Authors: Edward Lee
The House (7 page)
"Uh... Yeah."
Knuckles did as was suggested. His penis appeared oddly small for a man of his size—maybe five inches erected. He popped it into Snowdrop's flaccid anus without so much as a quiver from her. His hips thrust back and forth a few times, then he kind of shimmied, paused, and stopped. "Ooo," he remarked. "Yeah." Then he withdrew his penis, sort of wiped it off on her buttock, and pulled his pants back up.
"Good nut, Knuckles?" Rocco asked.
"Uh, yeah. Put one right in her shit."
Rocco chuckled. "Christ, Knucks. These junkies don't eat. Ain't
got
no shit up their tails, either of 'em." Then he looked down and frowned. He withdrew his wet penis from Sissy's mouth. It hung half hard—long and thin, like a snake. "Ya stupid bitch, ya suck dick so bad I lost my woody." Then, quite suddenly, he—
got
no shit up their tails, either of 'em." Then he looked down and frowned. He withdrew his wet penis from Sissy's mouth. It hung half hard—long and thin, like a snake. "Ya stupid bitch, ya suck dick so bad I lost my woody." Then, quite suddenly, he—
whack!
—smacked her so hard on the side of the face he left a pink handprint on her cheek. Then—
smack!
—punched her in the eye, and then—
crack!
—drove the heel of his palm into her mouth.
"Mmmmmmmmm!"
Sissy moaned, bringing her hands to her face. She began to sidle over on the couch, blood running down her chin. Next, Rocco grabbed her by the hair with both hands—
"Mmmmmmmmm!"
Sissy moaned, bringing her hands to her face. She began to sidle over on the couch, blood running down her chin. Next, Rocco grabbed her by the hair with both hands—
"
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
" she whined.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
" she whined.
—and slammed her down on the floor. "Yeah, there it is," he remarked, seeming pacified. A full erection stuck out now. "Don't know why, ya know?" he said casually to Leonard. "Only way I can keep a good stiffer is to rough 'em up a little."
Sissy, bloody-mouthed, crawled forward, and resumed her fellatio. "Yeah, that's better, that's a good bitch," Rocco said. "Yeah, yeah—" He went up on his tiptoes... "Here comes lunch...
Ahhhh..."
Ahhhh..."
He pulled out, then leaned forward and pinched Sissy's cheeks together into a fish face. "Eat that nut, go on, eat it."
Sissy's throat clicked as she gulped.
"Good little junkie. Can't think of a better place for my spunk to be than in your skinny junkie gut." Rocco raised his trousers and from a pocket withdrew two small glassine bags of white powder. "One for you—" he threw one down to Sissy, "—and one for you—" and the other to Snowdrop.
Their dead eyes lit up as they fumbled for the diminutive packets. Then they literally crawled out of the room, down a dark hall, where they disappeared.
Rocco slapped Leonard on the back. "Usually we fuck around with 'em a lot more—more fun that way—and sometimes we'll have ya film it for a comp."
Leonard still was having trouble digesting all of this.
Comp?
"Uh, you mean a compilation?"
Comp?
"Uh, you mean a compilation?"
"Yeah, that's right. Keep your second camera loaded up for it, just odds and ends to splice together later. You'll see what I mean when you watch the stuff that other asshole made." Then he slapped a big bag of more tiny bags of white powder into Leonard's hands. "Hide this, and don't let 'em sweet talk ya. It'll last till next time we're up. Only give 'em two bags each a day. Don't forget, or they'll die. And make 'em eat half a can of spaghetti a day too. They won't want to so you gotta make 'em. Do it in the middle of the day so they don't puke it up. We don't really give a shit if they die 'cos we can pinch more off the circuit anytime we want. It's just that it's a hassle sometimes 'cos during the week me and Knuckles are picking up markers from New York to Raleigh. Keep 'em alive as long as you can. Got it?"
"Um, yes," Leonard said.
"What we need from ya this week is a twenty-minute master. Straight dog stuff, and we need at least four wet shots. Yeah, I know it's hard to get a dog to come on a girl—just keep doing it till you get it. And when I say a master I mean a flick that's ready to dupe. It's gotta be edited, titled, the whole nine yards." Rocco cut a grin, pinched Leonard's cheek. "I like ya, kid. So don't fuck up."
"Uh, right," Leonard said.
He followed Rocco and Leonard back out to the car. Rocco stuck a Lucky in his mouth and went on, "It's different week to week. It all depends pretty much on the demand for what we got warehoused. Kiddie stuff's way too hot—we got guys in Washington who do that—so you'll never have to do any kiddie stuff. Just animals mostly."
Just animals,
Leonard thought.
Leonard thought.
"We gotta stable out back next to the dog pen, but there ain't nothing in it right now. We make 'em as we need 'em. Vinch wants a goat flick, we bring up a goat. Vinch wants a donkey flick, we bring up a fuckin' donkey, like that. Vinch wants a horse flick...we bring up Knuckles' mother."
Knuckles pouted. "Oh, real funny, Roc."
Rocco hee-hawwed like a donkey. "And sometimes, kid, we do specials..."
"Specials?" Leonard couldn't help but query.
"Yeah. Scats, neks, wets, shit like that. Shit, I'm sorry, kid. You probably don't know what any of that is, huh?"
"Well, no."
"Just watch the shit in the cutting room, you'll see. Anyway, we gotta blow."
Leonard raised a curious brow. "You, uh, you mean...you're leaving?"
"That's right, kid." Rocco looked him dead in the eye. "I hope you're not stupid enough to be thinkin' what I think you're thinkin'. You might be thinkin' ‘Hey, these goombas are driving away. What's to keep me from high-tailing it out of here?' Is that what you're thinkin'?"
"Well, uh—"
Rocco nodded, put an arm around Leonard's shoulder. "Here's why you
shouldn't
be thinkin' that, kid. This place is the sticks, and I mean Sticks City. There ain't
nothin'
out here, no stores, no towns, no buses—nothin'. You're over twenty miles away from the closest road off the county emergency route. Nobody even drives past this place 'cos there ain't nothing to drive to, so you can forget about hitchin' a ride. A couple miles over the hill, yeah, there's a town but it's one of these fuckin' Amish towns or Quakers or some shit. About a hundred of 'em and they never leave. They got no phones, no cops—shit, kid, these flakes don't even have cars. They ride around in horse and buggies like a bunch of little assholes dressed up like pilgrims, and they live in this compound you can't even get into. They won't even talk to ya. So let's just say that you
do
decide to hoof it 20 motherfuckin' miles to the main road. You won't get nowhere. You leave, we'll find you. You could bury yourself in the woods and we'd find you. You could put on some of that scoober stuff like that French guy on TV Jock Gusto and you could swim to the bottom of the fuckin' sea, and we'd find you. That last asshole, the guy before you? He got all the way back to New York. And you know what happened?"
shouldn't
be thinkin' that, kid. This place is the sticks, and I mean Sticks City. There ain't
nothin'
out here, no stores, no towns, no buses—nothin'. You're over twenty miles away from the closest road off the county emergency route. Nobody even drives past this place 'cos there ain't nothing to drive to, so you can forget about hitchin' a ride. A couple miles over the hill, yeah, there's a town but it's one of these fuckin' Amish towns or Quakers or some shit. About a hundred of 'em and they never leave. They got no phones, no cops—shit, kid, these flakes don't even have cars. They ride around in horse and buggies like a bunch of little assholes dressed up like pilgrims, and they live in this compound you can't even get into. They won't even talk to ya. So let's just say that you
do
decide to hoof it 20 motherfuckin' miles to the main road. You won't get nowhere. You leave, we'll find you. You could bury yourself in the woods and we'd find you. You could put on some of that scoober stuff like that French guy on TV Jock Gusto and you could swim to the bottom of the fuckin' sea, and we'd find you. That last asshole, the guy before you? He got all the way back to New York. And you know what happened?"
"You, uh, found him?" Leonard guessed.
"That's right, kid, we found him. And we did a job on him Rocco Style. In the cutting room there's a can marked
Asshole.
Watch it tonight, first thing. And any time you even
think
about splitting, you watch it. Got it, kid?"
Asshole.
Watch it tonight, first thing. And any time you even
think
about splitting, you watch it. Got it, kid?"
"Uh, yes, Mr. Rocco."
"Good. Awright. We're out of here. Oh, and sorry about your ball, kid, but—hey—that's the way it is. It ain't our fault the world's so fucked up, right, Knucks?"
"Right," Knuckles studiously replied and got into the Cadillac. The big V-8 gunned up. Then Rocco got in the passenger side and put down the power window. "Later, kid. We'll be back next Friday with the horse."
Leonard stood and watched them drive away.
He stood there for a very long time.
««—»»
When he went back into the house and sometime, perhaps hours, later, he found the aforementioned plastic film can, labeled
Asshole.
He loaded it up on the RealView hand-crank and watched.
Asshole.
He loaded it up on the RealView hand-crank and watched.
He didn't have to watch long to get the gist.
On screen, a long-haired man lay lashed naked to something like a workbench in a room with stained walls and...drop cloths on the floor. Blood gushed from his mouth as another man wearing a rain poncho and a ...Lyndon Johnson mask was silently smacking a hammer into the long-haired man's—Asshole, from here on—mouth. Asshole flinched and quaked. Lyndon came around to the f.g., now brandishing a knitting needle, which he quite abruptly jammed into Asshole's penis via the ingress of the urethra. His hips bucked and bucked as the knitting needle was jammed down and down until it was gone save for the shiny cap on the end. Sewing needles then were placed almost daintily one by one into Asshole's clenched testicles. One after another, until the gonads more resembled some kind of sci-fi porcupine. Next another, much bigger man in a poncho entered the frame. He was wearing the rubber Spock mask. A fileting knife was produced, and then Spock began, with much technical dexterity, to slough strips of skin off Asshole's chest, abdomen, and legs. Shortly thereafter, Asshole died, but not before Spock had just as dextrously cut off his face.
Leonard snapped off the editor's lamp.
He just stared for a while.
He felt numb.
He felt unreal.
He needed to get out again, out into fresh air. Not to escape, mind you—after witnessing Asshole's cinematic demise, Leonard heeded Rocco's warning well. He wandered the yard in moonlight, strayed past the small empty stable and then the dog pens. Within the latter, several skinny, mange-flecked dogs—a collie, a mongrel, and a German Shepherd—raised their heads from sleep and looked at him, their tongues hanging out. Leonard looked back in complete incomprehension.
Here are my stars,
he realized in a slow jolt.
I want to make movies, and here is my cast...
Moments later, the dogs lowered their heads and went back to sleep, unimpressed by the new director of the production house.
Here are my stars,
he realized in a slow jolt.
I want to make movies, and here is my cast...
Moments later, the dogs lowered their heads and went back to sleep, unimpressed by the new director of the production house.
Then a hand touched his shoulder and a stonelike voice cracked, "Sinner, repent ye of your sins. For we, the vassals of God, know what it is you are doing here."
««—»»
The time it took Leonard to shriek and piss his pants seemed like a full five minutes when actually it only consumed perhaps a few seconds. He spun around, eyes locked open and his heart hammering, to face a broad-shouldered figure standing in the dark.
"Huh—who are you!" Leonard wheezed.
The figure stepped forward into moonlight. '50s or '60s, it seemed, and a stern, work-weathered face with narrowed eyes full of contempt. The man's voice had sounded solid yet eloquent, like an evangelical fire-and-brimstone preacher, and his attire presented a parity.
It's one of the Quakers,
Leonard realized, or whatever they were. Rocco had mentioned a secluded township just over the hill. And the man looked the part: slacks and jacket made of what seemed black sack sloth, a starched white shirt and painfully stiff collar, a black string for a bow-tie, and black hand-cobbled shoes. He even wore an austere black brim hat, and looked just like Ernest Borgnine in Wes Craven's
Deadly Blessing
, not that Leonard himself could make such a simile, for that particular film would not be made for several years. Nor could he possibly know that the film would star a wan young blonde named Sharon Stone, and provide the only
decent
role in her forthcoming megastar career, but that was beside the point.
It's one of the Quakers,
Leonard realized, or whatever they were. Rocco had mentioned a secluded township just over the hill. And the man looked the part: slacks and jacket made of what seemed black sack sloth, a starched white shirt and painfully stiff collar, a black string for a bow-tie, and black hand-cobbled shoes. He even wore an austere black brim hat, and looked just like Ernest Borgnine in Wes Craven's
Deadly Blessing
, not that Leonard himself could make such a simile, for that particular film would not be made for several years. Nor could he possibly know that the film would star a wan young blonde named Sharon Stone, and provide the only
decent
role in her forthcoming megastar career, but that was beside the point.
"Yuh-you're one of the Quakers from down the hill," Leonard jabbered when his heart rate went back down.
"Lord on high!" the man cracked back. "We are not any foolhearty Quakers! We are the Epiphanites!"
"Uh, sorry," Leonard apologized.
"And I am the Rector Solomon come to warn ye to keep thy distance from our little circle of God, sinner!"
Even Leonard had to raise some objection now. "Excuse me? You don't even
know
me, so how can you judge me a sinner?"
know
me, so how can you judge me a sinner?"
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