Flesh Gothic by Edward Lee Read online

  Willis lit a cigarette. "You don't know about this stuff. It's confusing at first."

  "If we'd been molested by real men," Adrianne explained, "there'd be physical evidence. There'd be semen."

  "Ever heard of rubbers?"

  "It's not the same," Cathleen said.

  Nyvysk was getting annoyed. "Really, Mr. Westmore, you must leave this to us. We understand your reaction, but what you must understand is that we have to remain focused. We respect that you're here as an observer only. We're here for another reason. We can't have any interference from you."

  "Fine. I won't interfere," Westmore said. "You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna get a flashlight, go outside, and LOOK FOR THE RAPIST!"

  "That's highly inadvisable," Nyvysk told hips. "There are things about this place that you simply don't understand."

  Westmore stormed off.

  When the atrium doors slammed behind him, the others all looked at each other.

  "There's one in a every crowd," Nyvysk remarked, and they all began to laugh.

  III

  Jeez Louise! Make my life easier, why don't you! At least they were paying. Vanni couldn't believe the money Mack had laid on her. Car doors and disk-tumbler deadbolts comprised ninety-percent of her work, and she was good at it. She could open most locks in not much longer than it took to open with the key. But this safe?

  A tough job.

  She went to the manufacturer's website and found the model number of the safe. The general specs were listed, including information about the combination, and that's when the job just got harder. It was a rare nine-number combination series, which meant that even if she could get the safe open, it would take three times longer.

  The food that Mack had brought her earlier was great she hadn't had lobster in a while-and then he'd plugged in the office coffee pot and started it for her. She opened her bag and pulled out the Stiles GMR (gravity-motion reader). It was simply a box with a meter on it, and this she plugged into the wall. Two other wires plugged into the front of the box. At the end of one wire was a heavy, cylindrical magnet; at the end of the other was a square counter-magnet which she taped to the left of the safe's combination mount. The magnet and counter-magnet created a simple magnetic flux which the meter measured. When a tumbler moved into se quence alignment, the device could detect that movement. In all, GMR's worked about half the time, and it could take several hours per pin. And I've got NINE pins here, Vanni reminded herself. She opened her pad and began.

  An hour and a half later she'd gotten a total of five pins.

  How do you like that? This might not take as long as I thought. Only jour more to go ...

  She left the GMR on and got up. She called her sister, who was watching the kids, and let her know she wouldn't be home for awhile, then poured some coffee. As she sipped she noticed the two paintings on the floor leaning against the wall. A young girl in a billowing dress, a painting like a romance cover. Then the odd engraving. Weird, she thought. But it was a weird place. Someone must've spent millions on this joint-multiple millions. Must cost ten grand a month just for the power bill. Five floors? All those rooms?

  Without thinking about it, she left the office and found herself walking down the hall. More weird paintings hung on the walls, and for some reason she was grateful it was too dark to make out much detail. There was absolutely no sound. I guess they don't mind me looking around, she hoped. She didn't even know who "they" were, but it didn't matter. When you had kids and an ex-husband who'd fled to Thailand to avoid child-support, money was pretty much all that mattered.

  Christ, I haven't even been on a date in six months ... She worked at the bank during the week, and took night calls and weekends with the locksmith. So as for romantic prospects, where was the time? There was certainly no shortage of interested men. She had a healthy self-image, and when she looked in the mirror she not only knew that she was looking at a motivated, responsible woman, she knew she was looking at an attractive one. She'd get a lot of calls to construction sites, where foremen lost keys to houses being built. No, no shortage of interest there. Lots of whistles, lots of long looks. And from all those tough, brawny hardhats? Sometimes she fantasized about frenzied quickies in pickup trucks, just some rough, horny, and very nameless man hauling her boots and pants off and simply doing her without a word. Yes, sometimes Vanni thought about things like that-and a lot more-and she guessed that all women did, to themselves. But they were just fantasies. The reality was the workaday world: feeding the kids, paying the rent. Sometimes it just didn't seem very exciting.

  A brass plate on a door read: THE LADY OF KADESH SITTING ROOM. Yeah, this place really is too much, Vanni thought, not even knowing that the Lady of Kadesh was purportedly history's first prostitute. Lots of the rooms were named. Why? The door was open a crack so she saw no harm in entering.

  "Some sitting room," she muttered to herself. It was a gymnasium! Padded bench presses, racks, and cabled pulleys filled the center of the room, but ...

  Wow ... This is outrageous ...

  Large oil paintings hung on all the walls. Unlike those in the halls, though, these depicted explicit scenes of sex. Orgies, mostly, in-

  Vanni looked closer.

  Orgies in the midst of demons. One stunningly realistic portrait showed a wide-eyed blonde wearing a crown of thorns, lips parted in bliss, face glazed by what could only be semen. Scaled demon-hands with red nails cradled her breasts. Another depicted group sex in the chancel of a cathedral, partially disrobed priests and nuns the participants. Another group-scene blazed, naked celebrants with scarlet eyes demonstrating more sexual positions than Vanni knew existed, all in a flaming grotto while horned monsters looked on.

  Vanni turned away. She could never imagine such artwork. And in a gym?

  Crary.

  Beside a cabinet stood a small liquor bar topped by racks of glasses. This is the weirdest gym I've ever seen, she thought. Booze? Porn? Next she examined the gym equipment and found it all equally perplexing. In fact ...

  It wasn't gym equipment.

  How could it be? She walked around, dismayed. Several padded benches, with thinner benches branching off at adjustable v-shapes. Pulleys which appeared to be able to raise the levels of each bench. Seats which seemed to be raised in the air. But there were no weights, no cables or Soloflex- like power bands. What is this place? she asked herself.

  "I see you've stumbled on the playroom," Mack said curiously at the open door.

  Vanni looked up, uneasy; he'd caught her by surprise. Would he be mad? After all, he was paying her a lot of money to open a safe, not dawdle around the house. "I wasn't snooping, I just decided to take a short break and ... I thought this was a gym. But I've never heard of a gym with liquor and dirty paintings."

  "It's no gym." Mack came in. "What you need to understand about the guy who owned this place is ... he was a nut. A sex freak."

  "I guess so," she said, looking at the paintings again. "What are all these weird benches?"

  "Playthings, for his parties. How about a drink?"

  "I really shouldn't. I'm on your clock. You're paying me to do a job, I really shouldn't even be in here. Like I said, I was just taking a short break. And I got the first five numbers of the combination, I think. The total's nine."

  "That's great," he said but didn't seem terribly interested. "What are you having?" He walked to the bar, got some glasses.

  "How about a little something to jazz this up?" She held up her coffee, and he poured some Irish whiskey in it. Then she squinted at herself. It wasn't like her to drink on a job; she rarely drank at all.

  Even before she took a sip, though, she was beginning to feel odd. Something about the house? It felt heavy with something. It was an overload of the senses. Her eyes kept straying to the paintings ...

  One robust woman lying naked, surrounded by monsters appraising her. In the distant background, behind a veil of smoke, she thought she saw a temple of some sort.

  He opened a c
abinet to grab a bottle of vodka. On the bottom shelf she noticed several large bowls full of ...

  "What's in the bowls? Mints?"

  "No, I'm afraid not. It's dope. I haven't gotten around to throwing it away-it's all over the place."

  Vanni stared at the bowls. One was full of pills, the other-"Is that sack cocaine?"

  "Yeah. If you're into it, go ahead, I won't tell."

  "I don't smoke crack!" she said, shocked.

  He shut the cabinet, stirred his drink. "Don't worry, nobody here does drugs. It was the previous owner. He'd always keep dope in the house, for his party guests. He'd have parties all the time "

  "I hate to think what kind of parties."

  "Well, the paintings should give you a clue. This house was a non-stop orgy. Take a look-" He went to one paint ing of a woman's splayed buttocks, grabbed the frame, and pulled. The painting was a hinged door, and behind it-

  Vanni may have blushed. God!

  Behind the painting was a pegboard rack hung with a dozen vibrators, ben-w2 balls, and rubber phalluses.

  "And all this stuff?" Mack pointed to one of the benches.

  Vanni looked more closely. They'refor uvmen to lie on, she realized. Something else, dangling with an array of cables, sported a pair of padded harnesses, a third larger harness behind it. Now she saw what this place was about, and could picture what had gone on here. For the briefest moment, she even pictured herself in the thing. Hovering in mid-air, legs spread, back arched, as one man after another stepped up to take a turn, while another woman, perhaps, would dangle from a higher harness behind her, to precisely position her crotch above Vanni's mouth. This place is obscene, she thought, mildly revolted. Rich people, Jesus`

  Mack sipped his drink, looking at another painting: nude women levitating before a chasm of flames, their faces delirious with ecstary. What Vanni wasn't acknowledging to herself yet ... was a growing sexual excitement.

  She went back to the picture with the temple. It seemed multi-dimensional the longer she looked at it. The woman lay in obvious angst, eagerly waiting to be taken by the monsters ...

  She didn't know how much time had passed while she'd been looking. She flinched at the next contact: Mack's hands on her hips, standing behind her. Any other time, she knew, she'd bolt. He was just some rich punk thinking he could use her for some fun because he'd paid her a lot for a job.

  But it never occurred to her to leave. She didn't want to.

  It didn't take long, his hands sliding up and down her breasts, stomach, and hips. Without any reservation at all, she was reaching behind her, to caress his crotch ...

  What am I doing! This wasn't her style at all-it was trampmorality, the same as a fly-by-night screw with some guy she might meet in a bar, or actually responding to the whistles at a construction site. Mack's groin rubbed her buttocks from behind, his large hands now intent on her breasts, shucking them from her jumpsuit, then peeling the entire suit off.

  No morality now She turned, kicked out of her boots as she let their mouths suck together. She didn't. even consciously know what she wanted but the crudest impulse, way down deep, pulled his shirt over his head, dragged his tennis shorts off, and urged him to the harnesses ...

  She was aloft in a minute-Mack obviously knew the system. He stood between her floating legs, lowered her head back further from one pulley, parted her thighs wider with another, and was penetrating her at once.

  It was all so perfunctory and animalistic; it didn't even last long, just a minute or two, but in that short period, Vanni's entire body flexed in the air, and her orgasm rolled over her. Mack paused momentarily, his muscled chest straining as he bucked, didn't make a sound, and finished.

  He left her exhausted, floating on the harnesses. She could hear him dressing but didn't move; instead, she lazed there as if on clouds. Behind her, her head was upsidedown, and when she stared beyond, she was looking right at the painting of the woman being watched by demons.

  "That was great," Mack said. "I gotta go now, but lemme know when you get the safe open. Just call around on the intercom."

  She couldn't respond, her bare bosom still heaving in the aftermath. When she inclined her head, she could see him, already back in his clothes. He was leaving.

  What did I expect? Cuddling? She was as guilty as he. He came onto me and I went for it. Without a second thought.

  But she didn't regret it, either, so why did she feel dirty now?

  She looked back at him through her obscenely spread legs. What was he doing? He seemed to be getting something out of his pocket.

  On her stomach he tossed down a stack of bills.

  "Hey!" she finally objected.

  "Relax, it's for your kids. You said you had kids, right?"

  It looked like a lot of money but still. She hauled her back up higher by grabbing a cable. "I'm not a prostitute," she said, disgusted. Mack held a blank gaze, then halfsmiled, and walked out of the room.

  Damn him! She felt humiliated now, hanging there, with money on her belly. When she counted it, it was a thousand dollars.

  Then she sunk in further humiliation, because she knew she was going to keep it ...

  She didn't know what was coming over her; taking the money was bad enough, but what came next was even more inexplicable. She got out of the harness and presumed she was going to get dressed. She picked up her jumpsuit, though, and just stood there, staring at nothing. Change and keys spilled out of her pockets ...

  She never put her clothes back on. She walked back to the hinged painting. What ... am I doing ... now? the thought groaned in her head.

  She looked at the assortment of toys, bewildered at herself. Why did they look enticing now? She'd never been into such things but she took several down, fingering them, feeling their surfaces. Some were riddled with bumps and rings or two-pronged, another had rubber feathers branching out, while another's tip was shaped like a small fist. Several of the phalluses were so large she couldn't imagine any woman putting one in herself ...

  Next she took down a phallus that looked like a row of rubber balls connected to each other.

  This is the one IT use ...

  She was back in the harness, splayed again in the air. She felt so keyed up she couldn't stand it. Mack had left her dizzy for more contact but when she thought back to him, pretending he was with her again, the fantasy did nothing. She blanked her mind, easing the balled phallus slowly in and out. The sensation was nerve-racking and delicious at the same time. Faster, then, and deeper ...

  At one point, panting, she opened her eyes and was looking absently at the painting of the woman over-watched by monsters. Immediately, the image trebled her excitement. Was there something she didn't know about herself? Was she subconsciously attracted to women?

  No, she was looking at the monsters.

  Her pleasures were mounting, threatening to crest. Had the demons in the painting moved closer to the subject? Of course not, but they'd seemed to. They were pallid things like skinny sacks with arms and legs, the color of butter. She noticed something else, too. How could they be watching the woman when they had no eyes? No eyes, noses, nor ears-just gaping toothless mouths.

  Hideous, she managed to think, but that didn't slow her progress with the dildo.

  A more pointed glance: was there a figure standing at the distant temple? She didn't care ...

  She closed her eyes again and imagined ... the demons watching her. They were reaching out with hands that appeared boneless, caressing her, playing with her as she played with herself. She could feel them now, padding her skin, squeezing her breasts. Was it in her mind or was the room cloying now in some rich meaty smell? In the fantasy, many hands were on her some monstrous and others soft and intent but very much human. Women's hands? In fact, Vanni even thought she could hear feminine whispers now, and something darker, like heavy guttural groaning. More fantasy hands glided up her breasts to trace gingerly around her throat.

  A snapping sound. An impact. Something was jer
king her up as if on a hoist. The dildo flopped to the floor and when Vanni reached to her throat, she found no hands there squeezing off her screams; it was a strap.

  One of the harnesses.

  Which now served as a hangman's noose.

  Her eyes bulged. Pulleys squealed as she was jerked higher, the motion slipping her legs out of the harnesses she'd been using. She was jerked higher and higher, feet kicking. In only a few moments, all that raw, hot desire that ran through her veins had been replaced with raw, hot terror. She worked her fingers under the strap around her neck, to relieve some of the strangling pressure. In gun-shot glimpses she glanced down ...

  Several women were looking up at her: stunningly beautiful women with perfect centerfold bodies, all nude, all grinning. But they were streaked with blood. Black nailpolish and lipstick, vulpine eyes. Tiny ornaments dangled from rings which pierced their nipples and navels: upsidedown crosses. And behind them ...

  Worse things stood in attendance.

  Vague pale shapes with eyeless faces. Somehow they looked eager, in wait for something.

  Vanni's ankles were grabbed by two of the grinning women, her legs parted. Then, inch by inch, she was lowered several feet on the cable. Vanni hoped she'd die before the things got their way with her. Her vision was already dimming from strangulation. The last thing she saw before the festivities began was an additional figure, a tall, lean man with long wavy hair standing beyond the others, watching ...

  IV

  "Where are the girls?" Westmore asked. He'd just come back down to the atrium. Mack was watching ball scores on the TV with the sound down, while Nyvysk scribbled in a notepad.

  "Adrianne and Karen went to bed," he said quietly. He pointed to their curtained cubicles. "They were both very tired."

  "Tired?" Mack chuckled, an imported beer between his legs. "Adrianne tranked herself up, and Karen was hammered, as usual."

  It didn't matter if it was true; Westmore was perturbed by the young man's flaring cynicism.

  "Cathleen's somewhere," Nyvysk said. "Wandering the house, I suppose."

  Mack looked over his shoulder from the couch. "And the safe-cracker girl told me an hour or so ago that she was making headway." Then Mack winked at him.