“I’m a bit disappointed in you, Ed. I just didn’t think you were the selfish type.”
“Selfish?” Cromer, looking puzzled and hurt, attempted to focus his gaze on Massick. “What’s this selfish?”
“You didn’t introduce me to your friend.”
“Friend? I got no…” Cromer’s flushed, narrow face stiffened with consternation as he turned to look at the bedroom door. He threw himself forward on to his hands and knees, picked up the piece of wire Massick had discarded, and wrapped it around the latch, snorting with urgency as his clumsiness protracted an operation that should have been instantaneous.
Massick watched the performance with good humour. “Do you generally keep your lady friends locked up?”
“She…She’s sick.” Cromer got to his feet, breathing audibly, his eyes nervous and pleading. “Best left alone in there.”
“She didn’t look all that sick to me. What’s her name?”
“Don’t know her name. She wandered in here a couple of days ago. I’m lookin’ after her, that’s all.”
Massick shook his head and grinned. “I don’t believe you, Ed. I think you’re a horny old goat and you’re keeping that young piece in there for your own amusement. Shame on you!”
“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. I tell you she’s sick, and I’m looking after her.”
Massick stood up, bottle in hand. “In that case we’ll give her a drink—best medicine there is.”
“No!” Cromer darted forward, grabbing for Massick’s arm. “Listen, if you want to know the…”
Massick swung at him more out of irritation than malice, intending merely to sweep the little man out of his way, but Cromer seemed to fall on to his fist, magnifying the effect of the blow. The force of the impact returning along his forearm told Massick he had done some serious damage, and he stepped back. Cromer went down into a collision with the table, his eyes reduced to blind white crescents, and dropped to the floor with a slapping thud which could have been produced by a side of bacon. The sound alone was as good as a death certificate to Massick.
“You stupid old bastard,” he whispered accusingly. He stared down at the body, adjusting to the new situation, then knelt and retrieved his money from Cromer’s shirt pocket. A search of the dead man’s personal effects yielded only a cheap wristwatch and eleven extra dollars in single bills. Massick put the watch and money away in his pocket. He took a firm grip on Cromer’s collar, dragged the body to the screen door and out into the raucous darkness of the swamp. The chorus of insect calls seemed to grow louder as he moved away from the shanty, again creating the impression of an all-pervading sentience. In spite of the stifling heat Massick felt a crawling coldness between his shoulderblades. Suddenly appreciating the futility of trying to dispose of the body before daylight, he released his burden and groped his way back towards the sallow glimmers of the hurricane lamps.
Once inside the building, he bolted the outer door and went around the main room twitching curtains into place across the windows. As soon as he felt safe from the pressures of the watchful blackness he picked up the whisky bottle and drank from it until his throat closed against the rawness of the liquor. Somewhat restored by the alcohol, he allowed his thoughts to return to the bedroom door and there was a stirring of warmth low down in his belly as he remembered what lay beyond.
It’s cosier this way, he thought. Three always was a crowd.
He put the bottle aside, went to the door and removed the wire from the latch. The door swung open easily, allowing a swath of light to fall across the bed, revealing that the black-haired girl was still lying down, apparently undisturbed by any commotion she may have heard. As before, she raised herself on one elbow to look up at him. Massick stood in the doorway and scanned her face, waiting for the change of expression to which he was so accustomed, the clouding of the eyes with fear and loathing, but—exactly as before—the girl began to smile. He bared his own teeth in a manufactured response, scarcely able to believe his luck.
“What’s your name, honey?” he said, moving closer to the bed.
She went on smiling at him, her gaze locked into his, and there was nothing anywhere in her face to show that she had heard the question.
“Don’t you have a name?” Massick persisted, a new idea beginning to form at the back of his mind. Never had a deaf-mute before!
The girl reacted by sitting up a little further, a movement which allowed the sheet to slip down from her breasts. They were the most perfectly formed that Massick had ever seen—rounded, almost pneumatic in their fullness, with upright nipples—and his mouth went dry as he advanced to the side of the bed and knelt down. The girl’s dark eyes remained fixed on his, bold and yet tender, as he put out his hand and with his fingertips gently traced a line from the three dots on her forehead, down her cheek and neck and on to the smooth curvature of her breast. His hand lingered there briefly and was moving on towards the languorous upthrust of her hip—taking the edge of the sheet with it—when she made a small, inarticulate sound of protest and caught his wrist.
Thwarted and tantalised, Massick gripped the sheet with the intention of ripping it away from the lower part of her body, then he saw that the girl was still smiling. She let go of his wrists, raised her hands to his chest and began to undo his shirt, fumbling in her eagerness.
“You raunchy little so-and-so,” Massick said in a gratified whisper. He got to his feet, tearing at his clothing and in a few seconds was standing naked beside the bed. The girl relaxed on to her pillow, waiting for him. He lowered his thick torso on to the bed beside her and brought his mouth down on hers. She returned his kiss in a curiously inexpert manner which served only to heighten his pleasure. Giving way to his impatience, he propped himself up on one elbow and used his free hand to throw back the sheet, his eyes hungering for the promised magical concourse of hip and belly and thigh unique to woman.
The ovipositor projecting from the she-creature’s groin was a tapering, horny spike. Transparent eggs were already flowing from the aperture at its tip, bubbling and winking, slimingits sides, adding to the jellied mass of spawn which had gathered on her distended abdomen.
Massick had time for a single whimper of despair, then the she-creature was on him, bearing down with an inhuman strength which was scarcely necessary. The first probing stab from the ovipositor had hurt for only an instant, then ancient and merciful chemistries had taken over, obliterating all pain, inducing a flaccid paralysis which gripped his entire frame. He lay perfectly still, hushed and bemused, as his lover worked on him, stabbing again and again, skilfully avoiding vital organs, filling body cavities with the eggs which would soon produce a thousand hungry larvae.
It’s a pity she had to change. I liked her better the other way—before those dots on her forehead changed into watchful black beads, before her eyes developed the facets and began to drift to the side of her head, before those magnificent breasts began reshaping themselves into a central pair of legs.
But she’s kind to me, and that counts for a lot. Waits on me hand and foot, like an attentive lover. Even when I wake up during the night I can see her standing at the door of the room, always watching, always waiting.
But what’s she waiting for? That’s what I ask myself every so often, and when I do…