“Look at that pyramid!”
“It’s a rock!”
“It’s a stone!”
“It’s INCAMAN!”
Saved from his dying mother’s womb by a Sun Priest from Algol IV, and endowed with the mysterious Egyptian magic of the pyramids, INCAMAN uses his occult powers to fight the forces of evil and injustice in the Guff, meanwhile posing as Alex Brut, a timid, harmless secretary.
And the secretary banged Gretchen widdershins.
Then came BURNMAN, COSMICMAN, DEMONMAN, ISOMAN, SHARKMAN, MAGNETMAN, PLASTICMAN, JETMAN, POWERMAN, and a score more dreaming drones, all fighting for their turn to fulfill themselves with the reality of Gretchen’s compelling invitation and mount her in pronation, in supination, akimbo, backhand, mizzenmast, bunchbacked, crural, zigzag, oblique, careened, skewed, uphill and downhill. And finally SCIENCEMAN, posing as Blaise Shima, a timid, harmless chemist, had his turn to rencounter Gretchen with stoccado thrusts.
But it was during this climax that the frenzy of the queen pheromone was exhausted and the nuptial flight ended. Gretchen’s spasming muscles in her pubes contracted in a last convulsion and clenched steel-tight. Shima’s penis was torn out of him to remain gripped in her vulva. Still dominated by the new regal role possessing her, Gretchen ignored Shima and left him, writhing and bleeding to death.
22
When Gretchen staggered into her Oasis, she was instantly surrounded by excited women who passed her from embrace to embrace, stroking, petting, kissing her. Up in her shambled apartment they produced a divan, liberated from somewhere else, and coaxed her to recline on it. She was a naked odalisque, streaming with sweat, saliva, and semen, primal and pungent. They clustered around her nude body, gently stroking her Venus-mount until the contraction cramp relaxed. Then they withdrew Shima’s bloody penis, the mating sign that their queen was no longer a virgin, and waited, rustling and whispering in a humming buzz.
At last Gretchen opened her eyes and looked around. They fell silent and watched her expectantly.
“It’s all got to be restored,” she said in a faint voice.
“Yes, BB.”
“Everything back to the future.”
“Yes, BB.” They didn’t understand but laughed submissively.
Gretchen’s control began to return. “Priss, you must know cleaning companies.”
“Yes, BB.”
“Hire one.”
“They’re expensive, BB.”
“I can afford it.”
“All of us can do it together, BB,” the two-headed monster with four arms offered. “You don’t have to pay.”
“No. I have another assignment for you two. Which of us did I kill?”
“You don’t remember?” Mary Mixup was astonished.
“No.”
“Y-You killed three,” Priss stammered. “N-Nell. Sarah. Y-Yenta. You almost k-killed her rabbi, too.”
“Yes. The prime contenders. Let’s get that settled. Oodgedye, Udgedye, I want their bods taken to the Guff precinct. You will tell Subadar Ind’dni exactly what happened. Can do?”
“Will do, BB.” The twins didn’t dream of dissenting, objecting or recusing.
“He’ll probably issue an A.P.B. for me, but I’ll handle that. You guards, help the twins and go back to Security duty. No more invasions.”
“Yes, BB.”
“Where’s the Raxon woman?”
“Here, BB.”
“I’m having your apartment cleaned and restored too, but your ceiling and my floor must be repaired. Do you know construction people?”
“Yes, BB.”
“Hire a contractor. I’ll pay.”
“Not all, BB. My girls did as much damage as yours.”
“My girls? Yes. My girls. But I’m running my girls and I’m picking up the tab for everything. Get a contractor.”
“Yes, BB.”
“Where’s the Pi-girl?”
“Here, BB.”
“How old are you?”
“Seventeen, ma’am person.”
“Old enough to work for me. You’ll join my staff and attend to me.”
“Thank you, BB ma’am person.”
“You’ll also go to school nights. I’ll make the arrangement. I won’t have illiterates around me.”
“No, BB ma’am. Yes, BB person.”
“If any of you girls want anything from Regina’s place, you have my permission. Take it, but no quarreling.”
“Yes, BB.”
“And Nellie’s.”
“Burned out, BB.”
“Yenta’s?”
“Her rabbi has it.”
“Sarah’s?”
“I’ll be taking it over, BB.”
“You’re Norah, her dresser?”
“I am that, BB.”
“Good and welcome, Norah. Can you afford Sarah’s place?”
“Thank you, BB. I don’t surely know yet.”
“If you can’t, come to me.” Gretchen looked around at the hive. “All of you come to me for everything. Is that understood?”
They rustled happily.
“Only to me. Is that understood?”
Some of them rustled unhappily.
“Relax, all of you. I’ll explain it at our first Twenty tonight.”
“Twenty?” Mary Mixup was bewildered. “Are there twenty of us?”
Oodgedye stopped her head count. “Sharpen a wit, dummy. BB must mean twenty hours.”
“That’s eight pip emma,” Udgedye explained.
“Oh? We’re meeting at eight? Where? Here?”
“No,” Gretchen said. “We’re all filthy. We’ve got to clean and refresh and change. The Zauna.”
* * *
One is subjected to the frigid, temperate and torrid terrestrial zones in the Zauna Baths; also the environments of Luna, Mars and Venus, with authentic sound-effects; winds, snow, hail, rain, thunderstorms, bird calls, insect stridulations, and animal cries. Also the alien language of extraterrestrial plant forms which murmur or moan and chatter or clatter incomprehensibly as they germinate, grow, replicate, and die.
The waters, of course, are fantastically expensive even though they’re recycled constantly. The scents, soaps, and essential oils are much cheaper but really useless without water. For a monumental fee one may have exclusive use of the Zauna for oneself and guests, which fee Gretchen paid.
As the colony progressed through hot, warm, cold; baths, showers, soaps, oils, and massages; warming, relaxing, gleaming, Gretchen cosseted her subjects. “I’m going to tell you a true story,” she began. “Some of you will recognize yourselves in it. The rest will be able to guess. No, Lydia dear, no trombone fanfare now. Please not to interrupt. No interruptions from anyone.
“There was a group of ladies who met once a week to socialize and comfort themselves with food and friendship and fun and games. They were all very dear, sweet, and delightful ladies who meant no harm to anyone. But they did do great harm because they forgot that they were women, and there’s a vast difference between a lady and a woman.
“One of the fun games they played was a witchcraft ritual to raise the Devil. None of them believed in Satan and hell any more than they believed in God and heaven. After all, this is the twenty-second century, and these were modern, sophisticated ladies; but they were also women.
“The difference between a lady and a woman is the difference between carved ivory and an elephant’s tusk. No, don’t laugh. I’m not comparing us to elephants. We’re the carved ivory; exquisite, beautiful, the result of centuries of the craft—keep that word in mind—the craft of designing, shaping and carving the natural tusk into a work of art that will please men. We are carved by man’s craft into ladies to please men. And we have forgotten the original tusk, the fighting, foraging, dangerous weapon that is a woman. They say that inside every joke there is a truth. Inside every carved ivory piece there is a deadly weapon.
“Why have women always permitted men to exploit and carve them into ladies? We’ve done it because we need men as much as they need us. But while we have been forced to accept men as they are, they’re afraid of us as we really are, and so our need traps us into the safe carved ivory role—safe for men, that is. But the menace is still inside us.