by Jeff Gelb
She showed him a medical report with the name and address blanked. It looked official. Someone had tested positive for HIV virus. So—big deal. What the fuck did this have to do with him?
“You made her lose her baby, she said to me on the phone. The one thing she wanted most in the world. You knew that, but you took her to some fool that cut her up. Left her unable to walk, let alone have any future kids. Then you walked out on her. That’s pretty fucking low.
“It was all I could do not to scream, you know? It was like letting a snake go inside me. I guess I wanted this almost as much as she did.”
He was there in the Vegas strip air-conditioning long after she left, working at the cord and reading the ad she’d left propped on the pillow beside him:
IF YOU HAVE TESTED POSITIVE AND WANT TO PERFORM A COURAGEOUS ACT, FOR WHICH YOU WILL BE HANDSOMELY PAID, CONTACT ME WITH TOTAL CONFIDENCE. IF YOU HAVE THE COURAGE AND THE VIRUS, I HAVE THE MONEY AND THE TARGET. WRITE LAS VEGAS, BOX 69.
Prized Possession
Jeff Gelb
They sized each other up through the small glass window of the ranch home’s front door, like two prizefighters about to do battle. Inside, Berton Randolph, tall, blond-haired, and wiry, opened the door an inch.
“Crawford?”
“You were expected maybe Jamie Gillis?”
“Anyone with you?”
“Like who—the FBI? Cut the shit. You know I wouldn’t bring anyone.”
“What took you so long?”
“Fuck, this place is twice as far out of town as you said on the phone. I got lost. There’s not exactly any neighbors to ask directions from. I only stumbled on the road by mistake.”
Randolph shrugged. “I like my privacy.” He looked beyond Crawford at the peaceful, rolling hills of rural upstate New York. “So where’s the stuff?”
“In the car.” John Crawford, dark, bearded, and stocky, pointed to the station wagon parked in the dirt driveway. Its side and rear windows were obscured by darkened glass.
“You could fit it all in there?” Randolph sneered.
“Hey, it ain’t the size, it’s the quality,” Crawford retorted. “We gonna get on with this or what?”
Randolph scowled. “I made the offer, you accepted. You feel like backing out, now’s the time.”
Crawford said nothing, his face betraying his hatred for the man in front of him. Finally, Crawford strode back to his car, turning off the burglar alarm and unlocking the doors with a keychain control.
Randolph joined Crawford at the car and hoisted several large acid-free cardboard containers out of the stuffed trunk. He whistled. “There’s more in here than I thought.”
“Of course,” Crawford said. “No one in the world has more than I do.”
“Until today,” Randolph jeered.
Ten minutes later, they’d emptied the car of its load, piling twenty-seven boxes of various sizes outside a locked room in the back of the house.
Crawford looked around. “Anyone else here?”
Randolph shook his head.
The two eyed each other suspiciously.
“You know can’t let you in till I search you,” Randolph said defensively.
“Well,” said Crawford with a sigh, “let’s get on with it, then.”
Randolph patted Crawford from head to toe, back and front, and then stood up while Crawford mirrored his movements. When both were satisfied that neither was hiding a weapon, Randolph turned away from Crawford, hiding his movements as he fingered the lock of the door. It clicked, was removed, and Randolph swung open the door.
Crawford had to smile as he looked inside. The twelve-by-twelve room was even better than he could have imagined—it was a virtual shrine. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were bulging with magazine-sized boxes, videotapes, and other memorability. The sight nearly brought tears to his eyes. It was, in bulk anyway, seemingly an even better collection than his own.
“Stacey Tracey,” he whispered. It sounded like a prayer.
“No one but,” breathed Randolph. “The porn queen of all time.”
Crawford nodded, his mouth agape at the sight of a life-sized stand-up of Tracey. Randolp noticed the stare and smiled. “One of only twenty-five made. It’s from her last film, Tracy on All Cummers.”
“I know that,” Crawford hissed.
“I have stand-ups rom three of her films,” Randolph crowed, obviously enjoying watching Crawford squirm. “But you didn’t come to see my collection. You came to sell me yours.”
Crawford walked slowly around the room. His fingers traced the stacks of skin mags. He picked up a batch and flipped through it, recognizing many of the titles from his own collection. He gazed at row after row of videos, all pristine in their original box-cover art.
“All ninety-six films,” Randolph said, the scorn evident in his voice. “Including the one she made before she was eighteen.”
Crawford ignored him, continuing to look around the room. One wall was covered with posters and photos. Crawford counted seven with her autograph.
“All genuine,” Randolph said, as if reading Crawford’s mind.
“Shit,” Crawford muttered. There was no doubt about it: Randolph’s collection eclipsed his own. “How’d you score them? She never signed autographs.”
“I don’t take no for an answer, that’s how. Unlike you, Crawford. I met her at the adult video awards two years ago and I made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.”
“Shit.” Crawford sulked. He’d always thought he owned the most obscure Tracey memorabilia around, but he was way out of his league here.
Crawford had first learned of Tracey from a fellow bank teller who’d just rented one of her earliest adult films, back in the last days of 35mm adult features. She had reminded Crawford of a girl he’d had a crush on throughout high school but had never spoken with, let alone seen naked, legs spread, breasts upthrust. Except in his dreams.
Always a collector at heart, Crawford had gone around the bend in his efforts to amass the world’s largest hoard of Tracey memorabilia. His obsession ate up all his time, distracting him at work, until even the co-worker who’d turned him on to Tracey had refused to speak with him, branding him “weird.” Well, what did he—or any of them—know?
He could still remember the moment he’d heard she was quitting the business. She was supposedly marrying a retired millionaire to live on his yacht, cruising the world, getting the ultimate tan all over that ultimate body.
Once she’d dropped out of circulation, it had become next to impossible for Crawford to find anything new of hers to collect, until he’d learned of Randolph, who had come out of nowhere and supposedly built up an even larger stash of Tracey stuff than his own. Randolph immediately became Crawford’s archrival, and his new obsession.
Crawford continued his inspection of the room. There was the spiked collar from Give the Dog a Boner. The ivory dildo from Jungle Lust. He picked it up gingerly, sniffed it, hoping for some trace scent of her. It smelled like lilac soap.
“Time’s wasting, Crawford. You gonna show me what you got or what?”
Crawford turned his attention back to Randolph, who stood against a mannequin dressed in that same nightie, stockings, and heels that Tracey had worn in her most famous role, Old Loves Die Hard. In the dummy’s hand was the whip Tracey had used in Whipped Cream and Other Sexual Delights.
Randolph smirked. “I also have the heels she wore in Spike Jones, the costume from Superbitch, the—”
“I get the picture,” Crawdord hissed. “If you’ve got all this stuff, why buy my collection? You probably have everything I have.”
Randolph shrugged. “I’ll admit it: You stumbled over some good shit along the way. It bothers me that anyone else has Tracey stuff that I don’t have.”
“So why not just buy the stuff you need?”
Randolph shrugged. “I’m a collector. I don’t like the competition. If I buy you out, it’ll give me by far the biggest collection of her material. You might
say it’s the culmination of my collecting career.
“And,” he finished, “it puts you out of business.”
“Yeah, but I’ll be rich.”
Randolph snorted. “It won’t matter, Crawford. Lots of people have money. Only one person will have the ultimate Stacey Tracey collection. And it won’t be you.”
Randolph turned his attention to the first of the boxes they dragged in from Crawford’s car, examining and inventorying its contents. Crawford turned away. It was almost unbearable to see Randolph fingering the photos, videos, magazines, and ephemera Crawford had spent the last five years and thousands of dollars accumulating.
“I’ll bet you were shocked when I called,” Randolph said.
Crawford shrugged.
“So why’d you decide to sell?” Randolph asked as he sifted through boxes stuffed with still shots from each of her films, plus reams of candid shots and outtakes from various adult-mag photo shoots.
“That’s my business,” Crawford snarled as he continued his visual search of Randolph’s collection. There were all four years from Tracey’s high-school days; the two Tracey calendars that had instantly sold out.
Randolph nodded, continuing the work at hand: sorting, writing, calculating conditions and prices. Finally, he looked up again, wiping his tired eyes. “Twenty thousand cash, right now.”
Crawford grimaced. “You haven’t even opened the last box.” He pointed to his feet, where a small box had been partially obscured by a Tracey stand-up.
Randolph shrugged. “I don’t need to. To tell you the truth, I’m disappointed in your collection, Crawford. I guess the rumors I heard weren’t true. Your collection is shit, but it makes me feel good to take you out of circulation. Twenty grand.”
“It’s worth twice that much easy and you know it.”
Randolph shrugged. “Fine. Go sell it. Maybe a classified in the New York Times? Do you really want junkies or cops clawing over your stuff?”
“Thirty.”
“My price is firm and it goes down in ten minutes. Think about it.”
You shit. You don’t deserve to be Tracey’s biggest fan.
“Maybe you’ll change your mind when you see what’s in this box,” Crawford said as he reached down and carefully tore tape off the sides and center of the box lid. He put a hand inside and came out with a .38 Special, which he pointed at Randolph.
Randolph blinked, then laughed nervously. “What is it, a prop from Tracey’s Dick?
Crawford pulled the trigger and a deafening shot rang out. Across the room, the ivory dildo exploded into shards. “Oops,” Crawford said, smiling wickedly.
Randolph literally jumped to his feet. “Hey, I was just kidding. I think I can go thirty thousand. Just put the gun down.”
Crawford laughed humorlessly. “Oh, I’ll take your thirty thousand and your collection, asshole. I never planned to sell my stuff to you. And you’ll never live to enjoy mine.”
Randolph’s eyes darted from Crawford to the door and back. “You’re going to…”
“It doesn’t take a genius, dickhead. There’s only room in this world for one man to be Tracey’s biggest fan, and that’s going to be me.”
Randolph bolted for the open door and was felled by an immediate shot from Crawford’s gun that struck him in the shoulder. Randolph cursed as he fell to the floor. “Oh, shit,” he grunted through clenched teeth. “Please don’t shoot again. I’ll do anything. I’ll give you anything.”
Crawford cocked an eyebrow. “Like what?” There was no telling what other Stacey stuff Randolph might have stashed away somewhere else, stuff even better than what was in this room, Crawford thought. Might as well help myself to it all.
Randolph crawled over to a framed picture of Tracey, lifted it off the wall, and twisted the dials on a hidden safe. It opened, and Randolph grabbed three unmarked videotape boxes from its depths. He carefully loaded one of the tapes into a Super VHS machine and turned on a high-resolution thirty-inch TV monitor.
Onscreen was a crystal-clear image of Tracey, writhing on the concrete floor of an empty room. She was nude, legs spread, fingering herself. A masked man entered the scene, grabbed Tracey by her long dyed-blond hair, and impaled her face on his dick. She lapped at it with wild abandon, as if it were manna from heaven. In less than a minute, the man squirted a creamy load onto her balloonlike, uptilted breasts.
Crawford nodded. “I’m impressed. I don’t remember this scene in any of her movies. And she looks…different, somehow. Thinner, or something.”
Randolph whispered, “This is private stock.” Even in pain, his voice had an air of superiority.
“Where’d you…?” Crawford was unable to finish his question, as the man on film began doing things to Tracey that were at best degrading. “I can’t believe she would do this stuff,” Crawford sputtered, unable to look away from the video.
Randolph’s hand jerked back into the safe and brought out a gun. He fired a bullet that whizzed past Crawford’s forehead and into the life-sized breast of the Tracey stand-up.
Weak from his wound, Randolph wiped at his eyes to regain clear vision. Crawford fired. Randolph gasped and fell against a bookshelf, dislodging hundreds of magazines and videotape boxes, then the bookshelf itself, which fell in a heavy metallic heap atop him. He groaned as blood gushed out of his mouth and a hole in his chest.
“Help me,” he whispered. “Get me to a hospital.”
“Fuck you, Randolph.” Crawford laughed. “You probably meant to kill me all along.” He pointed the weapon at Randolph’s head.
“No, wait. I’ll…give you something else. Something better. My…most prized possession,” Randolph sputtered through bloody lips.
Crawford laughed. “What’s that? An Uzi you have hidden somewhere?”
Randolph reached a shaking hand to touch a switch behind the filing cabinet.
“No you don’t,” Crawford said as he fired again. Randolph’s hand blew apart as a bookshelf against the opposite wall moved sideways to reveal a door that popped open.
Stacey Tracey, bound, gagged, nude, writhed against the chains that held her to the far wall of the empty room.
“Ohmigod,” Crawford muttered.
“Yours,” Randolph gasped, the blood from his mouth now just a trickle. “Just call the…” His head hit the carpet and bounced once, then was still.
Crawford’s attention was diverted by Stacey’s cried, muffled by the rubber ball in her mouth, held in place by leather straps around her face.
He ran to her side, untying her bonds. “It’s okay,” he said, attempting to calm her. “Everything’s going to be all right now. I’ll get you out of her. The guy was obviously a fucking maniac, keeping you here like this.”
She fell into his arms. He was actually holding Stacey Tracey! He could feel the fullness of her breasts heaving against his chest, the roundness of her hips grinding against his groin, the long fingers reaching for his hand and grabbing the gun away from him before he even knew it.
And pulling the trigger once, twice, three times, the sound deafening. He gasped, more in surprise than pain, falling against the wall and then dropping to the floor like a marionette severed from its strings.
Crawford fruitlessly tried to cover the three bullet holes with his hands. He was starting to feel the pain now, but beyond the agony there was the ecstasy of Stacey Tracey, kneeling before him, looking exactly like she did in the video he’d just watched. The video, Crawford realized woozily, she’d obviously been forced to make with Randolph, her captor.
“I…don’t understand. I tried to save you,” he lied. It wasn’t too late, he figured, to play her knight in shining armor.
“Save me from what?” she screamed, her voice sounding to his dying ears like a bad connection on a long-distance call. As he faded from consciousness, he heard her say, “You stupid shit! Berton Randolph was the only one who knew how to please me—he was my husband!”
Mr. Right
Chris Lacher
Russ put his psychology book aside and rubbed his eyes. The clock on the nightstand read six P.M. He picked up the copy of Gent he’d bought with lunch at the liquor store and flipped it open. The first pictorial displayed a homely black teen with fifty-inch tits and a chunky ass—which would’ve been okay if her face were a little easier on the eyes. Nonetheless, Russ started to get a boner.
He signed and looked out the bedroom window. Across the street, volunteers for the Catholic church were preparing for their annual fiesta. Big rigs had been arriving since yesterday morning, dumping small cranes, rides, booths, and other carnival equipment on the fields normally reserved for the youth baseball leagues. Russ had a unique view of the goings-on from his upstairs window, as if he were watching from a misplaced Ferris wheel or something. He’d asked Vicki before she left for work that morning if she wanted to go over tonight, but she hadn’t really answered.
Just then the phone rang. He picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hi,” Vicki said cheerfully, “what’s up?”
“Nothin’ much. What’s up with you, babe?”
“Got a big collar. Some dickhead dope dealer led us to a whole buncha drugs, plus a coupla other dealers. I’ll try t’get outta here by nine or so.”
“Oh. Okay. No problem. I’ll be here.”
“Good.” She sounded as cheery as when he’d first answered. “We’ll go over to the carnival tomorrow, okay?”
Russ said fine, told her to be careful, then hung up and went back to his magazine. He didn’t like to think about her work too much—it scared him, naturally. She was a tough girl—she could get into Gent with no problem, he thought, or at least she could’ve before she lost all that weight—but anything could happen nowadays. All those assholes running around with Uzis and shit.
