Cautionary Tales Read online

  There was a certain poetic justice to it: the serial rapist fallen victim to a more professional serial rapist.

  Satisfied, he slept.

  Maria returned in the morning. “I home, Master,” she said on the intercom. “How things work out?”

  “We have a guest in the cage. Treat her carefully, as she is dangerous. See that she has what she needs, apart from freedom.”

  There was a pause. Maria was activating the screen to view the cage. “Master, you must not keep her. She too much for you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I come up talk to you.”

  Soon she appeared in his bedroom, fetchingly dressed and coiffed. She had treated herself to a new hairdo. He remained in his pajamas, knowing what to expect. Maria was much concerned for his welfare, and always alert for any chance to seduce him. The same fire that had made her such a good victim now made her an apt assistant.

  “Master, she too pretty,” she said earnestly. “She make of you what you make of me: love slave.”

  “That’s not the half of it,” he said. “She’s a professional serial rapist called Militia. She drugs prominent men, has sex with them, films it, and sells the films for tens of thousands of dollars. She is very good at what she does.”

  Maria stared at him. “You let her drug you!”

  “I needed to understand her modus operandi in detail. She has the drug on her lips, and delivers it via an impassioned kiss. It makes the man weak, but able to perform sexually. It was a considerable experience.”

  “I give you experience,” she protested. “You safe with me. Not with her.” She opened her blouse. She never wore a bra.

  “I need you to help me tame her. You will have to bring her meals and explain to her the facts of her new existence. To watch her when I am away at work. You understand every part of it.”

  “No! Never! She no good for you, Master.”

  “That is what attracts me to her, apart from her outstanding appearance,” he said. “The fact that I can’t trust her. The frisson of high risk. That I know she will betray me the moment she can. She will be a truly treacherous sexual partner.”

  “Put me back in cage,” Maria pleaded. “Let her go, Master. I try to be very unwilling.”

  “She will try to seduce you to trust her, but if you let down your guard one instant, she will steal your key and confine you to the cage.”

  “I know, Master. I no amazon.”

  “Amateur, not amazon” he said, gently correcting her. That was the thing about Maria: she did know every aspect of this situation, and would be competent. “I proffer this deal. As long as you assist me in this, I will allow you to come to my bed once a week. I won’t even make you fight me very hard.”

  She hardly hesitated. “Twice week. And you let me kiss you, on mouth, no bite.”

  He nodded. “Twice a week.”

  “Plus once every time you do her.”

  She was pushing it. “Too much, Maria.”

  She eyed him cannily. “It motivate me. Give me reason make her do you often as she can. I tell her she no get food until she let you have her. She will hate that.”

  She had a point. “Granted.”

  “And I watch.”

  “Of course. On the screen. I will not carry my key when I visit her. You will have to let me out. She won’t be able to disable me and sweet-talk you.”

  “No sweet talk,” she agreed, smiling wolfishly. Maria had no use for other women, especially lovely ones. “First time, I put her naked in chains.”

  “First several times,” he agreed.

  “Deal,” she agreed. “Beginning—”

  “Now,” he said.

  She was on him in an instant, her clothing practically flying off her body. She kissed him with an insatiable hunger as she ran her hands over his body.

  He obliged her, letting her have her way with him. But his mind was on Militia. She would be a spitting wildcat at first. He would have to use the mouthpiece and gloves on her, and probably chain her to the bed so she couldn’t knee him, as Maria recommended. It might require hundreds of hostile rapes before she accepted her situation and lost her edge. Heaven and hell, merged.

  “You thinking of her,” Maria said accusingly. “Not of me.”

  “Yes.”

  That infuriated her, and gave her some of the fire he needed to truly enjoy the sex she insisted on. She would always be jealous of Militia, always angry that she was now the secondary woman in his life. Always competitive in what she knew was a losing cause. But she was bound to promote his sex with Militia, as the only avenue for her own gratification. An emotional firestorm, for both women. It was ideal.

  Note: Electronic erotic publishers generally have lists of elements they don’t want: rape, bestiality, golden showers, pedophilia, incest, torture and such. I wonder what kind of submissions they receive, to evoke such warnings? So I suppose they wouldn’t want this story. But I wondered whether it would be possible to have a serial rapist who was a woman. Men rape for power and sexual gratification, but how and why would a woman rape? This is one conjecture.

  I wrote it for the third Relationships volume, but the publisher, PHAZE, (yes, named after my fantasy world in the Adept series—the proprietor is a fan of mine) rejected it because of the rape element. So I took it to EXCESSICA where it was published online as a singleton, and did very well as time passed, earning over a thousand dollars. Apparently the same thing that publishers don’t like, readers do like, which makes me wonder.

  Caution: sex with a zombie

  7. The Courting

  “I come to court you,” she said.

  Jason looked up from his desk, startled. He knew June only passingly, a secretary in an adjacent office. She had a starlet quality face and body, so naturally had no interest in an ordinary Joe like him. Was this some cruel tease?

  “I really am not in the mood at the moment,” he said.

  “I need to make love with you now.” She spoke in somewhat measured tones.

  She couldn’t be serious. “Not now. I have a headache.”

  “I know. This must be fast.” She opened her blouse to show portions of her magnificent breasts. “There is a catch.”

  Of course there was. At any other time he would have been seriously interested despite his suspicion that she was playing a game. At this point he just wanted to get rid of her, because his headache was getting worse. “Catch?”

  “I am a zombie.”

  This jolted his headache into the background for an instant. He stared into her cleavage. “You can’t be.”

  “The peripherals are the first to go. My hair is a wig.” She lifted it, showing her bald pate briefly. “My teeth, false.” She lifted out her denture, as briefly. “My eyes have contact lenses. My nails are glued on. But my core body remains solid flesh. That is what counts, for this.”

  “But—but zombies—if one even touches a living person, he dies horribly.”

  “True, in essence.” She put her cold hand on his.

  Jason was so startled and dismayed that his bladder let go. He ignominiously wet himself, there at his desk.

  “Gotta go!” he said, lurching up and lumbering to the men’s room. His headache was worse than ever.

  In the men’s room he hauled off his sodden trousers and undershorts and put them in the sink to rinse. Everything was going wrong!

  “You are starting a stroke,” June said behind him. She had followed him in! “You will die in minutes. Clasp me now, and not only will your expiring life force restore me for another month, you will become a zombie and be able to continue your existence. Few others will notice. It is better than dying.”

  He turned to stare at her, suddenly believing. She had stripped, and she was correct: her central body was in excellent shape. “That’s why you came to me! You knew!”

  “Yes. I need your essence.” She stepped into him, drawing him close as his head seemed to swell with pain.

  Then the pain faded, and there was o
nly June and the phenomenal urgency of their union. Becoming a zombie no longer seemed so bad. For one thing, it was pain free.

  Note: I’m not much into zombies, though they exist in my Xanth fantasy. But when I get a request, I try to oblige. Thus this little story, which appeared in Bits of the Dead, an anthology of brief zombie stories, in 2008.

  Caution: encouragement for those about to attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in one month, phrased as a tough drill-sergeant lecture to a reluctant audience.

  8. Pep Talk

  You’re a fool. You know that, don’t you? Because only a fool would try a stunt as crazy as this. You want to write a 50,000 word novel in one month?! Do you have sawdust in your skull? When there are so many other more useful things you could be doing, like cleaning up the house and yard, taking a correspondence course in Chinese, or contributing your time and effort to a charitable cause? Whatever is possessing you?

  Consider the first card of the Tarot deck, titled “The Fool.” There’s this young man traipsing along with a small dog at his heel, toting a bag of his worldly goods on the end of his wooden staff, carrying a flower in his other hand, gazing raptly at the sky—and about to step off a cliff, because he isn’t watching his feet. A fool indeed. Does this feel familiar? It should. You’re doing much the same thing. What made you ever think you could bat out a bad book like that, let alone write anything readable?

  So are you going to give up this folly and focus on reality before you step off the cliff? No? Are you sure? Even though you know you are about to confirm the suspicion of your dubious relatives, several acquaintances, and fewer friends that you never are going to amount to anything more than a dank hill of beans? That you’re too damned oink-headed to rise to the level of the very lowest rung of common sense?

  Sigh. You’re a lost soul. So there’s no help for it but to join the lowly company of the other aspect of The Fool. Because the fact is, that Fool is a Dreamer, and it is Dreamers who ultimately make life worthwhile for the unimaginative rest of us. Sensible folk are animals who make money, feed their faces and reproduce, perpetuating their kind. They even make it part of their religion: be fruitful and multiply. Dreamers consider the wider universe. Dreamers build cathedrals, shape fine sculptures, and yes, generate literature. Dreamers are the artists who provide our rapacious species with some faint evidence of nobility.

  So maybe you won’t be a successful novelist, or even a good one. At least you are trying. That, would you believe, puts you in a rarefied one percent of our kind. Maybe less than that. You aspire to something better than the normal rat race. You may not accomplish much, but it’s the attitude that counts. As with mutations: 99% of them are bad and don’t survive, but the 1% that are better are responsible for the evolution of species to a more fit state. Sorry, Creationists; I’m not talking to you; you’d be obliged to write your novel in six days, and rest on the seventh. You know the odds are against you, but who knows? If you don’t try, you’ll never be sure whether you might, just maybe, possibly, have done it. So you do have to make the effort, or be forever condemned in your own bleary eyes.

  Actually, 50,000 words isn’t hard. You can write “Damn!” 50,000 times. Oh, you want a readable story! That will be more of a challenge. But you know, it can be done. In my heyday, before my wife’s health declined and I took over meals and chores, I routinely wrote 3,000 words a day, taking two days a week off to answer fan mail, and 60,000 words a month was par. Now I try for 1,500 and hope for 2,000. That will do it. If you write that much each day, minimum, and go over some days, you will have your quota in the month. On the 10th of the month of August 2008, I started writing my Xanth novel Knot Gneiss, about the challenge of a boulder that turns out to be not stone but a huge petrified knot of reverse wood that terrifies anyone who approaches it. Petrified = terrified, get it? And by the 30th I had 35,000 words. That’s the same pace. If I can do it in my doddering old age—I’m 74—you can do it in your relative youth. What did I do on the 31st? I spent the morning on mail, and started this stupid Pep Talk in the afternoon, that’s what, and completed the first draft at 1500 words on Labor Day morning, working around my exercise routine and an hour grocery shopping in town. One day, part time—the same schedule you will attempt. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re a coed or an accountant, you can certainly give it a try. Remember, this is only an exercise, a—oh, you in the front row, you have a question? You say you are a coed? Okay, then. And you in the second row behind her. You say you are an accountant? That’s fine; I wasn’t trying to disparage you.

  Of course it will help if you have something to say, like maybe a halfway decent story. The fact is, good characters and a good situation will help a lot. So even though you may want to get right on into it, don’t. Pause to consider characters, setting, story, and rationale. That is, does it really make sense? If you get those right, before you start, your story will practically write itself. I constantly make notes along the way, which don’t count as story text, but do point me in the right direction. It’s a bit like stopping to put gasoline in the car before you cross the desert: a sensible thing. Another question? Yes, Coed, you can make a teen girl the main character. The rule of thumb is to write what you know, and you surely know about teendom. That goes for you too, Accountant, though I wouldn’t recommend filling your manuscript with figures, ha-ha. Not mathematical ones, anyway.

  Of course you need ideas. What, you don’t have any? You can garner them from anywhere. I noticed that our daily newspaper comes in a plastic bag that is knotted. The knot’s too tight to undo without a lot of effort, so I just rip it open to get at the goodies inside. It’s a nuisance; I wish they’d leave it loose. But I thought, maybe there’s this cute delivery girl who has a crush on me, and she ties a love-knot to let me know. Not that at my age I’d know what to do with a real live girl, but it’s still a fun fantasy. Okay, there’s an idea. I could use it in my fiction. Maybe even in a Pep Talk. The mundane world has provided me with an opening. It will do the same for you, if you’re alert.

  No, Coed; you can’t write a steamy collaborative romance about an illicit affair with an Accountant. You’re underage and he’s married. Now do you mind? I’m trying to conduct a Pep Talk here.

  Here’s a secret: fictive text doesn’t necessarily flow easily. Most of the time it’s more like cutting a highway through a mountain. You just have to keep working with your pick, chipping away at the rock, making slow progress. It may not be pretty at first. Prettiness doesn’t come until later, at the polishing stage, which is outside your month. You just have to get it done by brute force if necessary. So maybe your ongoing story isn’t very original. That’s okay, for this. Just get it done. Originality can be more in the eye of the reader than in any objective assessment.

  Will you two stop whispering? I don’t care, Accountant, if you think my attitude doesn’t compute. Or if Coed thinks I’m a darned spoilsport. I’m trying to encourage half a slew of doubtful aspiring novelists to give it their best shot. Yes, actually, forbidden love is a workable theme. Half of all published novels are in the Romance genre, and they aren’t very original; in fact they have set formulas their authors must adhere to. But secret or forbidden love can fit a formula. So you can start anywhere. Even here. What, you want an example? Okay, try this for an outline:

  Chapter 1: At first Accountant was annoyed by the knot in the newspaper bag… Chapter 2: He was amazed when he saw her, cute as a button, looking almost too young to drive. Then she caught his eye, and blushed… Chapter 3: Another morning she was in tears, because her car had broken down and she couldn’t complete the delivery route. Naturally he had to help… Chapter 4: “Oh, I’m so grateful, Mr. Accountant,” she said. “I don’t know how I can ever express my appreciation, unless…” She lifted her full blouse off over her head… Chapter 5: He was a huge gruff, florid, ugly stevedore of a man. “Have you been interfering with my sweet innocent daughter?” he demanded…

  Not that I’m recommending junk like this; I
’m just showing how you can make it from a standing start, even from a foolish daydream when you should have been paying attention to the Pep Talk. You will want to try for a bit more quality, of course, and maybe a spot of realism. Garner an Idea, assemble some Characters, find a suitable place to start, and turn them loose in your imagination. Now go home and start your engines. Some few of your sorry lot may yet become Authors.

  Addendum: SPAM circular: Forbidden Love, by Accountant & Coed, roundly condemned by literacy critics, banned in 14 states and three countries, dedicated to Piers Anthony, without whose bad attitude this titillating short novel, written in only one month, would never have come to be.

  Sigh.

  Note: So I made it a kind of story. I understand that this Pep Talk did encourage some of the NaNoWriMo—that is, National Novel Writing Month—aspirants for November 2008. They have a similar project every year, so get in touch via www.nanowrimo.org if you’re interested. But no, there’s no physical gathering, so real-life Accountants and Coeds can’t get together this way. Sorry about that.

  Caution: aberrant sex

  9. Knave

  Jack stared at the ad. All it said was KNAVE WANTED, with a picture of the Queen of Hearts card and a phone number. She was routinely stylized, with a lovely face and ornate robe merging into the inverted image below.

  But when he moved his head, the image shifted, and the Queen’s nether section manifested. The robe was cinched at the waist to show off her silhouette, which was phenomenal. She would make an hourglass clog its sand in shame.

  He refocused, and lo, it was a three dimensional image with a different scene beneath. The queen was completely nude. She was even more breathtaking that way, perfectly formed, her glorious red hair descending almost to her luscious breasts, her waist breathtakingly slender, her hips tantalizingly rounded. In fact she was the most beautiful woman Jack had ever seen or even imagined.