"Aw, ya bunch of cockless bastards!" Ginger said; her voice was fading as she drifted on along Bourbon Street.
The thang thrashed wildly back and forth, pistoning against the door. The second hinge broke, and the door crashed down into the hallway. Another door opened, an elderly man and woman peering out; they saw what appeared to be a naked man fighting a pale python, and they retreated into their room and began to drag furniture against their door.
Dave caught the thang in a strangling grip. The head turned crimson, the veined length coiling back and forth in muscular fury. "No!" Dave shouted, sweat on his face. "No! No! No!"
He thought he heard the damned thang whimper. It shrank, and the testicles almost instantly decreased. In another moment the thang had contracted to its usual tiny self, and Dave was never so glad of anything in his life.
He was about to struggle up off his stomach when he saw two shoes on the floor in front of his face. Standing in those shoes was the desk clerk, whose eyes had bulged behind his glasses. "We don't permit," he said coolly, "this kind of behavior in our establishment."
The desk clerk and a security guard stood watch while Dave dressed and packed. The door was paid for — MasterCard to the rescue — and in about ten minutes Dave was standing on deserted Bourbon Street with his suitcase in his hand and his shirttail hanging out.
The sun was rising over New Orleans, and already the heat shimmered in waves off the cobblestones.
He was sitting on the curb in front of Miss Fallon's shop when Malcolm came along to open up at nine-thirty.
"You done screwed up, didn't you?" Malcolm asked him. "Yep! I knew it. You done screwed up."
Dave went inside, sat down in a corner like a dunce, and waited for Miss Fallon.
She arrived, wearing pink jeans and a paisley-print blouse, around ten-thirty. Malcolm hooked a finger toward Dave's corner. "Tourist messed up," Malcolm said, and Miss Fallon just sighed and shook her head.
"Okay, okay! So I drank a beer!" Dave said, once they were inside Miss Fallon's office. "Nobody's perfect! I wanted two or three extra inches, not extra yards! You gave me something Frankenstein would've been proud of!"
"Is that so?" She couldn't help laughing behind her cupped hands.
"Don't laugh! It's not funny! Hell, no! I can't go through life busting doors down with this… this monster! Change me back! Hell, keep the money, just change me back!"
Miss Fallon, seated regally behind her desk, looked up at his inflamed face. "Sorry. I can't do that."
"Oh, you want more money? Right? Hell, I'm down to my last few pennies! You take Visa? MasterCard? That's all I've —»
"I can't change you back," Miss Fallon said. "There's no spell or potion for somebody who wants a smaller thang."
"Oh." It was a small whisper, and he felt the wind gust out of him.
"Sorry." She shrugged. "If you'd let it settle like I told you, you'd be okay. But…" She trailed off; there was nothing more to be said.
"I can't… I can't go back home like this! Lord, no! I mean… what if I got an erection on the plane?"
Miss Fallon thought about that for a moment, her brow furrowed. "Hold on," she said finally, and picked up her telephone. She dialed a number. "Hi. It's me. Come on over, and bring the works." She hung up; merry good humor sparkled in her copper eyes.
"What is it? Who'd you call?"
"My Aunt Flavia. She makes the gunk. Part of what you drank." Miss Fallon tapped her fingertips on her desk. "You want to get back to what you were, right?"
"Yes! I'll do anything! I swear to God!"
Miss Fallon leaned forward slightly. "Would you let us experiment on you?"
"Expert…" The word clogged in his throat. "Like how?"
"Nothin' painful. Just tryin' an elixir here, an elixir there. You'll have to grow a cast-iron stomach, but we might be able to come up with a cure. Over time, that is."
"Time?" Ants of terror crawled in his belly. "How much time?"
"A month." She flicked a bit of dust off her desk. "Two, maybe. Three at the most."
Three months, he thought. Three months of drinking sludge.
"Four months, tops," Miss Fallon said.
Dave felt light-headed, and he wavered on his feet.
"My Aunt Flavia's got a guest room at her place. I see you're already packed." She nodded toward his suitcase. "You could move in with her, if you like. Won't cost you more than a hundred a week."
Dave tried to speak; a raspy nonsense came out.
Aunt Flavia arrived, lugging a suitcase. She was a husky octoroon woman with copper eyes, her long-jawed face like a wrinkled prune. She wore a red-and-gold caftan, and she had little mouse skulls dangling from her earlobes. "Oh, he's handsome," Aunt Flavia said, showing a gold tooth as she smiled at Dave. She put the suitcase atop Miss Fallon's desk and opened it. Inside were vials of dark liquids, dirty roots, coarse powders, and a bag of Aunt Esther's Graveyard Dirt This Is The Real Stuff. "Brought the whole shootin' match," Aunt Flavia said. "We gonna start now?"
"Soon as your new boarder's ready," Miss Fallon said. Dave had turned a little green around the edges. "Oh, I forgot to tell you: my Aunt Flavia's a widow. She's always liked big men, if you understand my meanin'."
Dave saw it then, as Aunt Flavia brought out some of the bottles and bags: something loose and fleshy was brushing against the front of her caftan, down between her thighs. Something that… seemed very large.
"Oh, my God," Dave whispered.
"Like I say" — Miss Fallon smiled — "I believe in pleasin' my customers."
Aunt Flavia poured black liquid from one bottle to another and stirred in powder that smelled like dead bats. The liquid began to bubble and smoke. "He's the handsomest one yet," she said to Miss Fallon. "Kinda skinny, but it's the size of the thang that counts, ain't it?" She laughed and jabbed an elbow into Dave's ribs.
He stared at the little sign on Miss Fallon's desk: Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life.
"Here's to a long life!" Aunt Flavia said, offering him the potion. Something rustled against her caftan.
Dave took the bottle, smiled weakly, and felt the thang give an eager little twitch.
MÉNAGE À TROIS
F. Paul Wilson
Burke noticed how Grimes, the youngest patrolman there, was turning a sickly shade of yellow-green. He motioned him closer. "You all right?"
Grimes nodded. "Sure. Fine." His pitiful attempt at a smile was hardly reassuring. "Awful hot in here, but I'm fine."
Burke could see that he was anything but. The kid's lips were as pale as the rest of his face and he was dripping with sweat. He was either going to puke or pass out or both in the next two minutes.
"Yeah. Hot," Burke said. It was no more than seventy in the hospital room. "Get some fresh air out in the hall."
"Okay. Sure." Now the smile was real — and grateful. Grimes gestured toward the three sheet-covered bodies. "I just never seen anything like this before, y'know?"
Burke nodded. He knew. This was a nasty one. Real nasty. He swallowed the sour-milk taste that puckered his cheeks. In his twenty-three years with homicide he had seen his share of crime scenes like this, but he never got used to them. The splattered blood and flesh, the smell from the ruptured intestines, the glazed eyes in the slack-jawed faces — who could get used to that? And three lives, over and gone for good.
"Look," he told Grimes, "why don't you check at the nurses' desk and find out where they lived. Get over there and dig up seme background."