"Miss Pinch," I said, "I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you again. And to observe how healthy you are." Good stamina makes them last longer. "But I am a great admirer of yours. I have often thought of you for hours on end. So come, let us be friends right from the start, here. If you give me the combination to that safe, I will simply take my money out and be on my way. You've often said it yourself: it is my money. This isn't even robbery. So how about it? What is the combination?"
Her lips sealed even tighter.
Ah, well, there was no hurry. I went out into the hall and picked up the groceries so no caller, looking in, would see the disarray. I brought them back. I put the pizza in the freezer and the cans of beer in the Iron Maiden fridge to cool. A homey, domestic touch.
I looked at Candy. She was throwing her head from left to right, eyes wild, trying to spit out the gag. I trailed a finger down her throat and then made a mysterious circle with it before her face. Incomprehensible.
Miss Pinch lay there, tight-lipped, staring.
I loosened Candy's gag and took it off. She instantly screamed. Good.
I wandered casually around the room. Two sets of eyes followed me. Drag it out. Don't let them know what you're really going to do.
Candy stopped screaming. I got out a beer. I opened it. I extended it to her. "You usually have a beer this time of day, Miss Licorice. No? Well, you probably would rather have it in the usual place, now that you are screaming." I walked over and laid it against her foot. I moved it up and down a bit.
Candy screamed.
"You're really in good voice tonight," I said. "But come, dear Candy, you are in no danger at all. All Miss Pinch has to do is give me the combination to the safe and I will go away so peacefully, you'll never know I was here." I moved the beer can up and down.
"Pinchy!" cried Candy, looking beseechingly at the bed, "For God's sake, give him the combination to that safe."
Miss Pinch compressed her lips more tightly.
I pried open Candy's mouth and poured a small amount of beer in it. She choked. She spat it out. She turned her head to the bed again. "For God's sake, I don't know what this monster means to do! Please, please, Pinchy! PLEASE!"
I put the flat of my hand on Candy's chin and began to rotate it gently. She stared at me in horror. She looked down and saw how naked she was. She strained at her bonds.
I moved my hand to her stomach and rotated it around. Then, circle by circle, I went lower and lower. Just before I touched between her legs, I stood back. I took a sip of beer.
Casually, I wandered over to the record cabinet. I put the beer down and began to go through the collection.
Two sets of eyes watched me, two birds staring at a snake.
I read record labels. I went further and further down the stacks. Then I saw a pile that was at the extreme bottom and the back, covered with dust. Aha! These must be records they hated and never played. In a cloud of dust, I took them out.
LOVE SONGS!
The very thing! How they must despise them, to bury them so deep! I slid them out of their jackets and stacked them on the automatic spindle. I dropped on the first platter.
"What are you going to do?" screamed Candy.
The music had begun. I gestured at the devil-mask speakers. "Let this be your theme song for tonight, Miss Candy Licorice."
The drum began a pound, pound, pound.
A tenor began to love-croon:
When I gaze into your eyes,
I see love, love, love.
When I try you on for size,
I feel love, love, love.
When I press your gushing breasts,
And I feel your thighs' caress,
I feel love, love, love.
Go into me!
Candy began to thresh about. Her eyes got wilder and wilder. She screamed. Then she turned her head sideways. She shouted, "For God's sakes, give him the combination! He's going to rape me!"
Miss Pinch compressed her lips tightly. I looked at her. I said, "She is absolutely correct."
I opened up the front of the Ninja robe and stood, facing Candy.
Candy stared at me. Then she screamed, "Jesus Christ!"
I walked over to her. I looked at Miss Pinch. I said, "You're the one that's making her suffer. All you have to do is give me the combination."
Miss Pinch's lips shut tighter. Her eyes fixed on me. It was a battle of wills.
I put a knee on Candy's couch. I looked again at Miss Pinch.
Nothing but tight lips.
Candy was threshing her head from side to side, frantic!
I put my other knee on the couch.
Candy screamed!
I looked at Miss Pinch.
Tight, closed lips.
Suddenly something stopped me.
I stared at Candy in amazement.
She stared back at me in terror.
I had to keep my mind on the real business here. I looked at Miss Pinch. I said, "Your little wife here is a virgin! If I keep on, she isn't going to be a virgin anymore. One last chance. Tell me the combination to that safe or I open this one!"
Miss Pinch's lips were even tighter shut.
I said to Miss Pinch, "It's you that's doing this."
The devil-mask speaker grinned.
"Here goes!" I said.
Candy screamed louder than the music, by far!
She threw her head back and went unconscious.
The turntable went round and round.
Miss Pinch's eyes were unreadable.
The turntable went around and around.
Candy came to. She glanced sideways at Miss Pinch and then began to moan.
The beer can tipped over and gushed its foaming contents across the floor.
Candy screamed.
The legs of the sofa did a jumping waltz.
Candy's eyes rolled up into her head, leaving the whites showing.
She slumped.
She was out cold.
Miss Pinch's eyes were unreadable. Her lips stayed sealed.
Candy's hair was trailing down to the floor. She was totally unconscious.
I stood up, pulling the robe around me.
I opened another can of beer. I took a sip. I walked over to the foot of Miss Pinch's bed. "You see what your stubbornness has done. You have caused poor Candy to break the most sacred Psychiatric Birth Control laws. You have caused her in your crass unfeelingness even to betray the holy name of Rockecenter. There she lies, no longer an innocent virgin." I pointed to her trailing hair, which flowed down from her unconscious face. "Alas, you forced her to be violated. She is a fallen woman!"
Miss Pinch said nothing through her compressed lips. Any reaction was utterly undetectable. What a heart of stone!
But I was not baffled very long. I knew what would frighten her. I said, "Even though you are a monster, Miss Pinch, I cannot help but feel compassion for you. Should you persist in this foolish attitude, I cannot answer for the dire consequences to you personally."
No change in the way she looked at me.
I felt some qualms. Good Gods, this woman must be made of solid brass!
I said, "More blood may still be spilled today. You better give me that combination before this gets out of hand."
Stony silence.
"Very well," I said, "you are reaping a whirlwind around your own head."
I walked over to the record player. I made sure the next record was ready to drop.
I took a sip of beer. Then I went over to the bed and got up on it on my knees. I held the beer can high and let the foamy liquid pour upon her stomach.
"You better give me that combination, Miss Pinch!"
No change in her eyes and lips at all. Not even a flinch!
The record dropped. Violins whined and sobbed.
I was opening up my robe. "Not much time left!" I said.
Miss Pinch looked at me. No change.
The devil mask grinned and a male crooner began to sing:
Sweet lit
tle woman,
Please marry me.
Man and wife together,
How happy we will be.
And then we'll have some kiddies,
Maybe two or three.
So here's the ring and there's the church,
Oh, come, my honey be.
She was trying to get some slack in the chains and lift herself higher on the bed.
The sock hung on the sword-rack points as I said, "If you don't speak, then here we go!"
Her hand was convulsively gripping the chain.
The turntable was suddenly stuck in a groove on a replay of the record:
How happy we will be...
How happy we will be...
How happy we will be.
"Hey!" I said, "YOU'RE A VIRGIN!"
Her eyes were wild. She was trying to fight upwards.
"Oh, to Hells with the combination!" I said. "This is too good!"
The devil mask grinned as she screamed.
Her eyes rolled all the way up in her head. She conked out.
The turntable went round and round. It had gotten off the groove now and had jumped to the rest of the song:
Oh, sweet woman, I am your guy,
Sex with you and me,
Is pie and ecstasy.
Oh, sweet woman,
Come to your man,
You are my bed and butter,
So drink me if you can!
Miss Pinch had regained consciousness. She was tugging at the chain with a hand that convulsed rhythmically.
The turntable shifted to a new song. A woman's husky voice filled the room:
Long and slow, And up we go,
The moanin' and the groanin'
Is because I want you so.
Long and slow,
And down we go,
The beggin' and the pleadin'
Is to make you do it mo'!
Long and slow...
A beer can, teetering back and forth on the stereo, suddenly exploded. Foam flew all over the room.
The feet of the bed leaped up into the air and chattered back against the floor as Miss Pinch screamed in deafening crescendo.
The record player had shifted back to the first song:
Sweet little woman,
Please marry me.
I got up off the bed. I wrapped my robe around me. The record player was crooning:
Man and wife together,
How happy we will be.
And then we'll have some kiddies,
Maybe two...
I batted the needle ferociously and it scratched off with a squawk.
I glared at the two unconscious women, out like lights.
"(Bleep) you, Pinch," I snarled. "Have you defeated me AGAIN?"
Chapter 9
I felt like shooting both of them. In fact, that was probably what it would come down to now.
I happened to look down at myself.
Blood!
I was in the peculiar situation of having to get rid of the evidence before I committed the crime. One maidenhead murder was bad enough, but two in a row had left enough evidence to convict me of the Jack the Ripper crimes. One forensic test and I'd be found guilty!
Normally, I am not considered a very fastidious person. In fact, there are those who would go so far as to infer that, like the Apparatus, I am downright dirty.
But there was no help for it: prior to completing this slaughter, I had better establish my innocence. I'd better shower quick to cover up the tail-I mean trail.
I glared at the two still-unconscious females. I gave the Ninja robe a disgusted hitch. I marched into Candy's room and closed the door behind me.
There was lots of soap in the bathroom: I am no expert on the subject, but the American soaps, with their penny-a-barrel "perfume," stunk worse than I did. They use violent odors to cover up the even more violent odors of their questionable ingredients, like rancid hog fat. I finally found an "oatmeal health soap" that said it was for "that virgin look." I began my shower.
Lathering away, I thought this difficult situation over. I will admit that I was baffled.
My calculations had been out, somehow, no matter how deeply I thrust them in. Anyone would have thought that the crudest possible thing you could do to a lesbian would be to make her witness natural sex.
The Marquis de Sade himself advocated, as the worst sadistic action possible, "anarchic sexual violence." I had only gone by the book. And he should know. He had been a man who practiced what he preached. Freud himself, a few decades later, would have been utterly spinning, had it not been for the earlier dedicated work of de Sade.
Somewhere I must have slipped. But enough of wondering. I was a man of the future, not the past. I toyed with the idea of simply killing them, disposing of the bodies, calling a moving company and having them take the safe to the manufacturer. I could tell them that I had forgotten the combination. But I discarded the notion, as they might get suspicious. I had to keep my trail covered.
I finished showering. I smelled disgustingly clean– or was that oatmeal?
I put on the Ninja robe. I picked up a gun. I was just putting my hand out to open the door when I heard them talking. They had come to! I listened. Maybe I could pick up a clue that would tell me what to do next.
Pinch's voice, "All right, then, you tell him."
Candy said, "No. You tell him. You're much better at tricky things."
"He won't believe me," said Pinch. "He doesn't trust me."
"He's got to believe you," said Candy.
"I don't think I can con him."
Candy said, "You've GOT to try! This is intolerable. He might do the most awful thing I can think of."
Pinch said, "God (bleep) it, he might at that. This is pretty desperate!"
Aha! They thought it was desperate, did they? My heart leaped with hope. There was something they were terrified of. I took a chance. I walked in, gun ready.
They were both staring at me, Candy tied up on the sofa, Pinch securely manacled on the bed. Was there fear in their eyes? Aha! There was! Unmistakable. They were terrified!
Miss Pinch took a deep breath. She said, "If you unchain me and leave the room, I will open the safe and give you your money."
Oh, man. I had accidentally hit upon something they were afraid I would do. I must pretend I knew what it was, even though I didn't.
But I knew Miss Pinch. She was, even more than other women, tricky to the last stab in the back. I would outsmart her. I would at least hear what this was before I murdered both of them.
I went around the room and collected every knife display and weapon in it. I even found the old duelling pistols of such painful memory. It took me three trips to Candy's room before I had the lot piled in there.
I ripped out the telephone cord. I ripped out the connections on the bank camera, after making sure it would not trip some remote. I looked in the cupboard and got all the pepper and mustard and Tabasco sauce and added them to the weapons pile.
With expert loops, I untied Candy's feet from the lashing under the couch and retied her ankles. She knew better than to fight: I was holding a knife in my teeth.
I held a pistol to her head and dragged her into her bedroom and tied her to the bureau.
I came back, and with the Ruger Blackhawk cocked in my left hand, I unshackled Miss Pinch and drew back hastily.
"One false move from you," I said, "and I will blow Candy's head off. Now open the safe."
"When you've left the room and closed the door," she said.
It was taking a terrible chance. But I needed that money in order to continue on my way to wreck the cause of all my woes, Heller.
I backed out of the door and closed it. I held the gun ready on Candy in case there was any treachery afoot.
Some small sounds in the other room. Believe me, this was one of the touchiest points in my whole career. I had to continue to look calm to them but it was very difficult.
I could almost hear my own heart trying to climb
into my throat. Women are always dangerous and when they are lesbians they are doubly dangerous-and when they are Miss Pinch, watch it, man, for she was all three.
A voice from the other room. "You can come in now."
I was not to be taken unawares. I got hold of the naked Candy, still tied, and used her as a body shield. I kicked open the door.
Miss Pinch was kneeling, propitiative, in front of the safe. She had her hands behind her. Trickery! The safe was closed! I held the Ruger to Candy's temple, finger on the hair trigger.
"What treachery is this?" I demanded.
Miss Pinch took her hands from behind her back. She was holding a thousand-dollar bill. She said, "This is yours if you don't do it." Fear was in her eyes.
It was time I found out what they were terrified of. "If I don't do what?" I grated.
It was Candy that answered, all in a babble, the accents of sheer horror, "YOU MIGHT WALK OUT THAT DOOR AND LEAVE! WE MIGHT NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN!"
I blinked. A new kind of trick. They had a trap out there and were using the negative ploy, page two million and three of the Apparatus manual on hoodwinking.
Miss Pinch was talking. There was pleading in her voice. "Your money is still in the safe. By your signing a blank invoice I can even get you more. But this is all you can have right now. There are conditions."
"Yes?" I said suspiciously.
"You can have a thousand dollars every day if you will live here with us and promise to do that same thing every night."
"To both of us," said Candy. "Every night."
Oh, this was very suspicious. I said, "What about Psychiatric Birth Control?"
Miss Pinch said, "Anything that gets in the road of something that feels that wonderful can stuff it."
"To hell with Psychiatric Birth Control!" said Candy.
Miss Pinch said, "They have lied to us. We have been biting and scratching and smearing lipstick in that back room for years. We have followed the Psychiatric Birth Control texts exactly. We have even had consultations with the psychiatrist in charge of it. And no one, not once, has ever told us the sensation was supposed to come from down THERE! Isn't that right, Candy?"
"That is correct," said Candy. "Not the faintest mention of it anywhere! I was almost to the breaking point of pretending, until I had that... that..."
"Orgasm?" I said.
"Oh, is THAT what an organism is?" said Candy.
Mission: Earth Fortune of Fear Page 25
