He placed the stereopticon against his eyes and adjusted theslide holdingthe picture until the details became clear and in three-dimensions. The photograph was innocent enough. It showed three men on a sail boatwith a mountain in the distant foreground. The photograph had been takenclose enoughso that the features of the men could be distinguished.
"One of them looks like me," he said.
"That's why I got this album out," she said. She paused, drew indeeply onthe marijuana, held the smoke in her lungs for a long time, and thenpuffed out. "That's Byron. The others are Shelley and Leigh Hunt."
"Oh, really," Childe said, still looking at the picture. "But Ithought...Iknow it...the camera wasn't invented yet."
"That's true," Magda said. "That's not a photograph."
He did not get a chance to ask her to explain, because twoenormous white arms went around him from behind and lifted him off his feet. Mrs. Grasatchow, shrieking with laughter, carried him to a sofa and dropped him on it. He started to get up. He was angry enough to hit her, and had his fist cocked, when she shoved him back down. She was not only very heavy; she had powerfulmuscles under the fat.
"Stay there, I want to talk to you and also do other things!" shesaid.
He shrugged. She sat down by him, and the sofa sank under her. She held his hand and leaned against him and continued the near-monologue she hadbeen maintaining at the table. She told him of the men who had lustedafter her and what she'd done to them. Childe was beginning to feel a littlepeculiar then. Things were not quite focused. He realized that he must be drugged.
A moment later, he was sure of it. He had seen the baron walk tothe doorwayand looked away for a second. When he looked back, he saw that thebaron was gone. A bat was flying off down the hallway.
The change had taken place so quickly that it was as if severalframes of film had been spliced in.
Or was it a change? There was nothing to have kept the baron fromslippingoff around the corner and releasing a bat. Or it was possible thatthere was, objectively, no bat, that he was seeing it because he had beendrugged andbecause of the suggestions that Igescu was a vampire.
Childe decided to say nothing about it. Nobody else seemed tohave noticed it. They were not in shape to have noticed anything except what theywere concentrating upon. O'Faithair was still playing madly. Bending Grassand Mrs. Pocyotl were facing each other, writhing and shuffling in a parody ofthe latest dance. The redhead beauty, Vivienne Mabcrough, was sitting on anothersofa with Rebecca Ngima, the beautiful Negress. Vivienne was drinking from agoblet in onehand while the other was slipped into the front of Ngima's dress. Ngima had herhand under Vivienne's dress. Pao, the Chinese, was on his back, hislegs bent tosupport Magda, who was standing on his feet and getting ready to do abackward flip. She had taken off her shoes and dress and was clad only in hergarterbelt, stockings, and net bra. She steadied herself and then, as Paoshoved upwards, soared up and over and landed on her feet. Childe thoughtthat her unshod feet would have broken with the impact, but she did not seemto be bothered. She laughed and ran forward and did a forward flip over Paoand landed in front of a sofa on which Igescu's great-grandmother sat. The oldwoman reached out a claw and ripped off Magda's bra. Magda laughed andpirouetted awayacross the floor.
The baron had sauntered over to behind the baroness and had leaned over to whisper something to her. She smiled and cackled shrilly.
And then Magda ended her crazy whirl on Childe's lap. His headwas pressedforward against her breasts. They smelled of a heady perfume andsweat and something indefinable.
Mrs. Grasatchow shoved Magda so vigorously that she fell offChilde's lapand onto the floor. She looked up dizzily for a moment, her legs widespread to
reveal the red-haired slit. "He's mine!" Mrs. Grasatchow shrilled. "Mine! You snake-bitch!" Magda got to her feet unsteadily. Her eyes uncrossed. She opened
her mouth and her tongue flickered in and out and she hissed. "Stay away!" Mrs. Grasatchow said in a deeper voice. Had shereally grunted?
Glam entered the room. He scowled at Magda. Evidently he did notlike to see her in the almost-nude and making a play for Childe. But the baronfroze him with a glare and motioned for him to leave the room.
"Stay away, huh?" Magda said. "You have no authority over me, pig-woman, noram I afraid of you!"
"Pigs eat snakes," Mrs. Grasatchow replied. She grunted--yes, shegruntedthis time--and put one flesh-festooned arm over his shoulders andbegan to unziphis fly with the other hand.
"You've eaten everything and everybody else, but you haven't, andyou aren'tgoing to, eat this snake," Magda said, spraying saliva.
Childe looked around and said, "Where are the cameras?"
"Everything's impromptu tonight," Mrs. Grasatchow said. "Oh, youlook so much like George."
Childe presumed that she meant George Gordon, Lord Byron, but hecould not be sure and he did not care to play her game, anyway.
He pushed her hand away just as she closed two fingers on hispenis, which, to his chagrin, was swelling. He felt nothing but repulsion for thefat woman, yet a part of him was responding. Or was it seeing Magda and alsosharing in thegeneral atmosphere of excitement? The drug, which he was sure he hadbeen given, was basically responsible, of course.
Magda sat down on his lap again and put her arms around his neck. Mrs. Grasatchow, snarling, raised her hand as if to strike Magda, but shelet it dropwhen the baroness called shrilly across the room. At that moment, apair oflarge doors swung open. Childe, catching the movement at the cornerof his eyes, turned his head. The baron was standing in the doorway. Behind himwas the billiard room or a billiard room. It looked much like the first one he had seen. The blond youths, Chornkin and Krautschner, were playing.
The baron advanced across the room and, when a few paces behindChilde, said, "The police don't know he's here."
Childe erupted. He came off the sofa, tossing Magda away and thenleapingover her and running toward the nearest door. He got to the hallwayand was jerked violently off his feet, swung around, and pressed close toGlam. The great arms made him powerless to do anything except kick. And Glammust have been wearing heavy boots under his pants legs. Certainly he acted asif he did not feel the kicks. Perhaps he didn't. Childe may have had littlestrength.
As if he were a small child, he was led into the room, Glamholding hishand. The baron said, "Good. Good for him and good for you. Yourestrained yourimpulse to kill him. Very commendable, Glam."
"My reward?" Glam said.
"You'll get it. A share. As for Magda, if she doesn't want you, and she saysshe doesn't, she can continue to tell you to go to hell. My authorityhas its limits. Besides, you aren't really one of us."
"You're lucky I haven't killed you, Glam!" Magda said.
"You have depraved taste, Glam," Mrs. Grasatchow said. "You'dfuck a snake if someone held its head, wouldn't you? I've offered you help..."
"That's enough of that," Igescu said. "You two can play dice or agame ofbilliards for him. But the winner saves a piece for me, understood?"
"Dice won't take so long," Magda said.
The baron nodded at Glam, who clamped a hand on Childe's shoulderfrom behind and steered him out of the room. Magda called, "See you soon, lover!"
Mrs. Grasatchow said, "In a pig's ass, you will!" and Magdalaughed andsaid, "He'll be in a pig's ass if you win!"
"Don't push me too far!" the fat woman shrilled.