Image of the Beast / Blown

  pressed against him, and he lacked the will, or the

  strength, to try to push her away. He was still trembling.

  The woman muttered something in Spanish. He did not

  understand the words, but her tone was intended to be

  soothing. She backed away and began to undress swiftly.

  The dress slid off, and the three petticoats, and then the

  knee length underwear and the long black stockings and

  corset. Dolores, in the nude, was a magnificent woman.

  The breasts were full and the nipples, almost as large as

  the ends of his thumbs, pointed upwards slightly. The

  pubic hair was thick and black and a line extended from

  it upward, like the smoke from a distant fire, to her navel.

  The fluid beginning to soak her hair and run down her

  leg showed how deeply impatient she was.

  Childe, seeing these, felt less afraid. She looked too

  much of the protoplasm, too little of the ectoplasm, for

  him to believe to the core of his mind that she was truly a

  ghost.

  He was far from being at ease, however. And when he

  tried his little Spanish to ask her if she could release him,

  he realized that she had no intention of letting him loose.

  Or else she was not able to do so.

  He repeated his request that she get the key from

  Magda. She shook her head, indicating that she would not

  do so or she did not understand him. Perhaps—he hoped

  —she meant to release him but only after she had gotten

  what she wanted. What she wanted, for some reason or

  other, was Childe.

  Not that it was any mystery about what she wanted.

  The reason why he was her choice was the mystery. At

  present, he could do nothing to find out.

  She kissed him again and again and finally she began to

  play with his penis while she kissed him. He could not get

  an erection; the touch of her ringers turned his flesh cold

  as a dying man's, and he shrank from her. He was, liter-

  ally, spooked.

  Finally, she quit kissing him. She backed away again

  and inspected him with stabs of her black eyes and then

  frowned. But she approached again, speaking in soothing

  but incomprehensible Spanish, and got down on her knees

  in the straw. She took his limp penis into her warm

  mouth. She began to suck slowly, while the tips of her fin-

  gers touched the insides of his thighs where the thigh and

  belly met. His flesh began to warm, and the penis, as if the

  blood, once frozen, had suddenly become fluid, began to

  fill out. The old familiar but never boring sensations be-

  gan to come back. He put his hands on her hair and

  pulled the high comb out and let it flood loose around her

  shoulders. He moved his hips back and forth.

  Suddenly, she had unmouthed his penis and was kissing

  him again, running her tongue around his mouth. Then

  she took his penis and, rising to her toes, let herself down

  upon it. It slid up into her cunt; she moved back and forth

  a few times, and he came.

  There are orgasms and there are orgasms.

  This was so exquisite that he passed out, very briefly,

  during the ejaculations.

  It was as if she had sparked within the chamber of her

  cunt, as if a century and a half of chastity were loosed

  along the shaft of his cock. Or as if she had generated a

  current that shot lightning down his nerves. So intense

  was the sensation, he was not sure that he was not burned

  out—literally. Perhaps something electrical had been dis-

  charged.

  Childe was restricted to an upright position because of

  the chain. He told the woman, the ghost, or whatever she

  was, to get the key from Magda, but she paid him no at-

  tention except to look at him when he was talking. He

  could not understand why she did not get the key, since it

  was to her advantage to do so. And then it occurred to

  him that she was probably afraid that he would take off

  and leave her. And she did not want that, because she

  had too much to unloose. Or so it seemed to him.

  He was limited in his area of activity and angle of po-

  sition, but Dolores was ingenious. After she had sucked

  his penis into a full rigidity again, drawing in on it with

  just the reverse action of blowing up a balloon but with

  the direct effect of blowing and had licked off and swal-

  lowed the spermatic fluid and cleaned off his penis in the

  process, she released it. She got down on her hands and

  knees and turned away from him and then stood up on

  her hands, her legs spread wide. She let herself fall

  frontward, toward him, and her feet struck the wall on

  each side of him. After working her way forward on her

  hands a little, she was in the position she wanted. He

  thought at first of refusing her, but after considering that

  she might leave him locked up if he did, he grabbed her

  hips. His penis went past and under the anus and into the

  slit and she rocked back and forth.

  Like Magda, she could squeeze upon his dong with the

  muscles of the vaginal sheath. He moved only a little,

  pulling her hips in to him with short savage jerks. Within

  a few seconds, she was shuddering and sobbing, appar-

  ently having one orgasm on the heels of the next. Her

  cries were in Spanish. He knew little of that, but he could

  catch, "Oh, holy fucking virgin mother Maria! Oh, father

  of the big cock! Fuck! Fuck! Shit! Shit! Oh, Christ,

  blessed Jesus, ah, sweet Jesus, he's fucking me! Fuck

  me, blessed flesh! Sweet flesh, fuck me!"

  At that time he did not think about her words; he was

  just reacting. But he would remember and wonder. If she

  were the daughter of old Don del Osorojo, the sheltered

  daughter of the weird old grandee, she had a surprising

  vocabulary. But then, during a century and a half of

  hanging around live people, she could be expected to pick

  up words she might not have heard before death. But why

  hadn't she learned English in that time?

  Now, he did not think of what she was saying. He was

  taking a long time coming, so long that he was able to

  turn her over, or around. Her arms were then braced be-

  low her, her feet against the wall, her cunt rammed

  against him, and she pushed back and forth while he

  reached down and rubbed her breasts and nipples with

  his hands. She had strong muscles; she could remain in

  that human-arch position, her head hanging down, and

  rock back and forth and occasionally stab her ass forward

  with no support of his hands under her hips.

  After what seemed a long time, he jetted. Dolores

  screamed with the crescendo of climaxes. Then she let

  her feet slide down the wall while he helped ease her

  weight with his hands on her buttocks and then clamped

  her legs between his arms and let her slide on down. On

  the floor, she lay on her back, panting and looking up

  while spermatic fluid fell drop by drop into her open

  mouth. Then she scooted a little to one side to let the

&nb
sp; drops fall on her breasts and rubbed the sticky stuff over

  them. The chlorox odor of the fluid and the odor of sweat

  were strong in the chamber.

  When her breathing became normal, Dolores rose and

  gave him a long tonguey spermaticky kiss. Her hand

  fondled his testicles.

  He turned his head away and said, "No more, Dolores.

  Or whoever or whatever you are."

  His legs trembled. Fucking in bed was demanding

  enough, but fucking standing up took twice as much out

  of him. And it seemed to him that Dolores had means

  for draining him of more than the normal quota of energy.

  For a few seconds, she had given him energy—he would

  swear that she had discharged a current down his penis—

  but then the orgasms had been so exquisite that they had

  opened gates to drain the reservoir.

  He had no objective reason for thinking so, but he felt

  that she had robbed him of a certain amount of vital en-

  ergy and strengthened and solidified herself. Certainly,

  she had seemed flesh enough when he had felt her. But

  now, she seemed to have somehow become even more

  solid.

  Dolores, seeing him shake so, said something, smiled,

  and held her finger up as if to tell him to wait there.

  (What the hell else could he do?) And she left the room.

  In a few seconds, she was back with a bottle of red wine

  and a big chunk of filet mignon. (Did she have secret ac-

  cess to the kitchen?) He said no to the wine but eagerly

  ate the meat. Although he had finished supper only

  a half-hour ago, or so it seemed, he was very hungry.

  Dolores tilted the bottle to her lips and drank. Almost,

  he expected to see a dark column going down the throat

  and into the stomach, as if she were a transparent figure

  in a stomach-acid commercial. But he could see only the

  Adam's apple moving.

  If he was hungry, she was thirsty. She kept the bottle to

  her lips until it was half empty. She may have intended to

  fully empty it, but a noise came through the door, which

  she had left ajar. Dolores jerked and dropped the bottle.

  It fell on its side and spurted red wine on the straw.

  She bent down and scooped up all her clothes, rolled

  them into a bundle, which she placed under her right arm,

  and then kissed him swiftly, breathing wine and sperm.

  She ran to the wall on his right; her left hand pushed

  along the juncture of two gray blocks. With a groan and a

  squeak, a section of wall, consisting of blocks six high

  and four wide, swung inward on the left side. The interior

  was dark. Dolores turned and smiled and threw some-

  thing that glittered. He lunged for it, but the chain jerked

  him back, cutting off his breath, and the object bounced

  off his fingertips and fell on the straw.

  It was the key to the lock on the metal collar.

  The darkness swallowed Dolores. The section, squeak-

  ing and groaning again, swung shut.

  A huge head with huge jowls, large purplish eyes, and

  a high-piled blue-black hairdo, came around the corner

  of the doorway. Mrs. Grasatchow.

  From behind her came excited voices. The fat

  woman's eyes widened. She pushed the door open and

  waddled across the straw to Childe. He slowly drew back

  the foot he had extended to try to move the key toward

  him.

  Mrs. Grasatchow sniffed loudly and then screamed,

  "Jism!" She grunted like a sow about to give birth. "Who's

  been here? Who? Tell me! Who?"

  "Didn't you see her?" Childe said. "She went down

  the hall!"

  "Who?"

  "Dolores del Osorojo!"

  Mrs. Grasatchow's skin was naturally pale and made

  even whiter by her powder. But she managed to turn

  more white.

  The baron, a long cigar in one hand, entered the

  room. He said, "I thought it would be Dolores. Only

  she …"

  The fat woman whirled swiftly, as graceful as a rhi-

  noceros, which is huge but can be very graceful in certain

  movements.

  "You said … you pooh-poohed Dolores! You said she

  couldn't be any danger to us!"

  The baron looked shrewdly at Childe before answering.

  He puffed on his cigar and said, "It didn't seem likely

  that she would ever get enough plasm long enough to

  harden it. But I was wrong."

  "What did she do to Magda?" Mrs. Grasatchow said.

  The baron shrugged. "We'll have to ask Magda that

  when she comes to. If she does."

  The doorway was filled with the body of Glam. He

  carried Magda, still naked, in his arms. Her head lolled,

  her long blonde hair hung down, her arms and legs were

  limp.

  Glam said, "What do I do with her?"

  "Take her upstairs to her room. Put her to bed.

  Tell Vivienne to look at her."

  Glam's expression flickered from stone-mask to some-

  thing unreadable and back to stone-mask. The baron said,

  "She's defenseless now, true. But if I were you, I wouldn't

  try anything."

  Glam said nothing. He turned and carried the woman

  off. The two blond youths, Chornkin and Krautschner,

  looked in, each from a side of the doorway.

  "Did you see Dolores?" the baron said.

  They shook their heads. The baron glanced at the sec-

  tion of wall which had opened for Dolores. He opened his

  mouth as if he were going to tell the youths where she

  had gone and to send them after her. But he closed his

  lips.

  Childe thought that perhaps the baron preferred to

  keep certain secrets. Didn't he trust the two? Or did he

  think it would be futile to chase after her? In any event,

  he must think that Childe had seen the exit.

  "She has to be flesh enough to fuck," Mrs. Grasatchow

  said. "Look at the redness of his cock and the jisrn."

  "I can see," the baron said dryly. "Magda's key was

  gone. Childe, do you have it?"

  Childe shook his head. Igescu went to the two youths

  and they whispered for a moment. Then the youths

  turned their backs to each other and went off down the

  hall, bent over, searching. The baron came back in and

  said, "Take your eyes off his cock, and help me look for

  that key."

  "Here it is!" Mrs. Grasatchow said.

  She stooped, picked it up, and straightened, groaning.

  The baron took it and put it in his jacket pocket.

  Childe tightened his lips. He had no chance now, unless

  Dolores came back to help him. He doubted that she

  would. Although she had thrown the key to him, she had

  not made sure he had had it, and she had had time to do

  so. The gesture had seemed to say that he could escape if

  he were agile enough and clever enough. Perhaps, she was

  resentful of her long, long frustrating imprisonment in in-

  corporeality. She might have wanted him to suffer, too.

  After all, she had taken him, not because of affection or

  love but because she needed an object to relieve herself

  on.

  But she was partly on his side. That w
as his only

  hope, at present.

  The baron left the room, and, in a few seconds, the two

  youths entered. The boy had the key. He unlocked the

  collar, and he and the girl, each holding Childe by

  an arm, hustled him out of the room. They passed

  two doors and entered the third, which was already open.

  This was a room the size of the one he had just left, but its

  walls were oak-paneled, the ceiling was painted light

  blue, and the floor was covered with a thick Persian rug

  profuse with swastikas inside circles. There were a num-

  ber of collars hanging from chains attached to bolts sunk

  into the wall, however. Childe was again held by a metal

  collar.

  This room must have no secret entrances.

  The baron looked at his wristwatch and said, "We have

  to do something about her. She wasn't dangerous until she

  got enfleshed. But everything has its disadvantage. Now

  she's dangerous, she's also vulnerable. We can do some-

  thing about her, and we will. I'm going to call a confer-

  ence."

  Mrs. Grasatchow pouted. She said, "Now Magda's out

  of the way, I'd thought …"

  "Half an hour. No more," Igescu said. "I'll send some-

  body down to escort you. You wouldn't want to be alone

  on the way up."

  The fat woman started. It was as if a tidal wave were

  racing through her flesh.

  "You mean I ... I ... have to worry? That I'm in

  danger?"

  She bellowed with laughter.

  "We all are," the baron said. "All of a sudden, our se-

  curity is gone. This," he stabbed a thumb at Childe, "has

  something to do with it but I don't know what. He's a

  focus of some sort. Maybe Dolores has been waiting for

  someone like him all these years.

  "Half an hour," he said. "I mean it. And don't use him

  up. I still want a piece of him."

  The baron left, closing the door behind him. Mrs.

  Grasatchow started to take her clothes off. Childe's legs

  began to shake again.

  16

  He told her that she was wasting her time. He did not tell

  her that, even if he had not been drained and weakened,

  he would have been unable to respond positively to her.

  The enormous hanging breasts, the tremendous belly,