by Bob Shaw
“I’m sorry,” Massick said. “I didn’t know…” He backed out of the room, pulling the door closed, trying to understand why the sight of the woman had been so disconcerting. Was it the sheer unexpectedness of her presence in Cromer’s bedroom? Was it that the circumstances suggested she was being held captive? Massick picked up his bottle, gulped some whisky and was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when the answer to his questions stole quietly into his mind. She had looked at him—and had smiled.
He could not remember a single occasion in the twenty-odd years of his adult life on which a woman had set eyes on him for the first time and had reacted by smiling. As a youth he had spent hours before the mirror trying to decide what it was about his appearance that made all the girls in his age group avoid his eyes and refuse point blank to date him. There had been a two year period in which he had done his best to conform to the same image as the sexually successful young men in the neighbourhood—trying to put a twinkle into the slate pellets that were his eyes, trying to smile when every muscle in his face wanted to scowl, trying to crack jokes, to be lean-hipped, to be a good dancer—but the net result had been that the girls had shunned him more assiduously than before. After that he had simply begun taking them, whether they liked it or not. And none of them had liked it.
Over the years Massick had grown accustomed to the arrangement, so much so that he found real stimulation in the sudden look of mingled terror and disgust on a woman’s face as she realised what was going to happen to her. Underneath it all, however, imprisoned far down in buried layers of his mind-body complex, there still lived a boyish Joe Massick who yearned for another kind of encounter, one in which there was gentleness in place of force, gladness in place of revulsion, in which soft arms welcomed as the world flowed out and away until there was nothing to see anywhere except eyes that shone with a special warm lustre and lips that smiled…
“That’s better,” Cromer said, coming in through the screen door. He went straight to his chair at the table, executed a lateral shuffle which showed he was quite drunk, and sat down before the assortment of insects and plastic boxes.
Massick returned to his own seat and gazed at Cromer with speculative eyes. Was it possible that the little man, in spite of his scrawny and dried-up appearance, had a taste for hot-blooded Indian girls? The notion inspired Massick with a sharp pang of jealousy. He had seen enough of the girl’s body to know that she was strong-breasted, lush, ripe—and that she would be totally wasted on a miserable old stick like Cromer. If anybody was to bed down with her that night it ought to be Joe Massick, because he was the one who had been going through hell and needed relief from the tensions that racked his body, he was the one who had the size and strength to give the chick what she deserved, and because he was in that kind of a mood. Besides, she had smiled at him…
“The Calusas was the ones who knew this swamp,” Cromer was muttering, staring down at a moth in its tiny crystal coffin. “They were here long before the Seminoles ever even seen the place, and they knew all about it, that’s for sure…knew when the nymphs was turnin’ into imagos…knew when it was time to pull up stakes and move on.”
“You’re a wily old bird, aren’t you?” Massick said. “You’ve got this place stocked up with everything you need.”
“Hear them cicadas out there?” Cromer, apparently unaware that Massick had spoken, nodded towards the black rectangle of the door. “Seventeen years they live under the ground, gettin’ ready to come up and breed. It stands to reason there must be other critturs that takes longer—maybe thirty years, maybe fifty, maybe even a…”
“I’m a bit disappointed in you, Ed. I just didn’t think you were the selfish type.”
“Selfish?” Cromer, looking puzzled and hurt, attempted to focus his gaze on Massick. “What’s this selfish?”
“You didn’t introduce me to your friend.”
“Friend? I got no…” Cromer’s flushed, narrow face stiffened with consternation as he turned to look at the bedroom door. He threw himself forward on to his hands and knees, picked up the piece of wire Massick had discarded, and wrapped it around the latch, snorting with urgency as his clumsiness protracted an operation that should have been instantaneous.
Massick watched the performance with good humour. “Do you generally keep your lady friends locked up?”
“She…She’s sick.” Cromer got to his feet, breathing audibly, his eyes nervous and pleading. “Best left alone in there.”
“She didn’t look all that sick to me. What’s her name?”
“Don’t know her name. She wandered in here a couple of days ago. I’m lookin’ after her, that’s all.”
Massick shook his head and grinned. “I don’t believe you, Ed. I think you’re a horny old goat and you’re keeping that young piece in there for your own amusement. Shame on you!”
“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. I tell you she’s sick, and I’m looking after her.”
Massick stood up, bottle in hand. “In that case we’ll give her a drink—best medicine there is.”
“No!” Cromer darted forward, grabbing for Massick’s arm. “Listen, if you want to know the…”
Massick swung at him more out of irritation than malice, intending merely to sweep the little man out of his way, but Cromer seemed to fall on to his fist, magnifying the effect of the blow. The force of the impact returning along his forearm told Massick he had done some serious damage, and he stepped back. Cromer went down into a collision with the table, his eyes reduced to blind white crescents, and dropped to the floor with a slapping thud which could have been produced by a side of bacon. The sound alone was as good as a death certificate to Massick.
“You stupid old bastard,” he whispered accusingly. He stared down at the body, adjusting to the new situation, then knelt and retrieved his money from Cromer’s shirt pocket. A search of the dead man’s personal effects yielded only a cheap wristwatch and eleven extra dollars in single bills. Massick put the watch and money away in his pocket. He took a firm grip on Cromer’s collar, dragged the body to the screen door and out into the raucous darkness of the swamp. The chorus of insect calls seemed to grow louder as he moved away from the shanty, again creating the impression of an all-pervading sentience. In spite of the stifling heat Massick felt a crawling coldness between his shoulderblades. Suddenly appreciating the futility of trying to dispose of the body before daylight, he released his burden and groped his way back towards the sallow glimmers of the hurricane lamps.
Once inside the building, he bolted the outer door and went around the main room twitching curtains into place across the windows. As soon as he felt safe from the pressures of the watchful blackness he picked up the whisky bottle and drank from it until his throat closed against the rawness of the liquor. Somewhat restored by the alcohol, he allowed his thoughts to return to the bedroom door and there was a stirring of warmth low down in his belly as he remembered what lay beyond.
It’s cosier this way, he thought. Three always was a crowd.
He put the bottle aside, went to the door and removed the wire from the latch. The door swung open easily, allowing a swath of light to fall across the bed, revealing that the black-haired girl was still lying down, apparently undisturbed by any commotion she may have heard. As before, she raised herself on one elbow to look up at him. Massick stood in the doorway and scanned her face, waiting for the change of expression to which he was so accustomed, the clouding of the eyes with fear and loathing, but—exactly as before—the girl began to smile. He bared his own teeth in a manufactured response, scarcely able to believe his luck.
“What’s your name, honey?” he said, moving closer to the bed.
She went on smiling at him, her gaze locked into his, and there was nothing anywhere in her face to show that she had heard the question.
“Don’t you have a name?” Massick persisted, a new idea beginning to form at the back of his mind. Never had a deaf-mute before!
T
he girl reacted by sitting up a little further, a movement which allowed the sheet to slip down from her breasts. They were the most perfectly formed that Massick had ever seen—rounded, almost pneumatic in their fullness, with upright nipples—and his mouth went dry as he advanced to the side of the bed and knelt down. The girl’s dark eyes remained fixed on his, bold and yet tender, as he put out his hand and with his fingertips gently traced a line from the three dots on her forehead, down her cheek and neck and on to the smooth curvature of her breast. His hand lingered there briefly and was moving on towards the languorous upthrust of her hip—taking the edge of the sheet with it—when she made a small, inarticulate sound of protest and caught his wrist.
Thwarted and tantalised, Massick gripped the sheet with the intention of ripping it away from the lower part of her body, then he saw that the girl was still smiling. She let go of his wrists, raised her hands to his chest and began to undo his shirt, fumbling in her eagerness.
“You raunchy little so-and-so,” Massick said in a gratified whisper. He got to his feet, tearing at his clothing and in a few seconds was standing naked beside the bed. The girl relaxed on to her pillow, waiting for him. He lowered his thick torso on to the bed beside her and brought his mouth down on hers. She returned his kiss in a curiously inexpert manner which served only to heighten his pleasure. Giving way to his impatience, he propped himself up on one elbow and used his free hand to throw back the sheet, his eyes hungering for the promised magical concourse of hip and belly and thigh unique to woman.
The ovipositor projecting from the she-creature’s groin was a tapering, horny spike. Transparent eggs were already flowing from the aperture at its tip, bubbling and winking, sliming its sides, adding to the jellied mass of spawn which had gathered on her distended abdomen.
Massick had time for a single whimper of despair, then the she-creature was on him, bearing down with an inhuman strength which was scarcely necessary. The first probing stab from the ovipositor had hurt for only an instant, then ancient and merciful chemistries had taken over, obliterating all pain, inducing a flaccid paralysis which gripped his entire frame. He lay perfectly still, hushed and bemused, as his lover worked on him, stabbing again and again, skilfully avoiding vital organs, filling body cavities with the eggs which would soon produce a thousand hungry larvae.
It’s a pity she had to change. I liked her better the other way—before those dots on her forehead changed into watchful black beads, before her eyes developed the facets and began to drift to the side of her head, before those magnificent breasts began reshaping themselves into a central pair of legs.
But she’s kind to me, and that counts for a lot. Waits on me hand and foot, like an attentive lover. Even when I wake up during the night I can see her standing at the door of the room, always watching, always waiting.
But what’s she waiting for? That’s what I ask myself every so often, and when I do…
TO THE LETTER
Above Hillowen a tiny bell pinged a cracked F, reprising the note a moment later as he gently closed the door behind him. The basement room in which he found himself was divided by a tall counter of blackened wood, behind which were a bead-curtained door and shelves bearing rows of very old ledgers. The single window did not quite reach footpath level, and as a result the light which filtered into the room was tired and grey, the colour of January rain.
Whoever owns this place should apply for a grant to go Dickensian, Hillowen thought. It doesn’t look much like a threshold of earthly bliss, but I suppose it’s best to stay shabby in this part of town if you don’t want to attract too much attention. He tapped on the counter, waited, then tapped more firmly.
The bead curtains chattered and from behind them came a small, elderly, dapper man with brown eyes and a pleasantly ugly face. He advanced with a friendly smile, placed his fingertips on the counter and gave a courteous little bow.
“Good afternoon to you, sir,” he said in a voice which had no discernible accent and yet created the impression that English was not his first language. “May I be of assistance?”
“Mr Zurek?” Hillowen said.
The smile became faintly rueful. “For my sins.”
“Ah, good! Well, my name is Hillowen and I’m a close friend of Mr George Lorrimer.” Hillowen produced an airmail envelope from an inner pocket. “I have a letter of recommendation from him.”
“Lorrimer,” said Zurek, frowning slightly and showing no interest in the letter. “Lorrimer…Lorrimer…”
“You and he did a little business,” Hillowen prompted. “About six months ago. He’s living abroad now,” he added with a meaningful lowering of the voice.
“Ah, yes!” The brown eyes refocused on Hillowen. “Of course I remember the gentleman! I fixed him up somewhere in the South Seas, didn’t I?”
“That’s right—Tkumirui Island.”
“With a selection of uninhibited maidens and the local copra concession.”
“And permanent balmy weather!”
“That was it,” Zurek said, chuckling. “A little banal, perhaps, but never mind…So long as he’s happy, eh?”
“Oh, he’s happy all right.”
“Good, good!” Zurek’s eyes had suddenly become less ingenuous than his smile. “And I take it, Mr Hillowen, that you are interested in a similar transaction?”
“Well…” Hillowen swallowed, suddenly feeling nervous now that the preliminaries were over. “Yes, that was the general idea.”
“Hmmmm.” Zurek’s smile gradually faded, the brown eyes becoming professionally concerned. “Mr Hillowen, I know this will be a disappointment to you—especially after what you have heard from your friend—but I very much doubt that we can do business with you.”
Hillowen stared at him, frowning. “Are you telling me you’re not interested?”
“That’s about it, I’m afraid.”
“But this is preposterous!” Hillowen looked about him as if appealing to an invisible audience. “I thought you’d be coaxing me, wheedling, making all sorts of extravagant promises.” His sense of grievance mounted rapidly. “After all, it’s not Channel tunnel shares we’re talking about—it’s my immortal soul!”
“I know that, Mr Hillowen, and I’m sorry.”
“But you were keen enough to do business with George only months ago! Surely one soul is just like another.”
Zurek shook his head. “Mr Lorrimer is a young man with many years on earth ahead of him, and he has a regrettable tendency towards goodness. There was a very real possibility that, left to his own devices, he would have eventually acquired enough spiritual credits to cancel out the debits with which we all enter this world.
“The One I serve…” Zurek glanced around uneasily. “My principal felt that it was worthwhile inducing Mr Lorrimer to enter into a binding contract, whereas in your case, Mr Hillowen…Well, not to put too fine a point on it, you are practically in the bag.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” Hillowen said heatedly. “I haven’t led a bad life. How do you know that I won’t earn enough of these spiritual credits, as you call them, to get me into heaven?”
“That tie you’re wearing—London School of Economics, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but…”
Zurek patted his lips, a gesture which failed to conceal a smirk. “As I said, Mr Hillowen—you are practically in the bag.”
“How can you be so sure I won’t change?” Hillowen demanded. “I admit I’m no longer in the first flush of my youth, but I have quite a few years left in me yet. Time enough to get religion, time enough to…” He broke off as he saw that Zurek had pulled one of the ledgers from the shelves behind him and was opening it.
“Ah, yes,” Zurek said, the index finger of his right hand coming to rest at an entry. “Norman Stanley Hillowen! You are fifty-three years of age and you have severe cardio-vascular problems, plus a liver which has absorbed far more than its fair share of punishment…Would you like to know exactly how much time you have
left to you?”
“No!” Hillowen cowered back. “No man should ever be burdened with that kind of foreknowledge. Even a disciple of Satan himself would not reveal the exact figure.”
“Four years,” Zurek said unconcernedly. “Four years, all but…let me see…eleven days.”
“This is terrible,” Hillowen quavered. “You’re not the sort of person I thought you were. When I came in here you seemed quite decent and pleasant, but now…”
“What did you expect?” Zurek cut in. “Use your brains, man! What do you think He would do to me if I didn’t go all out to obtain the most advantageous terms for Him in every deal?”
“Deal?” Seizing on the word, Hillowen advanced to the counter on rubbery legs. “Did you say deal? Can I have a deal?”
“Are you sure you still want to do business?” Zurek squinted like a jeweller examining a watch. From behind him, a lean black cat sprang noiselessly on to the counter.
“With only four years left to me! For God’s sake…” Hillowen paused as both Zurek and the cat shrank back from him. “I’m sorry…slip of the tongue…you must understand that all this has put me under a considerable strain.”
“It’s quite all right.” Zurek was abstractedly stroking the cat.
“Thank you, thank you,” Hillowen said fervently, leaning on the counter for support. “Now, here’s what I propose. In exchange for my immortal soul…”
Zurek silenced him by raising his free hand. “Not so fast, Mr Hillowen! Before you go on, let me say at once that you cannot have material wealth. No currency notes, bankers’ drafts or property deeds. No gold or other precious metals.” As if quoting from a well-memorised legal document, he added, “No valuable stone, mineral or artefact, the last term to include products of genetic engineering and…”
“I don’t care about any of those things,” Hillowen cut in, “but—just as a matter of interest—why can’t I have them?”
“Liquidity problems.” Zurek gave a fatalistic shrug, then his smile began to revive. “However, for our more forward-looking clients, we can occasionally offer some quite interesting long-term securities.”
