She stood up and wiped the cut on the fat glans of
Colben's penis and she bent over and licked the blood off.
Colben groaned and said, "Oh, God, I'm going to come!"

Her mouth went around the head and she sucked in
loudly. Colben began to jerk and to groan. The camera
showed his face for a second before it moved back to a
position alongside the woman's.

She raised her head quickly. The penis was jerking and
spurting the thick oily whitish fluid. She opened her
mouth widely, bent down swiftly, and bit. The muscles

along her jaw lumped; her neck muscles became cords.
Colben screamed.

She whipped her head back and forth and bit again
and again. Blood ran down from her mouth and reddened
the pubic hairs.

The camera moved away from her to show the draper-
ies through which she had entered. There was a flourish
of trumpets. A cannon boomed in the distance. The piano
played Tschaikovsky's
1812 Overture.

Trumpets sounded again as the music faded. The
draperies shot open, propelled by two stiff arms. A man
stepped inside and posed for a moment, his right arm
raised so that his black cloak half-hid his face. His hair
was black and shiny as patent leather and was parted
down the middle. His forehead and nose were white as
the belly of a shark. His eyebrows were thick and black
and met over his nose. The eyes were large and black.

He was dressed as if he were going to a movie
premiere. He had on a formal suit, a stiff white shirt with
a black formal tie and a diagonal red band across his
chest and a medal or order on his lapel.

He wore blue sneakers.

Another comic element which only made the situa-
tion more horrible.

The man lowered the cloak to show a large hooked
nose, a thick black moustache which curved down around
the ends of his thick rouged lips, and a prominent cleft
chin.

He cackled, and this deliberately corny element was
even more horrible than the sneakers. The laugh was a
parody of all the gloating laughs cranked forth by all
the monsters and Draculas of every horror movie.

Up went the arm, and, his face hidden behind the
cloak, the man rushed toward the table. Colben was still
screaming. The woman jumped away swiftly and let the
man into the Y. The penis was still jerking and emitting
blood and spermatic fluid; the head was half-bitten off.
The camera switched to the woman's face. Blood was
running down her chin and over her breasts.

Again, the camera panned back to the Dracula (so
Childe thought of him). Dracula cackled again, showing
two obviously false canines, long and sharp. Then he
bent down and began to chew savagely on the penis but

within a short time raised his head. The blood and
spermatic fluid was running out of his mouth and making
the front of his white shirt crimson. He opened his mouth
and spit out the head of the penis onto Colben's belly
and laughed, spraying blood over himself and Colben.

The first time, Childe had fainted. This time, he got
up and ran toward the door but vomited before he
reached it. He was not alone.