And the dilettante mounted Gretchen baroque.
“Look down the street!”
“It’s a flame!”
“It’s arson!”
“It’s FIREMAN!”
Ignited from the flames of a Salem witch-burning and mysteriously delivered to the Guff by saviors from outer space, FIREMAN secretly uses his mysterious burning powers to fight the forces of evil and injustice, meanwhile posing as M. Monsieur, a timid, harmless chef.
And the chef skewered Gretchen en brochette.
“Look up at that wall!”
“It’s a bug!”
“It’s a spider!”
“It’s MANTISMAN!”
Mysteriously absorbing the superpowers of an Amazon explorer from outer space, and transported to the Guff aboard a fruit freighter, MANTISMAN uses his mysterious insect skills to fight the forces of evil and injustice, meanwhile posing as Speed Stubbs, a timid, harmless SpaceCap.
And the SpaceCap banged Gretchen stelliform.
“Look at that pyramid!”
“It’s a rock!”
“It’s a stone!”
“It’s INCAMAN!”
Saved from his dying mother’s womb by a Sun Priest from Algol IV, and endowed with the mysterious Egyptian magic of the pyramids, INCAMAN uses his occult powers to fight the forces of evil and injustice in the Guff, meanwhile posing as Alex Brut, a timid, harmless secretary.
And the secretary banged Gretchen widdershins.
Then came BURNMAN, COSMICMAN, DEMONMAN, ISOMAN, SHARKMAN, MAGNETMAN, PLASTICMAN, JETMAN, POWERMAN, and a score more dreaming drones, all fighting for their turn to fulfill themselves with the reality of Gretchen’s compelling invitation and mount her in pronation, in supination, akimbo, backhand, mizzenmast, bunchbacked, crural, zigzag, oblique, careened, skewed, uphill and downhill. And finally SCIENCEMAN, posing as Blaise Shima, a timid, harmless chemist, had his turn to rencounter Gretchen with stoccado thrusts.
But it was during this climax that the frenzy of the queen pheromone was exhausted and the nuptial flight ended. Gretchen’s spasming muscles in her pubes contracted in a last convulsion and clenched steel-tight. Shima’s penis was torn out of him to remain gripped in her vulva. Still dominated by the new regal role possessing her, Gretchen ignored Shima and left him, writhing and bleeding to death.
22
When Gretchen staggered into her Oasis, she was instantly surrounded by excited women who passed her from embrace to embrace, stroking, petting, kissing her. Up in her shambled apartment they produced a divan, liberated from somewhere else, and coaxed her to recline on it. She was a naked odalisque, streaming with sweat, saliva, and semen, primal and pungent. They clustered around her nude body, gently stroking her Venus-mount until the contraction cramp relaxed. Then they withdrew Shima’s bloody penis, the mating sign that their queen was no longer a virgin, and waited, rustling and whispering in a humming buzz.
At last Gretchen opened her eyes and looked around. They fell silent and watched her expectantly.
“It’s all got to be restored,” she said in a faint voice.
“Yes, BB.”
“Everything back to the future.”
“Yes, BB.” They didn’t understand but laughed submissively.
Gretchen’s control began to return. “Priss, you must know cleaning companies.”
“Yes, BB.”
“Hire one.”
“They’re expensive, BB.”
“I can afford it.”
“All of us can do it together, BB,” the two-headed monster with four arms offered. “You don’t have to pay.”
“No. I have another assignment for you two. Which of us did I kill?”
“You don’t remember?” Mary Mixup was astonished.
“No.”
“Y-You killed three,” Priss stammered. “N-Nell. Sarah. Y-Yenta. You almost k-killed her rabbi, too.”
“Yes. The prime contenders. Let’s get that settled. Oodgedye, Udgedye, I want their bods taken to the Guff precinct. You will tell Subadar Ind’dni exactly what happened. Can do?”
“Will do, BB.” The twins didn’t dream of dissenting, objecting or recusing.
“He’ll probably issue an A.P.B. for me, but I’ll handle that. You guards, help the twins and go back to Security duty. No more invasions.”
“Yes, BB.”
“Where’s the Raxon woman?”
“Here, BB.”
“I’m having your apartment cleaned and restored too, but your ceiling and my floor must be repaired. Do you know construction people?”
“Yes, BB.”
“Hire a contractor. I’ll pay.”
“Not all, BB. My girls did as much damage as yours.”
“My girls? Yes. My girls. But I’m running my girls and I’m picking up the tab for everything. Get a contractor.”
“Yes, BB.”
“Where’s the Pi-girl?”
“Here, BB.”
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen, ma’am person.”
“Old enough to work for me. You’ll join my staff and attend to me.”
“Thank you, BB ma’am person.”
“You’ll also go to school nights. I’ll make the arrangement. I won’t have illiterates around me.”
“No, BB ma’am. Yes, BB person.”
“If any of you girls want anything from Regina’s place, you have my permission. Take it, but no quarreling.”
“Yes, BB.”
“And Nellie’s.”
“Burned out, BB.”
“Yenta’s?”
“Her rabbi has it.”
“Sarah’s?”
“I’ll be taking it over, BB.”
“You’re Norah, her dresser?”
“I am that, BB.”
“Good and welcome, Norah. Can you afford Sarah’s place?”
“Thank you, BB. I don’t surely know yet.”
“If you can’t, come to me.” Gretchen looked around at the hive. “All of you come to me for everything. Is that understood?”
They rustled happily.
“Only to me. Is that understood?”
Some of them rustled unhappily.
“Relax, all of you. I’ll explain it at our first Twenty tonight.”
“Twenty?” Mary Mixup was bewildered. “Are there twenty of us?”
Oodgedye stopped her head count. “Sharpen a wit, dummy. BB must mean twenty hours.”
“That’s eight pip emma,” Udgedye explained.
“Oh? We’re meeting at eight? Where? Here?”
“No,” Gretchen said. “We’re all filthy. We’ve got to clean and refresh and change. The Zauna.”
One is subjected to the frigid, temperate and torrid terrestrial zones in the Zauna Baths; also the environments of Luna, Mars and Venus, with authentic sound-effects; winds, snow, hail, rain, thunderstorms, bird calls, insect stridulations, and animal cries. Also the alien language of extraterrestrial plant forms which murmur or moan and chatter or clatter incomprehensibly as they germinate, grow, replicate, and die.
The waters, of course, are fantastically expensive even though they’re recycled constantly. The scents, soaps, and essential oils are much cheaper but really useless without water. For a monumental fee one may have exclusive use of the Zauna for oneself and guests, which fee Gretchen paid.
As the colony progressed through hot, warm, cold; baths, showers, soaps, oils, and massages; warming, relaxing, gleaming, Gretchen cosseted her subjects. “I’m going to tell you a true story,” she began. “Some of you will recognize yourselves in it. The rest will be able to guess. No, Lydia dear, no trombone fanfare now. Please not to interrupt. No interruptions from anyone.
“There was a group of ladies who met once a week to socialize and comfort themselves with food and friendship and fun and games. They were all very dear, sweet, and delightful ladies who meant no harm to anyone. But they did do great harm because they forgot that they were women, and there’s a vast difference between
a lady and a woman.
“One of the fun games they played was a witchcraft ritual to raise the Devil. None of them believed in Satan and hell any more than they believed in God and heaven. After all, this is the twenty-second century, and these were modern, sophisticated ladies; but they were also women.
“The difference between a lady and a woman is the difference between carved ivory and an elephant’s tusk. No, don’t laugh. I’m not comparing us to elephants. We’re the carved ivory; exquisite, beautiful, the result of centuries of the craft—keep that word in mind—the craft of designing, shaping and carving the natural tusk into a work of art that will please men. We are carved by man’s craft into ladies to please men. And we have forgotten the original tusk, the fighting, foraging, dangerous weapon that is a woman. They say that inside every joke there is a truth. Inside every carved ivory piece there is a deadly weapon.
“Why have women always permitted men to exploit and carve them into ladies? We’ve done it because we need men as much as they need us. But while we have been forced to accept men as they are, they’re afraid of us as we really are, and so our need traps us into the safe carved ivory role—safe for men, that is. But the menace is still inside us.
“And a strange thing happened with this group of lovely ladies. The primal dangers buried and forgotten inside each of them combined to give birth to a single, whole danger, a quasi-real creature, a protean primal lust, a male brute multiplied by ten times ten, the Golem100. I won’t describe the horrors that the Golem100 brought with it into the Guff. All that’s over now. The brute’s disappeared into another universe.
“This must never happen again. It will not happen again with me or my girls. Desire men, yes. Accept men, yes. Use men, yes. But never let a man use you. Let them want women, good, but never be corrupted by their craft of shaping the tusk into safe carved ivory. That’s why I said: Like men, yes, but no more than that.
“Like them, enjoy them, use them for what they’re fit, but never need them. Why should you? We have ourselves. No more ladies; we’re women. We’re the house; they’re only the tenants. They can come and go; we’re forever. The next Twenty will be held in this Zauna again, same day next week. I’ll arrange it. Meanwhile, stay and enjoy your freedom. Pi-girl, you come with me. I have to split for a showdown with a chauvinist chemist who’s used my ‘lady hangup’ just once too often.”
(The Soho exit from the Baths. Gretchen and Pi emerge into the Guff. They are clean steamed, massaged and bathed. They wear fresh jump suits. Neither has applied maquillage, but Gretchen has frittered her Afro with rainbow sequins. Pi has braided her pale hair into pigtails tied with white silk bows. They stop for a moment while the street and sidewalk signs glow and speak and urge the public.)
THE SIGNS
LIVE! LIVE!LIVE!LIVE!LIVE!LIVE!
LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!
EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT!
SIDEWALKS
Won’t you adore having your ass banged off, baby? Follow me! Follow me! Follow me to the scene of the scrime!
(Two drunks giggle and totter the length of an endless glowing sidewalk penis which leads them around a corner.)
1ST DRUNK
(In slurred Guff Blurt) Hey man grab man blast man scrime man ‘round the world man in all directions huh huh huh?
2ND DRUNK
(Simulating aristocratic elegance) Aye dew nott föllöw yew m’freund.
THE SIGNS
MANBALONEY… 100
MUDBALONEY… 150
GIRLBALONEY… 175
GUTBALONEY… 160
PISSBALONEY… 75
GRETCHEN
(Pointing) We head this way, Pi-girl.
PI
Where to, Miz Person?
GRETCHEN
Uptown west. To Blaise Shima’s penthouse. We’ll have to walk it. Come on, girl.
(The two women thread their way through the Guff streets. As they skirt the banks of the Hudson River, the mud monsters, generated by the radioactive pollution in the New York harbor ooze up onto the broken pavements; ambulatory slime molds in search of foul foods.)
THE MONSTERS
Ssss! Pfff! Srrr! Zzzz!
(In the Scrime House of Mother Merkin, three whores stand at an upstairs window, burning phallic candles in left hands, right hands preparing their allure for the night. They are dressed and coiffured in replication of current entertainment celebrities.)
PI
Ooo look, Miz Nunn person. Isn’t that Greta Grabya?
GRETCHEN
No.
PI
And Fonda del Solitary?
GRETCHEN
No.
PI
And Rh Factor?
GRETCHEN
No. They’re just fifty-class funks.
(The bawds throw open the window and begin their singing commercial to the Guff public.)
THE WHORES
My mother said I always should
Prance with a yanceman in the wood.
If I did, she would say,
You lucky girl to use your ass.
Use your ass.
Use your ass.
And make the lucky fucker pay.
(A corner Pukebox blazes lurid lights.)
PI
Oh please, Miz Person. I just love Phlegmy’s latest. Please, Miz? Please?
(Gretchen grudgingly halts and inserts slug in Pukebox. Pi presses button No. 1101. A sound-bug flips out, is drawn to the print of Pi’s index finger, and follows her finger, sounding softly.)
PHLEGMY
(With clinical realism)
Vomitation. Vomitation.
Retchitation. Retchitation.
Spew. Spew.
Upchuck, daddy,
With a solid pour.
(The sound-bug finishes its number and flies back to the Pukebox. Near Person Lane, formerly Maiden Lane, twenty-two porters, bearing huge delivery loads of Condensed & Evaporated Plastequila, are in hot argument with a squad of P.L.O. soldiers and their lieutenant.)
A PORTER
Hey man gotta makeadeliver. Since when gotta customs boundairy line here is all?
LIEUTENANT
Hey man set up yesdy. Wanna deliver gotta pay twemmy is all.
(To Gretchen)
Hi hey. Remember youse. Bije babe Falasha Jew doll come to our pyramid. Hihey pretty Jew jill.
GRETCHEN
Hi handsome. I see our PloFather got new illegal neighborhood boundry. Great. We got to pay?
LIEUTENANT
No money fm’you, pretty bije babe. Maybe something else, later?
GRETCHEN
Sure. See you underneath.
(Explosion! Concussion! The Krypton Ketchup factory bursts open as a bomb explodes and the Organic Terrorist Movement makes a statement over the public broadcast system.)
BROADCAST
We done it! We done it! But be assured, poisoned public, that the ingredients of our bomb were pure-ly and safe-ly organic. The Movement NEVER rots.
(A thousand and twenty-seven Guff ghouls are crimsoned as they lick up the ketchup.)
THE GHOULS
Lap-Lap-Lap-Lap-Lap-Lap-Lickety-Lap.
(In Captain Shaft’s Dart Range the naked female targets scream challenges at the Sado-Mach dart-shooters.)
TARGETS
Shoot, man, shoot! Hate me and shoot! Shoot for a triple! Tit, tit, and cooz!
CAPTAIN SHAFT
Try your luck, babes? Got some juicy big-prick targets…
GRETCHEN
She’s too young and I’m too old.
(A Hang-Glider sails low overhead, slowly descending. A man hangs by the neck from the glider, the strangling noose knotted into the traditional thirteen turns of the rope.)
PI
Ooo look, Miz Gretch person. I seen a lot of suicides but never like this one before.
(A gaggle of crones follows the falling glider avidly absorbing the emissions from the spasming penis of the suicide.)
GRETCHEN
Saw, Pi. Saw. It’s obvious I must put you through a good school.
(A night class in the Educational Television Elementary School earnestly studies a projection screen.)
THE SCREEN
PABLUM/GOOD OLD-TIME FLAVOR
Define “Good”
Define “Old”
Define “Time”
Define “Flavor”
Write five hundred (500) word essay on use of the hyphen.
Define “Hyphen”
Define “500”
PI
(Sadly) I couldn’t pass that test, Miz Gretch. Person.
GRETCHEN
(Cheerfully) Not to worry, dear. That was an advanced class for high-I.Q. types.
(In Nixon, formerly Lincoln, Center, Ms. Liz Cuiz blushingly receives First Prize for her display of wax flowers in the Seventy-fifth Annual Imitation Horticultural show.)
MS. CUIZ
Gotta admission, wax beat plastic anytime, exspecial fr’eatin’.
(Hastily)
Doan beez mad on me, youse beautiful Photo-Plastic Ink. guys… I dig plastic too.
GOLEM 100 Page 24
