The Spicy-Adventure

by Robert Leslie Bellem

  His own breath came in jerks from his lungs, and with a fierce gesture he lifted her in his arms, and with his mouth devouring the fire from her own, he strode toward the pile of colored cushions.

  The sun went down…

  * * * *

  When he awoke an eerie beam of moonlight was playing over his face and on the cushions. With returning consciousness he remembered Hack!

  He turned with a feeling of aversion for the woman, and froze into immovability!

  Something was crawling over the floor, slowly approaching the cushions where the High Priestess, her white body gleaming in the moonlight, was stretched in sleep. He reached for his pistol and remembered suddenly that it must have been taken with his clothes!

  His mind was free from its hypnotic spell and he tensed his muscles waiting for the thing to cross the shaft of moonlight. It came slowly onward, with the queer rustling of a reptile. Juan felt his hair prickle, as the horrible monster crept into the moonlight.

  A huge, hairy body with great welts across its shoulders, slithered toward the divan. Two great eyes like balls of fire, gleamed evilly from its glistening skull. It left a slimy trail behind it, like some enormous slug emerging from the bowels of the earth.

  With a lascivious snarl it swung its head greedily over the woman…over the firm breasts, the slowly rising and falling abdomen…and then on down the slimly tapering hips and legs. She stirred slightly, and her red lips parted.

  With a tormented growl the thing leapt toward them. At the same moment Juan flung his body forward and he and the thing rolled in death grips on the floor.

  With snarls of rage it tightened its stump-like arms around Juan’s body, and in a flash he knew that the life was being squeezed from him. His legs thrashed and twisted to no avail. The body so entwined around his own was slick with slime and his hands slid off as if they were greased.

  Curiously, the woman slept! Juan opened his mouth to give a mighty yell, but it died in his throat as he felt himself falling—falling—falling into eternity. There was a terrific jar—he felt pains over his body like needles jabbing into lacerated flesh, and then—nothing.

  * * * *

  Consciousness was a long time returning. A dim light filtered through chinks in the stone and he felt his body hopefully, without moving his head He knew a pure delight when he silently wriggled his legs, then his arms, and found that he was not only alive, but unhurt. He opened his eyes slowly and looked upward. A twisting flight of stone steps ascended into the darkness above him. He knew the thing must have pulled a lever and he had fallen down the stairs when the stone slab lifted.

  As he lay quite still, trying to marshal his forces, his ears became acutely conscious of gruesome noises—the crunching of bones, and fierce snarls and growls! His flesh crawled up his spine.

  He twisted his head painfully around. As his eyes became accustomed to the dim light, his stomach retched with nausea.

  Some six or eight things were crouched in the far corner of the dungeon viciously tearing to pieces the mutilated body of the wretch he had seen die in the sacrificial room. They were so busy, fighting among themselves over the grisly feast that they were unmindful of him lying in the shadow of the stairs a scant twenty feet away.

  Directly over them appeared a dim aperture, and with a feeling of horror Juan realized that must be the shaft from the Sacrificial Chamber! That accounted for blood and dried flesh on the side walls that he and Hack had seen with the aid of the flash!

  Hack!

  His own predicament was momentarily forgotten! Where was Hack? He remembered the High Priestess’ words “Prepare the Sacrifice!” Would his body or Hack’s be the next that these things would get to propitiate the hunger of Vishnaw!

  He recalled a notation in Morris’ little book…“Men made into beasts, through torture… and shuddered.

  He moved his body forward a foot and waited. The crunching did not abate. With fear in his heart he hunched forward—up a step—and another. After minutes of tortuous crawling he reached the gloom of the shaft down which the steps came, and rested, his heart beating a wild tattoo in his breast.

  There was a clanking of iron, and in the corner behind the “things” an iron door swung open, and three of the Vestal Virgins stood there. Juan involuntarily caught his breath at their loveliness. The gold of their hair embraced the ivory of their bodies.

  Their breasts peeked like coral flowers through the strands, and their bodies and smooth thighs glimmered with dim luster through the mesh of their loin clothes.

  The idiots stopped their bloody work and crawled to them on all fours, their heavy mouths drooled saliva, their eyes raised fatuously upward! Their hands, scarred and mutilated and bloody stretched out greedily and clasped the slim white ankles of the nearest Virgin. Like a flash she flicked the silver whip across its shoulders, and it drew back out of reach.

  “You have had your day, Monster! You are now the slave of Vishnaw! When the sun is high there is the Sacrifice to the great White God Vishnaw! Bring us your prisoner! You shall have his heart!” She pointed upwards, toward the shaft from the sacrificial room, and the “monsters” with awful gurgles crowded beneath it and looked eagerly toward the pale show of light so far over-head.

  As the Vestal Virgins, with sinuously swinging stride, herded the monsters through the door, Juan closed his eyes and tried to keep from being sick!

  With painstaking carefulness he reached the head of the stairs. He fumbled around in the dark, feverishly, and eventually his hands fell on something hard and cold. It seemed to be a piece of iron or metal protruding from the wall. He pulled and yanked at it several times before he was rewarded with a slight click, and then was almost blinded by the brightness of the sun, as the stone rose noiselessly.

  He heaved himself aside as his hand released the lever and the slab fell silently into place.

  He was back in the room of the High Priestess. The divan of cushions was there, but the Priestess was gone. He made a swift search of the room. Behind a stone aperture he located his clothes. He transferred his automatic from the pocket of his coat and his loin cloth. He hesitated, and finally decided against donning his own clothes. It was better not to arouse suspicions.

  His ears, trained to catch the slightest sound, told him someone was approaching, and he raced across the room and threw himself on the divan.

  The High Priestess entered, and through narrowed eyelids he watched her gliding progress toward the bed. With a smile of pleasure she leaned over him, her breasts, like perfumed petals almost brushing his face. He could feel her hot breath and it was with difficulty that he kept his heart from pounding visibly.

  She dropped a passionate kiss on his lips and as he opened his eyes she pressed her body against his for a second, then came sensuously to her knees before him.

  Her hands made the same strange gestures of the night before, and her voice, low and compelling chanted, “Your Monsters prepare the Sacrifice for the Great White God! The Vestal Virgins await the night and the God’s choice in the Bridal Chamber! The blood of many men have we offered to you! The embraces of many have we taken, waiting for your coming!

  “Many Monsters have we made, to propitiate your hunger! Now, we await our reward! Your own celestial daughters, borne by the Vestal Virgins, shall through the centuries to come offer your sacrifices to you, and keep the Monsters for your sacred work!”

  Juan closed his eyes and thought of Morris!

  * * * *

  When he finally opened them, the Vestal Virgins stood in a semi-circle around him. Wreaths of strangely-colored flowers were draped over their alabaster shoulders, and hung in festoons around their breasts. Their creamy hips and legs writhed and twisted in the slow dance around the divan. Their bodies whirled in savage contortions and their heaving abdomens glittered with jewels.

  They formed a line, and the High Priestess stoo
d aside as he arose. He kept a wary eye on their deceiving loveliness as he preceded the Priestess, and the dancing circle of Vestal Virgins closed in behind them.

  His hand strayed with relief to the revolver concealed in the cloth of gold around his loins.

  The procession entered the sacrificial chamber and he felt his flesh shrink with revulsion. Three of the Monsters, watched assiduously by half a dozen Vestal Virgins, were washing the dried blood and matter from the Sacrificial Dais.

  The High Priestess indicated them with pride, “Have we not done well, Great White One? It takes much practice to turn man into Beast!”

  Juan nodded his head in simulated appreciation, but his eyes darted swiftly to the tapestry behind which he and Hack had hidden the day before. Beside it was the door through which they had made their entrance.

  “Bring the sacrifice!”

  With a start he recognized the voice of the High Priestess. She was standing, straight and regal and beautiful on the stone step of the dais and in her hand was the gleaming blade of the sacrificial knife! His brain reeled with horror when he recognized her as the same woman who had thrown the heart down the shaft to the monsters!

  The eyes of the High Priestess and the Vestal Virgins were on the door at the far end of the room. Juan was not noticed as he slipped down a step and to one side. The entire congregation were standing, their backs to him.

  He watched the door.

  Through it came Hack, his body was covered around the groins with the same coarsely-woven cloth that Morris had worn. Except for that, he was naked. His hands were tied behind him and his face was wild and strained. He was being partly carried and partly pushed by the Monsters. His eyes, deadened with misery and fright, lightened suddenly as they rested on Juan.

  The latter made no sign of recognition, and Hack’s body sagged suddenly and would have slid to the floor, but one of the Monsters caught it, and carried him to the altar.

  The Monsters, the silver whips making gashes across their backs, were herded out by four of the Vestal Virgins. In a few minutes the guards returned for the sacrifice and in the tense stillness came the inhuman growls from the bowels of the dungeon. They floated faintly upward through the aperture in the floor beside the sacrificial stone.

  They were waiting for a living, bloody, beating heart!

  The Four Guards, their white breasts heaving with their breathing, took their places around the altar each holding in a vise the arms and legs of the victim.

  With unexpected suddenness the gleaning blade in the hand of the High Priestess described an arc in the air and before Juan could grab his pistol a length of flesh was stripped from Hack’s breast. He shrieked—once—twice in his agony, and his pain-filled eyes gazed for an agonized second into Juan’s face.

  A pistol shot—and the knife in the hand of the High Priestess flew through the air and hit the floor with a clatter. The white bodies of the Virgins became a writhing, screaming mass, as with bared teeth and frightful shrieks they started in a mass for Juan!

  Another shot and a Virgin clutched her leg. She slowly sank to the floor with groans and for a moment they were stopped, paralyzed with fear, at the smoking instrument of torment in Juan’s hand.

  “Get up from that table, Hack!” Juan roared. “I’ll hold ’em off.”

  Juan negotiated the few steps separating them, and the pistol in one hand he quickly untied Hack’s hands.

  As Hack reached the door, the stone slab down which he had been snatched, opened wide, and through it streamed a slimy throng of Monsters!

  The High Priestess screamed, “They are despoilers of the Temple! Get them! Kill them! You shall have their hearts!”

  Juan whirled, and as the first beast reached for him, he fired full in his face! The savage crumbled at his feet, and as he did so the whole mob rushed him.

  He leaped through the stone door, slammed and bolted it. As he reached the bottom of the stairs a slab rose above and to his right. The Virgins and Monsters began pouring through!

  Juan pushed Hack’s unconscious form into the boat! With trembling fingers he lit a fuse and tossed a square black box onto one of the high stone ledges. As the first part of the mob reached the foot of the stairs he gave a mighty shove and the small boat shot down the tunnel.

  * * * *

  The little boat was gently tossing on the waves as he bound Hack’s chest with his loin cloth. They were ten minutes away from the rocky island.

  “Take a look, kid.” He very gently raised Hack to a sitting position and they gazed at the Isle of Monsters. There was a tremendous roar, that shook the little boat to its last rib, and parts of the island began raining into the sea.

  “Well,” Juan sighed thoughtfully, “I can finish Morris’ book for him, poor devil!”

  TUFFY AND HIS HAREM, by Nick Anderson

  Originally published in Spicy Adventure Stories, August 1935.

  There was a pale glow in the eastern sky. Tuffy Scott, broad-shouldered, big-muscled, a giant of a fellow, stood up on the stern thwart of the small row boat for another long sweeping look at the empty horizon. Then he looked down at the indistinct figures of the three girls sprawled awkwardly at his feet.

  What a mess for a guy like him to get in, he thought to himself as he peered at the faint outlines of the girls’ almost totally unclothed bodies. Three girls! And he alone with them!

  But it wasn’t his fault. The night before when the gambling ship on which Tuffy worked as deckhand had been raided by government officials off the coast of California, he had suddenly found himself pushed into the boat with the three girls and told to stay out of sight while the raid was on.

  For an hour they had crouched in silence a few feet away from the ship. Then, before their startled eyes, the boat had pulled up anchor and slipped off into the darkness. They had been forgotten or deserted, one of the two. It didn’t matter which.

  And here they were, Tuffy Scott, with a black stubble of beard on his roughly handsome face, and three blonde girls in dance outfits consisting of tiny red silk panties and red and white silk bandeaux that barely covered three sets of luscious breasts.

  Now that the sky was lighter, Tuffy had a chance to take a good look at the girls as they lay before him—long, slender, bare legs curled up under bodies that had more swells and softnesses than a June surf. And in spite of the predicament he knew faced them all, Tuffy felt pleasure in looking at the lovely creatures and feeling that he was responsible for their safety.

  “Hey, girls,” Tuffy shouted by way of waking them up, “if you want your breakfast, you’d better get up and fight for it.”

  The girl nearest him, Mai Williams, full-breasted and narrow-waisted, popped one eye open, looked with disgust at the tiny, very dead minnow Tuffy held between his fingers, and said, “That isn’t funny.” And she closed the one eye only to open both at once.

  “Do you think it is good to eat?”

  “Sure,” Tuffy laughed and tossed the dead minnow back into the sea, “only I’m too finicky since I met up with you refined ladies.”

  Zoe Smith, another of the trio, shook her very pale hair fiercely at Tuffy and murmured wrathfully, “Your jokes are as smelly as that minnow.”

  Honey Lawrence, the third of the girls, ignored the talk and jumped up for a look around the wide expanse of the empty horizon. She stretched her arms and legs lazily. And winked mischievously at Tuffy.

  “Say, you two,” Honey said, “if you don’t pipe down on that quarreling, our sailor boy friend will be tossing you dames to the fishes, and a good riddance, I’d say. Tuffy and I wouldn’t mind a little privacy, would we?” Tuffy grinned. He saw she was kidding to keep up their spirits. It was sporting of her. Lots better than having them rave at him as they had done the night before when the gambling ship moved off and left them deserted on the wide Pacific. As though it had been his fault!

  “We
ll, big boy,” Honey asked, “what’s to do about it? You’re the skipper of this here vessel now, and have you thought of a way to get us back to shore?”

  Tuffy shrugged his big shoulders. The grin that had been on his face left it. “Girls,” he said, “we’re in a tough spot. When they pushed us off last night, they left us only one oar. And you don’t need to know much about rowing to know you can’t get very far with one stick.”

  “How about a drink?” Mai inquired.

  Tuffy looked at the girl. In spite of himself, his eyes followed the curve of her breasts, the flatness of her bare stomach, the seductive, tempting allure of her hips and white thighs. He tore his gaze away from her and motioned the girls to sit down in front of him.

  Tuffy reached under the stern seat pulled out a small cask. He thumped it with his fist. “Hear that?” he said ominously. “Less than a quarter full. Good for a couple of days. That’s all. And we’d better save it till we’re thirsty.”

  He looked at the three youthful faces before him—three girls who had lived in cities and had never faced the thought of death. Dancers. Smart in the ways of life. Three girls who were young and fresh and full of delights for the right kind of guy. But not a mug like him. What right had he to look at them that way?

  He turned away. The girls hadn’t said a thing. Not a whimper out of them. Pretty good sports. He had to hand it to them.

  He stood up on the stern seat for another look around. The sky was now fully aglow. The sun was already bouncing on top of the highest swells. He gazed at it—and suddenly caught his breath.

  A ship!

  A ship had outlined itself against the rising sun, just as the tiny boat had climbed a high swell. Yes, there it was again—a low lying hulk of a ship, only three or four miles to the east. “Say girls,” Tuffy yelled, “I think I see something. One of you get up on my shoulder, and take a good look. Off under the sun—see it?”

  Honey jumped up on Tuffy’s back as he leaned over and steadied himself against the motion of the sea. The girl’s bare legs encircled his neck and he straightened up.