I thought I might be seeing people like the Security Chief or some fellow males from Octopus Oil. But the doorbell rang and rang and couple after couple came in, deluding me at first into believing I would see a fellow man by the slouch hats and men's topcoats. But nay, alas, they were all lesbian couples. Some of the "males" even wore tuxedos. They tried to greet me heartily with bass voices. They swatted me on the shoulder and called me "old man." But I certainly was not fooled. The bass voices broke into treble unexpectedly and the swats might well have been intended to push me away from their "wives."
I never saw a party move quite so fast. The bottles gushed and gurgled. The cake was washed down. The music started through only the third time.
Suddenly Miss Pinch broke away from a cluster and said to me in an undertone, "Inkswitch, I have a frightful headache. All this will be over in minutes. You are not required to tell them good-bye. Here is five bucks. Run down to the all-night drugstore and get me a bottle of aspirin. They'll all be gone by the time you get back,
so come in quietly, as I feel so bad I want to go to bed at once and the light is hurting my eyes."
The all-night drugstore was five blocks away. I went at a leisurely pace. After one glass of champagne I had a headache, too. The spring night felt cooling on my face. I got the aspirin and then had a Bromo-Seltzer at the counter. I wandered back home.
Sure enough, the lights were out, the place was all quiet. I tiptoed in.
Faint snores greeted me in the living room. I tried to light a light and give Miss Pinch her aspirin but evidently a bulb had blown. I said to Hells with the aspirin, she's asleep anyway. I tried to go into the back room. The door was locked. Well, what the Hells, I was tired of sleeping in there on the sofa anyway.
I shucked off my clothes. I had to fumble around because I was not oriented in the place. The new bed, I knew, was a sort of big clamshell with high phallic symbols on each side. It served as a sofa in the daytime. But it was all made up now.
After bumping my head on a pillar, I found the bottom and crawled up the middle of the bed. I pulled back the sheet and slid under. Usually, I slept between Miss Pinch and Candy so I composed myself and got ready to dream about money.
A hand slid over and touched my right thigh. Some fingers lightly explored my stomach.
I was suddenly reminded that if I were ever to get that two thousand dollars, I had better become highly agreeable.
I rolled over to my right.
I started to do my duty.
I suddenly halted.
What was this?
Something odd. How had Candy become a virgin again?
Well, this was no time to wonder about things like that!
The whole bed shook.
A scream blasted my ears!
Oh, well, Candy was always screaming.
But her moans were certainly exaggerated, even for Candy.
The sheet flew up into the air!
A louder scream!
A string of seashells on the wall chattered like castanets.
WHOOSH!
The body under me went limp.
Oh, well, if Candy wanted to faint again, that was her business.
I slid back over to the middle of the bed. For a moment, I thought the seashells were still chattering. I could see them by the street light shining through the window. They were just hanging there.
Where was this chattering coming from?
Teeth? A beam from the window lit them. Pinch's teeth chattering?
Oh, well, she was just funning.
I rolled and grabbed.
Indrawn breath like terror.
What on Earth was Pinch up to?
What the Devils? Since when had Pinch become a virgin again?
Oh, well, just some more women's tricks. They're full of them. A scream! Then panting in rhythm.
I
Moans in rhythm.
WHOOSH!
The sheet flew up.
A shuddering cry!
Total limpness. A dangling arm swung in the streetlight beam and then became still, hanging off the side of the bed.
I wondered what the Devils Miss Pinch was doing, passing out.
THE LIGHTS CAME ON!
I looked up bewilderedly.
There were microphones suspended from the ceiling. Two TV cameras stood on tripods marked Infrared.
The back-room door burst open and a mob of people rushed in.
Miss Pinch and Candy were in the lead!
I stared down at the face still under me. The eyeballs were rolled back into the head, the mouth was open and slack. It was a peroxide blonde!
Blinking, I stared at the other girl in the bed beside us. She had a mannish haircut. Bluish hair. No makeup. It was a lesbian "husband." Her eyelids were wide open but her eyeballs were tilted clean up into her skull. She was out cold.
Miss Pinch was holding back the crowd that was pressing slaveringly around the bed. "You see! You see!" Miss Pinch was shouting to be heard above the babble. "I told you what real sex would do. NOW do you believe me?"
I got off the peroxide blonde. I pulled the sheet up around my throat. "What the Hells is this?" I shrieked.
"My dear fellow," said a lesbian husband, leaning close to me and forgetting all about a bass voice, "I saw it all on this closed-circuit TV and I must say you
deserve an Oscar. Ought to be on the national networks!"
"(Bleep) you!" shouted Miss Pinch. "That was no put-on. That was the real thing!"
"Oh, pish, pish," said a lesbian wife. "Anyone can simulate, Pinchy, and you know it. The only innovation here is that this Inkswitch is wearing a falsie." And she yanked at the sheet.
"Movie blood," said a lesbian husband. "But a delightful fake all the same."
"God (bleep) it," howled Miss Pinch, "if it's a fake, then how do you account for that volunteer couple being OUT COLD?"
"Do you mind if I touch your dildo, old man?" said a lesbian husband, elbowing through and reaching out.
I climbed halfway up a phallic-symbol pillar.
At Pinch's signal, she and Candy at once approached the unconscious pair and began to massage their wrists and slap their faces.
"Get me a cold towel, somebody!" bellowed Miss Pinch. She was working on the lesbian husband with the bluish hair. By swatting him/her with the towel she finally brought him/her around.
"Spike, God (bleep) it," said Miss Pinch, "sit up and give your evidence."
The first one I had had sat up dizzily. Spike said, "Jesus!"
"Tell them!" howled Miss Pinch.
"Jesus," said Spike.
Miss Pinch abandoned Spike. She brushed back the crowd and made it over to the other side of the clamshell bed where Candy was working on the other one. Miss Pinch squashed the cold towel into the face of the peroxide blonde. "Lover-girl, God (bleep) it!" cried Miss Pinch. "Come around, you slut!"
Lover-girl got her eyes down level. Then they crossed. She gave up trying to sit up and fell back.
"Give your evidence!" howled Miss Pinch.
"Oh, boy!" said Lover-girl and passed out again.
A lesbian husband who was still wearing a top hat and leaning on a cane drawled, "Oh, I do say, Pinchy, that it was a great show. But obviously Spike and Lover-girl were just part of the act as well. We all know that natural sex is no good."
"God (bleep) it!" screamed Miss Pinch. "It's Psychiatric Birth Control that's no good! They've been lying to the tot of you! This is natural sex. You saw it on closed-circuit TV. You heard it on the microphones. You've got a couple here knocked out cold. What more do you (bleepards) want?"