The Harrad Experiment

by Robert H. Rimmer

  “You’ll burst your bladder holding that long,” she remarked.

  I tried to ignore her invasion of my privacy.

  “Women make the best lovers, don’t you think so?” she asked.

  “For men?”

  “No, silly ... for women.”

  I didn’t wait to watch Petey. I scrambled back to the table wondering if she meant it, and feeling slightly sick. Some of the Harrad kids waved at me. Stanley and Harry had disappeared. I noticed that Beth and Jack were talking intimately. A new “act” had started on the stage. I told Bad Max I was leaving.

  “Leaving? Where to? It will be midnight in two hours. Then the place will really start jumping. Besides, you don’t want to leave The Last Gurgle without seeing Bad Max’s bedroom. I’m going to show it to you personally at midnight.” He pushed me back into my chair and pointed at the stage. “Just watch this. This is the sexiest strip act ever put on in New York City.”

  Reluctantly, I watched the stage while Bad Max gave me a play by play description.

  “This is a modern interpretation of the story of Prometheus. I whipped it together one weekend. Tonight you’ll see the uncut version. On weekdays, for the tourists, we clean it up.”

  Accompanied by the high squeal of a cornet and thundering bongos, two male dancers leaped into the center of the stage and were followed by lightning flashes of purple and yellow spot lights. One dancer tugged against chains that looped his body, the other, brandishing a dagger, forced him to the rear of the stage. While the bongos beat furiously, the dancer with the dagger fastened the other dancer to a red brick wall, where he weaved and struggled hopelessly against his chains.

  “The one with the dagger is Hephaestus,” Bad Max explained. “He is sad at being forced by Zeus to bind Prometheus to the Rock. But Zeus is adamant. Watch.”

  His face distorted with despair, his hands aloft, Hephaestus offered his dagger to Zeus. Evidently refused, he turned suddenly in a grand jeté, landing in front of Prometheus and slashing his clothes, until the writhing and twisting Prometheus was naked against the wall.

  “How was that?” Bad Max breathed in my ears. “It took some doing to devise Prometheus’ robes so that Hephaestus could slash them off without cutting him to pieces. The first performance, Prometheus was wiggling so damned much that Hephaestus nearly de-balled him.”

  In spite of myself I couldn’t help staring at Prometheus. His tall, naked, muscular body, hairless except for the pubic area, fought against its chains in an agonized movement that was obviously meant to portray frustrated sexuality.

  “He’s a handsome brute,” Bad Max sighed. “All the women want to take him to bed. But he’s a man’s man ... as was Prometheus. Does the idea shock you?”

  I shook my head. I wasn’t shocked. I just wanted to cry.

  Five girls, naked except for diaphanous skirts wound lightly around their hips and unshaved pubes, appeared sur les pointes, and danced mincingly around Prometheus.

  “They are the daughters of Oceanus,” Bad Max explained. “They are angry with Zeus, and in despair because they know that Prometheus will never be forgiven.”

  As they danced by him, the daughters of Oceanus lightly caressed Prometheus, who arched his pelvis in suitable reaction to their touch.

  “Good thing he prefers men.” Bad Max grinned at me. “How do you like the way I’ve sexed up Aeschylus?”

  Another naked girl, wearing horns on her head and a tail suspended from behind, danced onto the stage and did a pas de poisson into the arms of Hephaestus. She was pursued by another male dancer, who snapped a whip at her.

  “That girl is a damned good dancer,” Bad Max said, clapping. “She is Io who was turned into a heifer by Hera. Hermes is pursuing her. Do you know the story?”

  I nodded. “Io was loved by Zeus. Hera punished Zeus by turning Io into a heifer and forcing her to wander the world endlessly.”

  Hermes was now dancing menacingly around Prometheus.

  “I am the originator of the nude ballet.” Bad Max grinned at me. “You can readily see that the movements of the body are expressed in the entrechats, the lifts, the pas de bourree, are much more entrancing when seen naked—a beautiful flow of controlled flesh in motion. Now, watch! Prometheus has refused to tell Hermes the name of the person who will eventually usurp Zeus’ power. Hermes indicates that for his defiance of Zeus, Prometheus must suffer interminably. Here is the tour de force. I have made the eagle, who will gnaw endlessly on Prometheus’ liver, a woman!”

  For a second all the stage lights went out. While a comet snarled and the bongos thumped in an increasing intensity, the floodlights slowly turned the stage a misty green. A woman, naked except for black wings strapped to her arms, literally flew on stage. Floating down from above and inside the curtain, she glided toward Prometheus, her face made up like a vulture, her body held incredibly straight and rigid with only her arms moving slowly up and down. It was impossible to see how she was suspended. When she alighted on the stage, she hurled herself, naked, against the naked Prometheus. The stage slowly darkened, the bongos thundered, and the cornet wailed until the sound became supersonic.

  Good God broke the trance. “You should have made the eagle a man. The end would be more Grecian and not nearly so nasty.”

  “Why didn’t you make them both women?” Petey asked.

  “Christ Almighty,” Bad Max exploded. “How do you please everybody?”

  I finally escaped Bad Max by telling him I wanted to talk with some of my friends. Locating my leopard coat under a heap of fur coats in the unmonitored cloak room, and without daring to look behind me, I dashed to the street and freedom.

  Signalling wildly at taxis that ignored me, I discovered Harry Schacht, quite drunk, leaning against a street light on the comer of MacDougal Street.

  “Hi,” he said, peering at me without recognition.

  “I’m Sheila,” I said. “Come on, we are going back to the Astor.”

  “I’m sick,” Harry said. “Don’t feel good.”

  “Well ... not good.”

  “Well ... Well ... Down in the Well,” he sang as I moved him into a taxi that finally heeded my frantic signalling.

  Inside he collapsed against me, murmuring: “Beth ... Beth.... I spun the dreidl and lost ... lost all my candy down the well.”

  “Your boy friend?” the taxi driver asked.

  “I guess so.”

  Harry slumped against me. I took off his glasses and put my arm around him. By the time we got back to the hotel he was snoring. Somehow, I piloted him through the lobby and up the elevator to our rooms. Harry ran for the bathroom, and I could hear him vomiting. I held his head over the toilet fearful that his wracking spasms would shake his frail body apart.

  “Oh, Sheila ... I’m very sorry,” he moaned. “I never really drank anything in my life before except beer.”

  “Why did you drink tonight?”

  “Because I lost the only girl in the world that was ever nice to me.”

  “I’m being nice to you.”

  “But you don’t care about me.”

  I kissed the back of his head. “I care for you, Harry. Come on, I’ll help you get into bed.”

  He sat on the toilet, and I washed his face and unbuttoned his shirt. Guiding him into one of the bedrooms, I pushed him into a twin bed, took off his trousers, shorts, and shoes, and after a great deal of tugging, finally got him under the covers. Then I couldn’t help it. I sat beside him on the bed and sobbed.

  “You crying, too?” Harry opened his eyes and stared at me.

  “No. Go to sleep.”

  I knew I couldn’t say in the motel and wait for the Harrad kids to come back. I couldn’t face Stanley or Beth or any of their New Years’ gaiety. I had to go. Go where? Anywhere. I wrote a note on the hotel stationery. “Stanley, I’ve gone to LaGuardia to take a plane back to Harrad. You can drive my car back. Take care of Harry. You owe it to him.” I pinned the note to Harry’s trousers, grabbed my suitcase, and
ran for the hotel lobby.

  It’s March. It’s snowing. Harry just went back to his room. “Aren’t you lonesome?” he asked just before he left.

  “Yes,” I said, “But I’m not ready for a roommate.”

  I haven’t been able to write in this journal since the week after New Years. Harry is the only one who knows the frightening conclusion to my New Year’s Eve. Even now when I remember how terrified I was ... so sickeningly afraid that I actually wet my pants ... I don’t like to think about it. But I know I have to write it down. If only to try and stop it from endlessly unreeling in my brain like a slow motion horror movie ... if only to ask as I have a thousand times since; why? why? God ... why does love escape us?

  When I dashed out of the Astor, I was ruthlessly sucked into a maelstrom of screaming, yelling, laughing, cursing, drunken, whirling, twisting, world-gone-mad people, all hovering on the brink of midnight. Thousands and thousands of them, drinking from bottles, throwing streamers and confetti, cracking noisemakers, hugging, grabbing, goosing, kissing, slobbering against me as I tried to find my way to 42nd Street, and a possible taxi. It was hopeless. I was shoved deeper and deeper into the crowd in the opposite direction.

  “In five minutes it will be New Year’s Eve,” someone screamed in my ear. A man swung me around and kissed me with wet slippery lips. Trying desperately to hold my suitcase, I couldn’t fend him off. He kept kissing me, his breath heavy with whiskey and cigar smoke. I screamed, and he was dragged away with the crowd.

  “Dearie, it’s awful,” a woman muttered. “A lot of people are going to get trampled to death before this is over.”

  Someone whirled me around and blew a noisemaker in my face. I stumbled back ... was pushed forward ... and then I tripped and fell to my knees. I could feel my nylons split under the sharp impact. Someone grabbed my suitcase. A hand clutched my armpit. Strong fingers bit through my fur coat and jerked me to my feet. Numbly, my knees aching and bleeding, I stared into the faces of three boys who had formed a wedge against the crowd.

  “Hey, we found ourselves a doll,” one of them yelled.

  Another, brandishing a fifth of whiskey, shoved it in my face.

  “You’re slopping it all over her, man,” the one holding my arm said. I could smell the cheap liquor on his breath. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “Would you help me get a taxi?” I begged him. His hand was still a vise on my arm. Hundreds of faces, laughing, angry, contorted, flowed by us like water pouring over a dam, never ceasing, an endless stream of grinning eyes, and mouths shouting Happy New Year.

  The boys stood their ground, viciously punching at anyone who tried to push them into the swirling, undulating mass.

  “I dub thee Sir Galahad.” The boy holding the whiskey sprinkled some on the one who held me. “I dub thee Sir Launœlot.” He splashed some on the other boy, who angrily jabbed him in the ribs.

  “Cut the crap and stop wasting that stuff.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that. I’m King Arthur. Get on your god-damned white horses. Break a path through this stinting pile of humanity. We will rescue Lady Tit-Quim from the mad dragon-bagons.”

  King Arthur, who had long black sideburns, pulled me away from Sir Galahad and shoved him and Sir Launœlot into the crowd. I noticed that the back of their jackets were lettered with the word “Chasers.”

  “We’re tit-and-pussy chasers,” King Arthur said, laughing raucously as he propelled me forward.

  Pushing, shoving, flaying their arms, Sir Galahad and Sir Launœlot flung themselves against the tide of people who were moving in the opposite direction. They stamped on feet, straight-armed, jammed people in the middle, and cursed them. When one man angrily refused to give ground, they lifted him by the armpits and tossed him bodily into the crowd. Ignoring the cries of hoodlums and punks that were screamed at them they finally reached the comer of 47th Street. At last we were free of the helpless revellers. I tried to thank them and asked for my suitcase.

  “You won’t get a cab here until the crowds thin out,” King Arthur said. “We’ll walk you through to 9th Avenue.”

  I tried to assure them that I was all right.

  “We haven’t finished saving you, Lady Tit-Quim,” Sir Gale-had said.

  “Have a drink and calm down,” Sir Launcelot said. “We are jolly knights of the round table.” He grabbed my other arm. With Sir Galahad leading, they pushed me along 47th Street.

  “Please, Please! Let me go!” I screamed.

  “She’s looking for a place to have a leak,” Sir Launcelot explained to the curious passetsby.

  King Arthur held me menacingly. While Sir Launcelot and Sir Galahad stood in front of us, preventing anyone from seeing what was happening, King Arthur snapped open a long switch knife and pushed it deep into my fur coat. “If you yell like that again, I’ll slit you in two from your skinny neck right down to your hairy crotch. Get the message?”

  We were now quite a distance from Times Square. The few people hurrying by ignored us completely. The noise and bright lights had disappeared. Our footsteps echoed on the empty street.

  “Please,” I begged, paralyzed with fear as they forced me to walk faster and faster. “If you want money, take my pocket book.”

  “What are we going to do with her?” Sir Galahad asked.

  “This looks like a rich quiff,” King Arthur said. “I think we’ll look into her suitcase.”

  “There’s nothing in it, please, please ...” I said, unable to hold back my tears, “Let me go!”

  “Take her damned pocket book,” Sir Launœlot said. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I don’t want to get tangled with the fuzz.”

  “There’s an open-air garage across the street; we can take her there. Check it out, Chaser.”

  Sir Galahad ran across the street and disappeared. We waited on the corner. Helplessly I watched the automobiles speeding by us, praying they might see the terror on my face. A taxi slowed down, but Sir Launcelot waved the driver on.

  In a few minutes Sir Galahad returned, puffing. “There’s a stairway to the roof floor. Nobody up there. A couple of trucks is all.”

  When we reached the garage, Sir Galahad yanked open a metal door leading upstairs. I screamed. King Arthur shoved me inside and slapped me twice across the face. “Try that again, sister, any you’ve had it.”

  They dragged me up the stairs to the roof. I was sobbing hysterically, only dimly aware that it was freezing cold. In the background the tall buildings of Manhattan and the shimmering lights looked frigidly down on us ... disinterested stone and glass.

  Sir Galahad jumped up on the tailgate of one of the trucks. “This crate is empty. Toss her up here. Let’s get out of the wind before we freeze to death.”

  They pushed me into the truck. Sir Galahad explored my face with a pocket flashlight. “Stop blubbering. We aren’t going to kill you.”

  King Arthur pushed me to the back of the truck and forced me to sit on the metal floor. Slumping down beside me, he took a swallow of whiskey from the bottle Sir Launcelot handed him, and then grabbed me by the back of the neck. “Open your mouth,” he hissed. Digging his fingers into my neck he pulled my head back. I finally opened my mouth. He poured the whiskey slopping it in my face, forcing me to swallow. I finally gagged.

  “For Christ sake, leave her alone,” Sir Launcelot said. “Let’s grab her dough and get the hell out of here before we all freeze to death.”

  “I thought we were going to shag her,” Sir Galahad said. “This looks like good stuff.”

  “Shut up, you fag,” Sir Launcelot opened my suitcase and dumped it on the floor of the truck. Using pocket flashlights they pawed through the mess. King Arthur held up my brassieres and panties and sniffed at them. “There’s nothing in the suitcase. Dump out her pocketbook.”

  Whistling with amazement, they counted the money. “Two hundred and thirty-two smackers. We’ve hit it rich.”

  “What kind of coat is this?” King Arthur demanded, rubbing the f
ur.

  “It’s leopard. Please, for God’s sake, let me go.”

  He grabbed me by the arm. “How much is it worth?”

  “Fifteen hundred dollars.”

  King Arthur started to pull my coat off.

  “Let her go. We’re not snatching her coat.” Sir Launcelot said, pulling him away from me.

  “This is a rich bitch,” King Arthur snarled. “Listen, you crumb, when did you ever get so near a babe who wore a thousand buck coat?”

  “Her snatch must be made of gold. “I want to stick my shaft in her little gold mine,” Sir Galahad pinned my arms with one hand and tore open the top of my dress with the other. “You first, King Arthur. I’ll hold her.

  I kicked my legs wildly but King Arthur managed to push my dress up. He ripped at my panties. “Jesus, she’s pissing herself, he said, drawing his hand away. And I was. So terrified that I no longer had control. I locked my legs together, but it was hopeless. King Arthur stuck the point of his knife against my navel. “Open your legs up wide, sister or I’ll stick you.” He drew the knife across my belly, increasing the pressure until I was certain that I was bleeding. Moaning, trying to writhe away from Sir Galahad who held my breast I finally opened my legs. King Arthur examined me with a flash light.

  “Looks like any other tail ... only damper,” he said. “Maybe it feels different.” He unzipped his pants.

  “Okay,” Sir Launcelot snarled. “You’ve had your fun. Let the kid go!” I heard the snap of a switch knife.

  “You’re off your rocker,” King Arthur said, ignoring him. “Take a drink and watch a man knock off a piece.” His penis in his hand he started to lower himself on me.

  Sir Launcelot shoved him with his foot. King Arthur fell forward on me yelling angrily. He jumped up. I heard a knife swish through the air. Sir Galahad let go of me and tried to stand between them.