Chapter 5 Index Chapter 7

Subject:      CODY: THE STAND-IN, Chp. 6
From:         mithryl@walrus.com (Mithryl)
Date:         1997/07/25
Message-Id:   <5rb6lt$h3o@alice.walrus.com>
Newsgroups:   alt.sex.bondage,rec.arts.prose,alt.sex.stories

                          THE STAND-IN

                      By Cody Ann Michaels
                     c. All rights reserved

                            Chapter 6

	In Smalhausen's studio, the smell of oil paint is overpowering.  I
think he gets off on it.  I should put in some serious disclaimers here. 
I do not and never have used drugs, not even to not inhale.  So please
don't bust my door down with your police d ogs and those big shields you
hide behind when when...  Oh, this is too stupid.  Forget it.  What is
this stuff?  Turpentine.  Wow!  How about this?  Chlorox.  Yeah?  And
this?  My armpit.  Jesus.  You're a trip. 

	Like I said.  Forget it.  You got a match?

	So they got Andrew C.  What an asshole.  In a year, he will be as
memorable as the guy who shot John Lennon.  Already I can't remember his
name.  I have to write my column.  It was due a half hour ago.  Thank god
for the internet.  Now they have this thi ng in Geneva where you can write
something and have it arrive before you write it.  Or even think of it. 
It's not exactly on line yet, but it will be soon.  No shit.  I used to
have a boy friend at CERN.  For the purposes of this article, I will call
him Kyle.  He was a foot fetishist.  He was also one of the most sadistic
persons I have ever met.  His stories, which were as long and windy as
deSade's, tended to be very complex.  Me, I like to keep things simple,
unembellished, if you know what I mean.  But, he also wrote a series, what
did he call them, short episodes of stuff he dreamed up to do to me.  They
were extremely intense.  We had a running battle over whether whatever it
was was going to be with my shoes on or off.  I liked to torment him by
refusing to take off my boots.  It made him even more inventive.  I'm not
sure if he was in on this "action at a distance" thing or not, but it
sounds like something he would know about.  I miss him. 

	Ordinarily, I try to keep my column and my other writing separate,
but tonight I'm in a bind.  No.  I'm not tied up.  That comes later.  I
mean, I'm just conflicted.  There's so much pulling on me.  Smal wants me
to pose.  He says I can write while I do it.  But then he wants to talk,
and I can't think. 

	I can't think now.  I wonder if this stuff rots the brain.  Like
they say it does.  I wonder what I did with those disks with Kyle's stuff
on it.  We were together in 95.  On the old computer.  I wonder if they
caught him? 

	Wow, I never realised, I never separated out my stories from
Kyle's.  There must be another whole book here.  "Passions."  That was it. 
His word.  I think he got it from some French philospher. 

	This stuff is pretty raw.  I wouldn't recommend it for children. 
Here's one of the milder "passions".  (Don't do this at home): 

	"He stakes a girl out with croquet hoops in the middle of his
lawn, then proceeds to trim the grass around her. Inititally, he uses a
strimmer, whose plastic cutting thread is whirled around at high speed.
This causes severe welts where it hits the girl 's flesh, sometimes
cutting through right to the bone where the flesh is thin, particularly
around her ribs. 

	"He tut-tuts over the state of the lawn and informs her that he'll
have to bring out something more powerful. Ignoring her pleas, he gets out
a hovering lawnmower and proceeds to run it across the helpless girl's
body in strips across her, starting with a strip at her feet and finishing
off by cutting her hair. Then he tups his wife on the grass next to the
butchered girl while the insects feed upon her. He whispers in his wife's
ear that one day he'll do the same to her as he shoot his fuck into her
slack cunt." 

	Well, that's Kyle for you.  "Tut-tuts over the state of the
lawn..."  Can you imagine?  What a pris.  As I say, he wrote dozens of
these vignettes.  I enjoyed them, but his chief allure was that he
inspired my own writing, edging me further and further i nto the unknown. 
I'd completely forgot about this episode with Courtney.  I'll have to do
something with these.  Kyle, honey, where are you now?  Did you fall into
that thingy that makes the things go round and round?  Did you ever find
the ultimate smal l thing?  Is that why they eventually discovered time
travel in the Alps?  I've got to focus.  This is boring. 

	I hate posing.  Especially these poses Smalhausen hangs me up in. 
I was telling him about Kyle.  He looked vaguely interested.  Smal doesn't
know about particle physics.  You wouldn't think something would be so
small it didn't exist, would you?  That w ould be the void.  I beg pardon. 
You don't understand.  The big bang is now.  It's not something that
happened a long time ago.  We are continually coming into existence.  The
galaxies that we see out there are the places we no longer exist.  They
are me mories.  Hold still.  It's not like he can draw or anything.  He
just uses it as an excuse to have a naked woman in the room.  Although
most of the time, he makes you wear clothes.  Not something like you would
want to wear to church unless your lover mad e you, but something that
makes you feel worse than naked.  Thong.  Garter belt.  Stockings.  Etc. 
The works.  Fishnet body stocking.  If he could draw the way I look, he
would be rich.  Instead, he's an artist.  He keeps trying to draw
pornography, and it always comes out as art.  What'd you say this stuff
was?  Butyl nitrate.  Wow!  Stars.  Fireflies.  My heart stopped.  Big
bang.  On top of all the other stuff.  They use it in paint remover. 
Everything is so crapped up.  I want to sleep.  Maybe I sho uld edit one
of my stories for Kyle. 

                                *
In a note, he wrote:

"feeling when we had to hurt you. I do not consider hurting you a
necessity: it is a luxury, a pleasure beyond compare. I do not HAVE to
hurt you, I want to hurt you. I will savour your pain and your reactions
as your body bucks and writhes at my touch." 

I set him straight:

	Oh yes, you do have to hurt me, Kyle.  Make no mistake.  That's
why you're here.  What you want has nothing to do with it.  But that, too,
is why you're here. 

	We must talk.  Kyle, honey, you are about as close to being a
serial killer as Grapenuts is to Wheaties.  It's not going to happen.  So
forget it.  Just get over it.  It's boring.  Put a sock in it.  I'm sorry. 
I had to tell you.  Kyle, it's programming .  You're programmed to think
you're Ted Bundy.  But Bundy is dead.  And I know the guy he reincarnated
in.  And it's not you.  He's an assistant prosecutor who cross dresses. 
Who lives in Clearwater.  I thought I should tell you.  I know how much
you li ke being sick, I mean, in the head, but the fact is, you're normal. 

	Point two, have I ever been squicked?  What kind of word is that? 
Yes.  What did you say?  "Have you ever come across something that someone
has wanted to do to you that actually squicked you? Something which you
didn't find exciting at all? (Quickly) P lease, you don't have to tell me
what it is if the answer is yes." 

	Yes.  Some guy in Washington wanted to eat me.  No.  Not that way. 
I mean, he really wanted to eat me.  All up.  As they say in fairy
stories.  So I wrote back and asked if he was going to skin and cook me
first?  I thought it might be something really good.  And he said, no, he
was just going to eat me.  Starting -- he must have been related to you --
with my feet, he always started with the feet, and go all the way to my
head.  "Without even tenderizer?" I wrote back, thinking the dream could
still be salvaged.  Naw.  He was just going to eat me.  All I had to do
was say go.  So I thought, why not?  And the next thing I get is a
description of him eating me.  Gross. 

	The thing is, he was so nice about it, I didn't want to hurt his
feelings, so I sent him a little story about how it was our first date and
he had invited me over to his house for dinner, which turned out to be a
converted butcher shop with the meathooks still hanging from the ceiling,
and I was dressed in the cutest little outfit, it was sort of like a
yellow skating costume with lots of stiff petticoats under the short skirt
and extremely low cut, and ... oh, but I'm making your temperature go up. 
Sor ry.  Anyway, he wrote back and said he didn't go in for a lot of the
stuff I wrote, but he would try since he liked me so much, and just wanted
to eat me again.  I could tell we were not made for each other.  I mean,
the guy had no class.  A dish like Chl oe would have been wasted on him. 

	Oh, by the way, your story ideas are great.  I wonder if I might
impose one constriction.  Please, from now on, write in the third person
singular when referring to me, and in the past tense.  I find stories in
the second person present that go you you you all the time, extremely
annoying.  In fact, it's a good thing I'm not a dominatrix, or you would
have been punished long ago.  Do you understand? 

	Where are you recuperating?  In X?  Perhaps in your feverish
dreams, my face will appear.  You'll feel my body struggling under yours. 
Your hands will tighten on my throat... 

	Your wife will say, "Wake up, Kyle, you're having a nightmare."

	I will be gone, but you will lie there in the dark, still feeling
my body with yours on top of it.  And you'll begin to remember... 

	The flat Utah desert and the road running through it.  And the
girl hitchhiker.  Picking her up out here in the middle of nowhere shd
lets take a break,.  Okay.  We'll go in here.  Okay.  He pushed her
through the doorway.  No telling what's behind that door.  she thought as
she programmmed the new computer setting up new wave patterns betw2een
here and C\ardiff You get it? 

	I'm here.  Or yu are.  who are yyu she asked through wswollen
lip0s he had never thought before sje tpicj him Oh, yu sepeak elsh?  she
hadn't realized. 

He answer her:

What is ths?  don't take no for an answer
		get u[p lsut   hyoiewreee"?
he said.
but she commenced to give him her garters in the old pub
when tom gilhooley walked in and saidk, what are you doing
and he pulled down her skirt
As he put on the high heels for the first time.
Kyle, what are you doing?

Go back to sleep.

There are as many words as you need to define pain and suffering, if you
will just listen to me and don';t areguege
'
Wench!
he called
to her
down
the 
stairs

did she get it?
Whjat/;
Don't speakpolsa
he
Kyle, are you all right?  Don't answer.  Just nod.

Hawking.  You're Hawking.

The bird came back to him.  And perched on his shoulder.  Just an idea.

Whishdajamean? he answer.  not knowing whjat copmes next.
which is breath
Image a bonk>
			A bonk is a beast if the priesstg saiosdfyagdg eag
I hta thoopwruapogaegiaergaro9ysaoivjaer'gear
geqrpgfu 3wpoj w;lae;gba p'ovbjawpofi'[ofjlvcaeqeql;j
qeo;af120p7430;7zs[v/ OY`1 0O8NQE/T8 WR5[-B45-[2
OIO234UUAgfuiytrthujumkeruirtom-.afuxqa543
=-502I
HOLDI IT MY KYBOD IS SNASGUBG UBI THE MISTY ISLES FORGET IT!
i'M NOT GOING BACI'

yOU ARE AND YOU KNOW IT

Fuck the jews.
Now Kwaellllyll we weerjearge dfbopmcom cmence the birtheday suit
Cody Blooweredfedfsef
Bumpt into seminix
out there calling
to you
on the
thign or don'tts wsay thtat.
This is what I've been waiting for.
Kyweeelllelellelellelelelelelelelelelelelelelelele
Cabin H.  They're in CabinH.
Tell Karin to call the Interstate.  I don't know.  Just do it.
By the time the police got there.  they wre gone
must of just been imagining it.  Let it slide.  It's going down.  Fedd it
through pusssy;g
ag iokd puyssy
Hawakaka kylellic.
Cody knuckled down now and let him have it full throttle.  What they did,
Kywell is hook up a link between Waxahatchie and Cern.  Get it?  The
tunnels are still therek, kkyweell, come and get it. 
Kylel, what are you doing?

I don't know.

He was standing in the middle of the bed with his sword drawn.  Mandy had
never seen him like this before.  It was as if he were possesssed.  What
you do, Kywell is you bat it back and forth.  The particle.  You bat the
particle between Geneva and Texas.  Of course, you have to bounce it off a
spaceship to get it there.  But thaT JUST MAKES PARTICLE RESEARCH THAT
MUCH MORE INTERESTING. 

	Remember, Kywelllll
                                *

	That was just a short piece.  I forgot about it.  Chloe was one of
Kyle's playmates.  Research assistants.  If you know what I mean.  We had
a good time together.  Courtney on my end.  Chloe on his.  Particle
research can be very fascinating.  Especially when you're doing action at
a distance.  Let me try to explain.  I would do something to Court on my
end, and Kyle would see if the same thing happened to her sister on his. 
Get it?  At the same time.  Exactly.  No speed of light stuff.  Like, as
far as I was concerned, before.  And then he would do something to Chloe
back.  Chloe and Courtney are what people like Kyle call entangled twins. 
For all intents and purposes, they're the same girl.  Except they have
been split.  Courtney on my end.  Chloe in Europe.  See?  We'd been
working on this for some time. 

	Naturally, I was honored to be asked to participate.  My father
was a graduate of MIT in animal husbandry, so it was nice to return to the
corridors of academia.  We staked Courtney out in a massage parlor on West
45th Street.  I don't know the logistics at Kyle's end.  Then we began to
experiment. 

	Here.  This will give you some example.  From the workbook:

	"Number 9:

	"He collars her in and chains her in a kneeling position, then
uses clamps attached to stout rods rising from the floor to grasp her
eyelids and force her eyes open. He leaves her like this for some hours
and by the time he returns the girl's eyes are s o dry that she can barely
see and so painful that it feels as though they are on fire. He asks if
she'd like a little moisture on her dry eyeballs. When she agrees, he
turns a spigot that allows small drops of acid to fall onto the girl's
eyes. He rapes her while the acid slowly eats its way into her brain." 

	Well, in this case, I was the one who had to collar Courtney.  You
can't imagine the trouble she gave me.  I was wondering if he was getting
the same flack back in Europe from her sister.  Were both girls acting
insane, like they were completely out of t heir minds?  They were English. 
15.  Big sexy blonde girls.  They had both been fashion models.  Kyle had
a thing for models.  He was crazy about them.  I think his wife was one. 
But she didn't go in for bondage.  That's why he came to me.  So he could
get what he couldn't get at home.  She wouldn't even help him with his
experiments.  In the backyard toolshed.  Like most of my English clients,
he liked to putter around.  It was quite a hookup he had there.  He sent
me complete plans to make a duplicate .  My God!  I had to build that!  I
don't know a hammer from a nailfile.  Well, I can tell a nailfile.  But a
hammer is a little more subtle.  Couldn't I just stick it in her eye?  No. 
It's got to be the same.  Exactly.  Fucking tinker toy.  And it had t o be
done by Christmas.  Because that's when the girls were going on holiday. 
What girls?  The two Lemon sisters.  Pay attention.  Haven't you heard
what I've been telling you?  Oh yeah.  Right.  The Lemons.  One was coming
here.  And one was coming to, where did he say he was calling from? 
Genoa.  Geneva, damnit.  Oh yeah.  How was I supposed to know they weren't
the same?  What's her name again?  Courtney.  Oh, right.  Needs a place to
stay.  Friend of Kyle's.  Got it. 

	Then what?

	It's all in the book, he said.  Just follow the instructions. 
Yeah.  Right.  Strap her down.  This way?  I think so.  Which one is this. 
Number... 16.  I read it.  Courtney was screaming so loud from what we did
to her clit, I couldn't think.

	"This man's passion, which was once in his youth to freeze a girl
with ice cubes has now refined it by thrusting her unprotected feet into a
vat of liquid nitrogen. The girl's flesh naturally freezes solid in an
instant, but he is careful to remove them quickly so that the blood
flowing down towards her extremities is so cooled by the iced flesh that
she perishes in minutes from hypothermia. He encunts her continuously
during this time, taking pleasure in snapping her frozen toes from her
feet as he does so." 

	You got the dry ice.  If he thinks I'm going to fool around with
liquid nitrogen, he's nuts.  Presumably at the same time, the same thing
was happening to Chloe on the other side of the Atlantic.  Courtney said
she didn't know any Chloe.  Your sister.  I don't have a sister.  But your
name is Courtney.  So?  She had it on a little gold chain around her neck. 
It said "Courtney."  So how was I to know it was the wrong Courtney.  I
wondered if that would affect the experiment.  You know what, he said
Chloe acted exactly the same way.  And he was using the real stuff.  So
that shows that action at a distance is possible.  He got the Nobel Prize
for that one. 

	And I didn't get anything.  Well, I got to watch Courtney die. 
But I would have liked some recognition to go with it.  My 15 minutes of
fame.  After all, Andrew C. got his name in the paper over Versace.  They
had pictures of him all over town.  I would have liked that.  At the end,
the golden sabers ripped him apart.  Just like Gianni.  He gave himself a
final blowjob.  Funny.  Makes you think.  Anticipatory there on the floor,
kneeling, holding the gun in his mouth.  Thumb squeezing back on the
trigge r.  Nice hair.  Nice place to die.  Nice houseboat there on Indian
Creek.  Two stories.  A balcony.  Looking over the water from a bedroom
with sliding glass doors.  SeeSaw. 

	Transparent curtains.

	Wow.  Her head opened up like a coconut.  Not.  Not what?  Her.
m me court kne
they took her apart and put her back together in the shop
she doubled.
pop
and a high fly ball over the west fence with Martha's face on it.
outtatheballpark
girls can play games with boys
that boys don't understand
until it's all over 
and your testicles are hanging on someone's hood ornament
sure take her she's mine whiopped her around and threw her into another
man's arms.  he took her home.  And that's what we want to know about. 
What happened next?  I'm dead.  Don't tempt me.  She wrote hard, crisp
images that hovered on the mind like a copter coming in to drop balm
she saw it and ran
they were too fast for her
she didn't make it
it was like kerosene
we poured it over her
like you said
and left her there 
in the road, burning
What happened on your side?
Amazing.
They must be linked.
oh yeah.  She's still alive
we have her in the next room.
I'll send you the video.
Now what?

	The experiment lasted several days at the end of which the girls
were sent home.  They were warned not to tell.  Ida said this and Asa said
that.  On and on.  It got boring after awhile.  Is anybody listening? 
The watchers of the ward.
Take one.
Leave the other.
Entangled twins.
Now put it in here.  I had to have Rod do that.  He fucked that girl good. 
Just like you did.  Yeah.  She's here.  We got her.  Thanks for sending
her home.  She went upstairs and exploded.  Girl flesh all over Battersea. 
I had the same result at Laguna Beach.  Courtney reacted exactly the same
way.  Can you imagine.  It wasn't a question.  It was a warning.  She
began to buzz.  Screaming around her gag.  Now what?  You put the needle
in between her clitoris and .... what's this word?  Uterus.  You got the
wire clippers?  Poor Chloe.  He was doing it all himself.  I at least had
Rod to hold Court down while I played with her.  I supposed he'd used
restraints of some sort.  Those little wiry things, perhaps.  The Swiss
are very good about these things.  But then I remembered, he wasn't Swiss
but X.  That information is restricted.  I should have known.  A real
killer.  He's coming for me now.  I knew what he was up to.  He wanted to
control me through Courtney.  Isn't that right, you fucking cunt licker? 
He said yes.  I forgot to ask what sex Chloe was.  I wondered if it was
important.  Grasp the diodes...  What diodes.  He didn't send any diodes. 
I think he means these things.  They were some kind of clamp.  For
clipping paper together.  In this case, it was supposed to go on Chloe's
...  I thought you said you were Courtney.  I am.  I mean, for all intents
and purposes...  Don't give me that shit?  Is you or ain't you Courtney
Lemon.  Brown.  What?  My name is Courtney Brown.  Horse, you stupid ass,
you got the wrong woman. 

	Didn't matter.  She screamed just the same.  Kyle was very pleased.

	You know, you're in big trouble if you print that.  This ain't
Arkansas.  It's California.  Where are you going?  The bathroom.  This is
all going on public access all the time.  Nobody listens.  These chicks
are real.  This is a real video.  Boring, isn 't it?  Can I borrow your
compact.  Sure.  Hand it over.  It goes on for hours.  No one watches. 
Because it's so boring.  Like who cares what I do to Courtney if it
doesn't cost a jillion dollars, I don't want to know.  And this is like
totally free.  Pe ople would rather spend a hundred dollars to go to a
massage parlor where they can peep through a keyhole at two chicks doing
it in the other room, then watch the same thing on tv for nothing.  We're
there every night.  Balling old Courtney.  She's gettin g pretty ragged
now.  Which in some ways makes her worse.  Before this, she was a
debutante.  And you know what they're like.  But now she's just plain fuck
meat.  Aren't you, Court?  Answer me, shithead?  y yes mistress Cody. 
Wouldn't you like to be doi ng that, Cody, treating some asshole chick
like they treat you?  WHAM WHAM WHAM.  Hit her again, Cody.  Go on.  Do
it.  I'm telling you.  It's in the book.  Pretend she's you, Cody, and you
are doing it to her, what got done to you.  Go on.  What are you waiting
for?  I said to hurt her.  Do it, or I'll... I pulled the trigger.  I saw
Courtney all the way through to that laboratory in Zurich where they had
her small blonde muffin sister tied down on a worktable, and what they
were doing to her.  And adjusted my own readings accordingly.  We were in
sync.  Is that kool?  Is that w ay coooool.  We did it.  Slap hands. 
SeeSaw.  The two sisters sang in their chains.  Turn up the pitch.  Way
past Jupiter.  Give it another notch.  Not too much.  Cut it back.  What
do you have on the radio?  KCR.  Cool jazz.  Le Jazz Hot.  Lights flicke
red in the coffee shops around X.  They blew a fuse. 

	The Action at a Distance Stabilizer was soon in effect.  In fact,
you can download it from http://www.exlac/up.her.twat.  Castor oil enema. 
Works like silk.  Hold the bucket.  Both girls were giving shit like cows. 
Kyle cracked a joke about being utterly devastating.  I winced.  It can
get hairy around the lab.or.tory.  Or, as he puts it, the la bore a labor. 
Get it.  Lab or, instead of tory.  Right, Kyle.  Shut up.  I think we're
getting significant yields to get a result, don't you?  Yes, Kyle.  Can I
let her go to the bathroom now?  No.  Hold her en utero, so to speak.  I
wondered if he knew what en utero meant.  He lik ed to use all these fancy
big words to impress me.  Mother fuck.  I hated his guts.  I was getting
pretty tired of Courtney, too.  I held her by the throat before I let her
go.  If you tell anyone, you little shit, I'll ...  I had to think.  What
would be worse than what we'd just done to her?  Make you sit in a chair
and listen to Kyle's stupid jokes, I wanted to say, "have you back again. 
And this will be just practice."  I let her go.  She staggered up the
alley, holding her skirt around her.  "Come o n, Larry," I said.  "Let's
go home.  It's been a long night."  "My name's Kyle."  Oh yeah.  Right. 

	Suppose she tells.

	She won't.  I have the videos.

	The next night she came back for more.  Mrs. Tarkington.  Society
dame.  Slumming.  In high heels.  And a mousy hairdo.  This needs some
working on.  Like the queen's.  You got to take her out.  Catwoman. 
Leopard Lady.  They were all gunning for her.  Super shit.  Bounty.  Then
what?  I had to finish the story.  We turned her into a slut.  And sent
her uptown where her pals could see her.  Might see her.  But that wasn't
enough, was it?  We wanted her to really suffer.  So we arranged to have
her on ca ll when her husband came for a session.  It was very romantic. 
She had to do everything she was told to do.  That she had always refused
him in bed.  Or someone would do it while he watched.  And enjoyed the
spectacle of his old lady being fucked in the back room.  Down at the bar. 
The roadhouse.  Where he and his buddies hung out.  She came in there
looking for a pickup, while he watched.  In that dress.  Those heels.  All
the stuff she wouldn't wear for him.  Because she wasn't that way.  She
sure was n't.  She was a slut tramp.  Through and though.  Pure white
trash.  Oh, hi, Joe.  Didn't know you were here.  Was this his idea or
hers?  He wondered.  What did Cody say?  Fuck it or forget it.  Those are
words of wisdom coming from a child like that.  P ure heaven.  A miracle. 
A break though.  Courtney screamed.  You could hear her all the way to
Bell Atlantic.  Chloe was skiing in the Alps.  I thought they were
supposed to be together.  It was her idea.  They switched passports.  This
is the wrong girl .  How can you tell?  The fingerprints don't match.  Uh
oh.  Forgot about that.  If they have different prints, they're not
identical.  Let me see.  They match!  A miracle.  We were saved.  I think
he fudged the data.  It wasn't an exact match.  Deep in t he dna there
were subtle differences.  But not enough to affect the outcome of the
experiment.  At least not in these circumstances.  What circumstances? 
This desk, for instance.  It wasn't in the exact place.  As what?  The
other.  He gave it away.  The research.  Wouldn't take a penny.  Although,
afterwards, he wondered if he had done the right thing.  Relinguishing
control, like that.  This was pure research.  Suppose we use a clone next
time.  You mean, split the clone?> Exactly.  It takes it to ano ther
level.  Would Courtney's clone react the same as Courtney?  Technically
they're the same.  Without the genetic mismatch that obtained in the other
two pairs.  Between Courtney and Chloe and Claude and Cloris.  If we can
keep this going, we can obtain fusion by nine hundred hours.  It's just a
simple buildup of the net until it splits.  And becomes two cells.  Then
the bonding takes over and the men match up with the females and they all
come out.  What does?  All of them.  What do you mean?  Their ma ggots
crawl out and eat them.  Don't watch.  This is very exciting.  Do you have
the specs on that?  Just something I whipped up in my garage.  My God,
man, do you know what this is?  It's a real lemming.  On it's way to the
sea.  I thought they were exti nct.  They are now. 

	Wow, where'd you say that came from?

	The Bronx.

	It smells like an armpit.

	Of course, it is.  We milk them dry.  And sell it in little yellow
bottles with a red flash on them.  Eau de armpitio.  Very popular.  Wear
that, and you'll really bring them in.  p.u.  When did you have a bath
last? 

	I mean, the olifactory nerve takes a beating in New York.  Sweat. 
Crotch sweat.  Bowling ball factory slaves work in quarters under the
world trade building.  you never know what's down there, do you?  She's
getting close.  Take her out.  A swat team ki cked down her door.  The
girl was dragged kicking and screaming from the apartment.  Cody watched
as her head banged down stairs.  Cops are mean.  She hurt her leg. 
They're down there under the city.  I mean, why should I have to go all
the way to Siam f or an Adidas?  They can do it here.  Basketballs.  We
got basketballs.  Look at those knockers.  Want to feel?  I couldn't give
it away.  My spine was a mass of trauma.  My brain was stuck up my ass. 
Don't be a dummy like me. 

	Okay.  Cody Cupcakes.  You can step down now.  I couldn't move. 
He had kept me in a pose for six hours.  What kind of numerology is that? 
I couldn't tell.  The computer was fluctuating with the current.  She held
her data well.  Mission control.  Come in M.C.  You guys still there? 
We're doing the space walk now.  Mission Control, release air.  They
controlled it from the earth.  That way they didn't overuse it.  Each
Cosmonaut got to breathe every ten minutes.  But the Astronaut was allowed
one whene ver he wanted it because he was a guest.  Just ask.  Don't be
afraid.  Anytime.  Go ahead.  Take one.  We're fine.  Thank you.  We're
used to it.  You need to keep up your strength.  Everything will be fine. 
Breathe.  Breathe deeply.  Because of the stri ngent air conditions, they
eventually withered to a third their nomal size.  They looked like two
little old monkeys.  In ill-fitting suits.  He, too, began to lose weight. 
And wither.  He looked bad.  You okay, compadre?  Yeah.  Sure.  I'm fine. 
Don't worry about me.  Good old American knowhow.  What's it like living
with a woman for three months?  And not be able to touch her.  She's a
Nazi.  Or share her around?  Have one.  It's imported.  From earth.  They
savored the mild aroma.  Try this one?  She 's Chinese.  Women were meant
to please.  Each had acquired heightened senstitivies.  but not the same
ones.  Claw had webbed feet.  And Space had a hump.  Paul was Humphrey
Bogard.  He looked just like him.  Except he was left handed.  We forgot
about le ft hand right hand.  What is she?  I'll check.  Do the
chromosomes match on the handedness gene?  We have a positive result. 
What does that mean?  In terms of darkness.  Can you see in the dark,
Raoul?  We.  His twin.  Both attuned to the space winds.  Y ou have to be
all natural.  Otherwise, it won't work.  He wanted to get his stuff out of
there.  Where the comet hit.  Just before the meltdown.  And the only way
was to go in there and get it.  But what kind of excuse could he make? 
What was the protocol for an internal spacewalk?  Hi.  Get off my
airtube.  Something like that.  In Russian, there was a ritual.  All other
practices were verboten.  Are you ready to die for this, K.? 

                                *

	Note: The information for the "action at a distance" experiment
came from Tuesday's New York Times.  I don't make this stuff up, you know.

Chapter 5 Index Chapter 7