Image of the Beast / Blown

by Philip José Farmer

  He wore a slicker and a shiny transparent covering over

  his cap. As the car went by, Childe hunkered down

  behind the wheel. He waited until it was a block away

  and then swung out to follow it without turning his

  lights on immediately. The rain had not ceased, and the

  streets were even deeper in water.

  The Rolls picked up Vivienne and her escort at the

  club and then went back towards the mansion. Childe

  had hoped it would; he did not feel like trailing her

  from one spot to another. The Rolls stopped before the

  big porch to let its passengers off, and they went into

  the house. The chauffeur drove the car away, presumably

  to the side entrance and into the garage behind the house.

  Childe had gotten out of the car by then and walked

  down along the side of the house. He saw the lights in

  the story above the garage come on. The chauffeur, he

  hoped, lived there.

  He went to the side door, which was surrounded by

  dense shrubbery and a wall behind him. The people

  next door could not see him, and anybody passing by on

  the street would not be likely to see him.

  The door opened after a few minutes of trying a num-

  ber of keys. He shot his flashlight around, looking for

  evidences of a burglar alarm and could not find any.

  He went on slowly into the house, ready to run if a dog

  gave warning. There was no sound except for the chim-

  ing of a big grandfather clock on the second floor.

  A moment later, he was crouched outside the partly

  opened door of Vivienne's bedroom.

  22

  The room was very large. There was a single light on

  from the lamp on the floor. Its base was at least four

  feet high and was some red-shot quartz-like stone sculp-

  tured into two naked nymphs—or female satyrs—back

  to back. The shade looked like thin parchment or skin.

  Childe, seeing this, was chilled through as if a huge icicle

  had been shoved up his anus all the way to his hindbrain.

  There were paintings in red, blue, and purple on the

  lampshade, outlines of semihuman figures writhing in

  flames.

  The walls were covered with what looked like heavy

  quiltwork. This had three figures, repeated over and

  over. There was a satyr standing on a low stone on one

  hoof, the other slightly raised. His back was arched and

  his arms and head were raised while he blew a syrinx.

  A nymph was crouched before him sucking on his enor-

  mous purple penis. Behind her was a half-human, half-

  snake creature. Its lower part was that of a gargantuan

  python with white and purple markings, and the upper

  part was a woman's from the belly button up. She had

  full and well-shaped breasts with spearpoint scarlet nip-

  ples, a lovely three-cornered face and long silver hair.

  Her slender fingers were spreading the egg-shaped but-

  tocks of the nymph, who was bent over, and a long forked

  tongue was issuing from the snake-woman's mouth and

  just about to enter the anus or the vagina of the nymph.

  Beyond the lamp was a tremendous twelve-postered

  bed with a crimson many-tasseled canopy. On it were

  Vivienne and the man, both naked.

  She was on her back and he was on top with her legs

  over his shoulders. He was just about to insert his

  cock.

  Childe watched. He expected either something strange

  coming from the man or something strange, but not un-

  familiar, from the woman.

  "Put it in for me, baby," the man said. He was about

  thirty-five, dark and hairy and beginning to flesh out.

  And then the man screamed and soared backwards

  off the bed, propelled by his sudden movement and his

  push upwards with one arm and by a snapping move-

  ment of his body that could only have been induced by

  utmost terror.

  He went back and up, trying to stand up at the same

  time that he moved away from Vivienne. Her legs flew

  apart as if they were two white birds that had startled

  each other.

  The man fell off the bed and crashed onto the floor.

  By then, he had quit screaming, but he shook and

  moaned.

  Vivienne got onto her knees and crawled over to look

  over the edge of the bed at him. Something long and

  dark-headed between her legs slid back into the slit and

  disappeared.

  "What's the matter, Bill?" she said, looking down at

  him. "Did the cat get your cock?"

  He was sitting up by then, intently handling and eyeing

  his penis. He looked up at her with surprise.

  "My God! What happened? You ask what happened?

  I thought ... I really did think … you got teeth in your

  cunt?"

  He stood up. The gray of his skin was beginning to

  redden out. He waved his prick at her.

  "Look at that! There are teethmarks there!"

  She took the limp organ, which looked like a giant

  but sick worm, and bent over to examine it.

  "How can you say those are teeth marks?" she said.

  "There are some tiny little indentations there, but noth-

  ing serious. There! Does that make Mommy's boy feel

  better?"

  She had kissed the big purple-red glans and then run

  her tongue along the shaft.

  He backed away, saying, "Keep your distance,

  woman!"

  "Are you out of your mind?" she said. She was sitting

  up on the edge of the bed with the magnificently full

  and conical breasts pointed at him. Her pubis was a

  large triangle of thick dark-red hair, almost the same

  shade as the long thick rich auburn hair on her head.

  The legs were extraordinarily long and very white.

  Bill continued to keep his distance. He said, "I tell

  you; something bit me. You got teeth in your cunt!"

  She lay back down on the bed with her legs stretched

  out so that the tips of her toes touched the floor. She

  said, "Put your finger in, darling, and find out what a

  fool you are."

  He eyed the reddish fleece and the slit, somewhat

  opened by the posture.

  He said, "I like my finger, too!"

  Vivienne sat up suddenly, her beautiful face twisted.

  "You asshole! I thought you were a normal healthy man!

  I didn't know you were psychotic! Teeth in my cunt,

  indeed! Get to hell out of here before I call the psycho

  ward!"

  Bill looked as if he felt foolish. He said, "Honest to

  God, I don't know how to explain it! Maybe I am going

  nuts! Or maybe I just had a sudden strain, maybe that

  was the burning sensation I felt! No, by God, it felt

  like tiny teeth! Or a bunch of needles!"

  Vivienne got down off the bed and reached out a hand

  to Bill.

  "Come here, baby. Sit down on the bed. Here!" She

  patted the edge of the bed.

  Bill must have decided that he was making a fool of

  himself. Moreover, the sight of the superbly shaped

  Vivienne, with her outrageously beautiful face, overcame

  his fears. His penis began to swell, but it did not rise.<
br />
  He seated himself on the bed, and Vivienne walked

  around the side and got a pillow. Returning, she threw

  it on the floor and got down on her knees on it.

  "I've got teeth in my mouth, baby, but I know how to

  use them," she said. She picked up the semi-flaccid organ

  and ran her tongue out to flick the slit on the end of the

  glans. He jumped a little but settled back to look down

  at her while she took half of the cock into her mouth.

  She began to work her head back and forth, slowly, and

  the organ disappeared entirely, then emerged slick and

  shining red as far as the head.

  Bill shook and moaned and kept his gaze fixed upon

  the penis diving in and out of those full red lips. He was

  evidently getting a heightened ecstasy out of watching

  his cock pistoning into her mouth.

  Herald Childe did not know whether he should stay

  there or not. He wanted to explore the house for anything

  he might be able to use for evidence against Vivienne

  and her partners. If he could find names and addresses,

  documents, recordings, films, anything that would tend to

  prove their criminal activities, he should do it now.

  Vivienne was occupied, and she was unlikely to notice

  any noise outside this bedroom.

  However, he was worried about the man. His be-

  havior made it evident that he was not aware of

  Vivienne's peculiarities of physiology or her fatal actions.

  At least, Childe supposed that they were fatal for others.

  He had never seen her kill or even harm anyone, but

  he was certain that she was no different from her

  monstrous associates.

  Bill was an innocent in the sense that he was a victim.

  He had probably never done anything to offend or hurt

  Vivienne and her group. He was just a pickup, as

  Childe's partner had been a pickup.

  Childe shuddered at the memory of that film that had

  been shipped to the LAPD by the killers. It had shown

  his partner being sucked off, as Bill now was. The woman

  had removed her false teeth and inserted razor-edged

  iron teeth, and bitten off the end of his partner's cock.

  The blood was a crimson fountain that burst out

  frequently in his visions and his dreams.

  Childe decided that he would have to interfere. This

  meant that he could not prowl around the house now.

  He would have to make sure that the man was safe.

  He should do so now, but he could not. He wanted to

  find out what would happen. He would wait a while and

  then step in.

  Vivienne abruptly stood up, revealing Bill's red and

  pulsing beak sticking out at a 45-degree angle.

  She said, "Slide back onto the bed, baby, and lie

  down."

  Whatever reservations he had about her had dimin-

  ished with the increase in blood pressure. He moved

  back and lay down with his head on the pillow while she

  climbed onto the bed. She mouthed the head of his penis

  for a minute and then said, "Bill?"

  He was flat on his back, his hands spread out, his

  face turned upwards. His eyes were open. He did not

  answer.

  "Bill?" she said again, a little louder.

  When he did not respond, she crawled down to him

  and looked into his face. She pinched his cheek and then

  raked it with her fingernails. Blood flowed from four

  rows on his flesh, but he did not move. His penis, how-

  ever, reared up, thick, squat, red-purplish, glistening.

  Vivienne turned then, and Childe saw the smirk. What-

  ever she was planning, it was proceeding smoothly.

  It was then that he should walk into the room, but he

  was too fascinated to make his move as yet. Bill seemed

  to be paralyzed, though how it had happened, Childe

  could not guess. Not at first. Then he realized that that

  thing had bitten Bill's peter with poisonous teeth. The

  venom had frozen him, with the exception of his prick.

  The blood was still pumping into it.

  The woman straddled him with the intention of easing

  down on his cock and letting it slide up into the slit of her

  vagina. But she only allowed the head to enter and then

  she stopped descending. She crouched there for about

  thirty seconds, during which she shook as if she were hav-

  ing an orgasm.

  Immediately after, she withdrew, exposing the penis,

  which was still upright. But there were tiny rills of blood

  running down its side from several places between the

  head and the shaft.

  Vivienne turned around to straddle him facing away

  from him. She put her hand below her buttocks to grab the

  penis and to slide it in again. This time, however, she let

  her weight slowly down to guide the cock into her anus.

  And when its head was engulfed, she stopped.

  Childe anticipated what would happen next. He felt

  sick, and he knew he should halt the monstrous rape, but

  he also was gripped with the desire to witness what, as far

  as he knew, no man alive had seen. Emphasis on the

  alive.

  Vivienne waited, and then the lips of her slit bulged

  open. The thick meat of rich red hair was pushed aside,

  and a tiny head emerged. It was soaked with the lubricat-

  ing fluids within her cunt, and it had the features of a

  man. Its hair was black; it had a tiny moustache and

  goatee; its eyes were two garnets under eyebrows no

  thicker than the leg of a black widow spider. The lips

  were so thin as to be invisible; the nose was long and

  curved.

  The head moved forward as the body continued to slide

  out from the vagina. It raised upon the shaft of the body

  like a snake, and Childe heard it hiss but knew that that

  had to be his imagination. It glided on over the wrinkled

  sac of the testicles and underneath, apparently headed

  for the anus. Then it disappeared while the uncoiling body

  kept issuing from the slit. By then, its head must have

  gone deep into the man's bowels.

  Childe unfroze abruptly. He shook his head as if

  trying to clear away sleep. He was not sure that he had

  not fallen into a semihypnotic state while watching the

  bizarre scene.

  He stepped through the door just as Vivienne eased

  herself down on the penis, driving it all the way up her

  own anus. Her eyes were closed, and her face was

  ecstatic. He managed to get close to her while she was

  moving up and down on the shaft and moaning phrases

  in a foreign language. The only sounds were her voice,

  the striking of rain against the windows, and the squeak

  of the bed springs as she slid up and down on the cock

  like a monkey on a stick.

  Now that he was closer, he could see that the pale and

  slimy body of the thing was in the man's anus. It ap-

  parently had gone in as deeply as it could, or as it cared

  to, because the motion was stopped. Childe felt sick be-

  cause he could imagine that golfball-sized head with its

  vicious eyes blind in the night of the bowels and its

  mouth che
wing on whatever it was that it found delect-

  able in there.

  23

  He reached out and touched the pink-red and swollen

  nipple on that superb breast.

  She reacted violently. Her eyes flew open, exposing

  the beautiful violet, and she rose up off the bed, leaving

  the throbbing penis sticking up and dragging the body of

  the thing out of the man's body. Both came loose with a

  slurping sound, and the tiny mouth of the thing chattered

  a high-pitched and angry stream of expletives. At least,

  they sounded like cursing to Childe, although he did not

  know the language. The words seemed to be Latin in

  origin, they were vaguely French or perhaps Catalan or

  something in between.

  On seeing Childe, the thing reared up on its body,

  which coiled behind the head as if it were a rattlesnake.

  Vivienne continued to move away from Childe, however,

  retreating to the opposite end of the bed. There she

  crouched, while the thing swung between her legs and

  then started to slide back into the vagina. The head was

  fixed on Childe while this withdrawal occurred. Its red-

  gleaming eyes were hateful and deadly. Then the head

  was gone into the slit; the labia closed; it was as if the

  thing had never existed. Certainly, the thing should not

  exist.

  Childe moved up along the bed and reached out and

  slapped the man in the face. The hand left a red imprint,

  but that was the only reaction from him. He continued

  to stare upwards, and his chest rose and fell slowly. His

  dong was beginning to dwindle and sag.

  "That will do no good unless I give him the anti-

  dote," Vivienne said.

  Her color was beginning to return, and she was even

  smiling at him.

  "Then give it to him!"

  "Or you'll do what?"

  The tone was not hostile, just questioning.

  "I'll call the cops."

  "If you do," she said evenly, "you'll be the one

  hauled away. I'll charge you with breaking and enter-

  ing, threatened rape, and assault, and battery on my

  friend here and maybe even attempted murder."

  Childe wondered why she would not charge him with

  actual rape, then it occurred to him that she would not