I opened another can of beer. I took a sip. I walked over to the foot of Miss Pinch's bed. "You see what your stubbornness has done. You have caused poor Candy to break the most sacred Psychiatric Birth Control laws. You have caused her in your crass unfeelingness even to betray the holy name of Rockecenter. There she lies, no longer an innocent virgin." I pointed to her trailing hair, which flowed down from her unconscious face. "Alas, you forced her to be violated. She is a fallen woman!"
Miss Pinch said nothing through her compressed lips. Any reaction was utterly undetectable. What a heart of stone!
But I was not baffled very long. I knew what would frighten her. I said, "Even though you are a monster, Miss Pinch, I cannot help but feel compassion for you. Should you persist in this foolish attitude, I cannot answer for the dire consequences to you personally."
No change in the way she looked at me.
I felt some qualms. Good Gods, this woman must be made of solid brass!
I said, "More blood may still be spilled today. You better give me that combination before this gets out of hand."
Stony silence.
"Very well," I said, "you are reaping a whirlwind around your own head."
I walked over to the record player. I made sure the next record was ready to drop.
I took a sip of beer. Then I went over to the bed and got up on it on my knees. I held the beer can high and let the foamy liquid pour upon her stomach.
"You better give me that combination, Miss Pinch!"
No change in her eyes and lips at all. Not even a flinch!
The record dropped. Violins whined and sobbed.
I was opening up my robe. "Not much time left!" I said.
Miss Pinch looked at me. No change.
The devil mask grinned and a male crooner began to sing:
Sweet little woman,
Please marry me.
Man and wife together,
How happy we will be.
And then we'll have some kiddies,
Maybe two or three.
So here's the ring and there's the church,
Oh, come, my honey be.
She was trying to get some slack in the chains and lift herself higher on the bed.
The sock hung on the sword-rack points as I said, "If you don't speak, then here we go!"
Her hand was convulsively gripping the chain.
The turntable was suddenly stuck in a groove on a replay of the record:
How happy we will be...
How happy we will be...
How happy we will be.
"Hey!" I said, "YOU'RE A VIRGIN!"
Her eyes were wild. She was trying to fight upwards.
"Oh, to Hells with the combination!" I said. "This is too good!"
The devil mask grinned as she screamed.
Her eyes rolled all the way up in her head. She conked out.
The turntable went round and round. It had gotten off the groove now and had jumped to the rest of the song:
Oh, sweet woman, I am your guy,
Sexwith you and me,
Is pie and ecstasy.
Oh, sweet woman,
Come to your man,
You are my bed and butter,
So drink me if you can!
Miss Pinch had regained consciousness. She was tugging at the chain with a hand that convulsed rhythmically.
The turntable shifted to a new song. A woman's husky voice filled the room:
Long and slow, And up we go,
The moanin' and the groanin'
Is because I want you so.
Long and slow,
And down we go,
The beggin' and the pleadin'
Is to make you do it mo'!
Long and slow...
A beer can, teetering back and forth on the stereo, suddenly exploded. Foam flew all over the room.
The feet of the bed leaped up into the air and chattered back against the floor as Miss Pinch screamed in deafening crescendo.
The record player had shifted back to the first song:
Sweet little woman,
Please marry me.
I got up off the bed. I wrapped my robe around me. The record player was crooning:
Man and wife together,
How happy we will be.
And then we'll have some kiddies,
Maybe two...
I batted the needle ferociously and it scratched off with a squawk.
I glared at the two unconscious women, out like lights.
"(Bleep) you, Pinch," I snarled. "Have you defeated me AGAIN?"
I felt like shooting both of them. In fact, that was probably what it would come down to now.
I happened to look down at myself.
Blood!
I was in the peculiar situation of having to get rid of the evidence before I committed the crime. One maidenhead murder was bad enough, but two in a row had left enough evidence to convict me of the Jack the Ripper crimes. One forensic test and I'd be found guilty!
Normally, I am not considered a very fastidious person. In fact, there are those who would go so far as to infer that, like the Apparatus, I am downright dirty.
But there was no help for it: prior to completing this slaughter, I had better establish my innocence. I'd better shower quick to cover up the tail-I mean trail.
I glared at the two still-unconscious females. I gave the Ninja robe a disgusted hitch. I marched into Candy's room and closed the door behind me.
There was lots of soap in the bathroom: I am no expert on the subject, but the American soaps, with their penny-a-barrel "perfume," stunk worse than I did. They use violent odors to cover up the even more violent odors of their questionable ingredients, like rancid hog fat. I finally found an "oatmeal health soap" that said it was for "that virgin look." I began my shower.
Lathering away, I thought this difficult situation over. I will admit that I was baffled.
My calculations had been out, somehow, no matter how deeply I thrust them in. Anyone would have thought that the crudest possible thing you could do to a lesbian would be to make her witness natural sex.
The Marquis de Sade himself advocated, as the worst sadistic action possible, "anarchic sexual violence." I had only gone by the book. And he should know. He had been a man who practiced what he preached. Freud himself, a few decades later, would have been utterly spinning, had it not been for the earlier dedicated work of de Sade.
Somewhere I must have slipped. But enough of wondering. I was a man of the future, not the past. I toyed with the idea of simply killing them, disposing of the bodies, calling a moving company and having them take the safe to the manufacturer. I could tell them that I had forgotten the combination. But I discarded the notion, as they might get suspicious. I had to keep my trail covered.
I finished showering. I smelled disgustingly clean– or was that oatmeal?
I put on the Ninja robe. I picked up a gun. I was just putting my hand out to open the door when I heard them talking. They had come to! I listened. Maybe I could pick up a clue that would tell me what to do next.
Pinch's voice, "All right, then, you tell him."
Candy said, "No. You tell him. You're much better at tricky things."
"He won't believe me," said Pinch. "He doesn't trust me."
"He's got to believe you," said Candy.
"I don't think I can con him."
Candy said, "You've GOT to try! This is intolerable. He might do the most awful thing I can think of."
Pinch said, "God (bleep) it, he might at that. This is pretty desperate!"
Aha! They thought it was desperate, did they? My heart leaped with hope. There was something they were terrified of. I took a chance. I walked in, gun ready.