The next time she woke it was daylight and she was dying of thirst, lying upside down in bed, her face only inches from Rod's testicles. They were shriveled and blue, but the rest of the organ was still hard and raging, though it was now a deep purple color. It had something on it. Lisa blinked her eyes and tried to focus. The something began to move.
It was a cockroach. The pun eluded her as, just for a second, she saw the bug in perfect detaiclass="underline" its chestnut brown exoskeleton, its antennae waving in the air, the legs clinging to the purple flesh, the mouth nibbling at the head of Rod's rod.
Lisa screamed a loud, long horror-movie scream — the kind of scream she'd always despised hearing from B-movie damsels in distress — and ran from the room. She barely made it to the bathroom before puking up the bile in her guts. Ten minutes later, after dousing her head under a long and cold shower, she crept back to the bedroom and peered around the doorjamb.
The cockroach was gone, but Rod's nibbled manhood still stood ramrod straight. Its color was very bad, as was most of the rest of him. His skin had taken on a grayish-purple tint that deepened to black and blue around his neck, under his arms, at his ankles, and, as she'd already noticed, at his groin.
His face was the worst. The eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. The skin was blue-gray and the lips were white and parted slightly as if awaiting a kiss. Inside his mouth, and filling his nostrils, vomit had dried to a hard crust.
Lisa went into the kitchen and made coffee, trying to keep calm. She had to think this through or she was going to be in major trouble. But even more important than her involvement in Rod's death and whether or not she was guilty of any crime, she had to know if his deadly erection was a freak occurrence or a commonplace thing. After all, she'd finally discovered a method of achieving the perfect orgasm, and she had to know whether it was a fluke or not. She felt bad that Rod was dead but — she was a realist if she was anything — she had barely known him. And as far as consciences went, hers had died a long time ago on a Thanksgiving Day in the boys' locker room.
Lisa drank the coffee, then called Darlene at the hospital. She tried to keep her voice light. "Hi Dar, it's Lee. How are you?"
Darlene's voice was icy in return. "I'm very busy right now."
"Look, Dar, I'm sorry about our lunch the other day."
"The other day? You mean last week, don't you?"
"Uh, yeah," Lee said hesitantly. How long had she been screwing a dead man? "Yeah, I mean last week. I'm sorry about that. Really."
"Hmm," Darlene answered doubtfully. "That's why it took you a whole week to call."
"Aw, come on, Dar. I said I was sorry. What more can I do?"
Darlene was silent.
"Listen Darlene," Lisa ventured, "I need some medical information."
"Well then, you'd better speak to a doctor. There's one here right now, and I hear he has a big cock, too, so you can make a fool of yourself over him." The phone thumped in Lisa's ear.
"Darlene?" she called.
A muffled male voice not too far from the phone said, "I have a big what?"
Lee was about to hang up when the male voice came on the line. "Hello? This is Doctor Peter Ruttles, can I help you?"
"Um, hello," Lee answered awkwardly.
"Are, uh, you a friend of Nurse Lemay's?" the doctor asked, matching her awkwardness.
"Yeah, well, at least I used to be."
"Oh. Uh, was there anything I can do for you?"
Lee hesitated, then decided to plunge ahead no matter how awkward she felt. This was too important. "Yes, actually, you can answer some questions for me," she replied in her best feminine in-need-of-help voice.
"I'd be delighted," the doctor said. "Perhaps you'd care to ask them over dinner at my place, say tonight?" he added in a suave voice.
Lee ignored the invitation for the moment. "All I need to know is: Is it unusual for a man to die with an erection?" she asked boldly, getting the reaction she expected.
"What? Are you kidding?" The doctor sounded shocked, but excited, too. There was a nervous giggle behind his words.
"No, no. You see, I'm having an argument with this friend who's always trying to put stuff over on me. I say she's pulling my leg and I want to show her up," she lied.
"Oh," the doctor said, trying to sound like he understood, or even believed her, but he was unconvincing. A hint of lechery crept into his voice when he spoke again. "I still think we could discuss it at my place. I can show you that live erections are much more fun than dead ones."
Don't bet on it, buster, Lee thought with a wry smile. "That might be nice," she said flirtatiously, "but I need this information right away. I'm meeting my friend for lunch."
"All right. If we can call it a date, I'll answer your question." Lisa agreed. "Your friend is right," the doctor explained. "It is very common for the blood to collect in the groin causing the penis to become engorged and erect in death."
Lisa smiled into the receiver. "Uh, how long would something like that necessarily last?" she asked.
"Oh, I guess until an undertaker removes the blood from the body or the thing rotted away, I guess," the doctor said, laughing awkwardly. "There's a statue in France of a fallen general, taken from a body cast of him days after he died, and his erection is very clear in the bronze. Now what time shall I pick you up for dinner?"
"Make it seven. And Dr. Ruttles, do me a favor? Please don't tell anyone that we have a date. I know from Darlene what gossips those nurses and doctors are there." The doctor readily agreed, and she gave him her address.
Lisa hung up and went back to the bedroom. From what Darlene said, Lee knew it had been at least a week since she had first shacked up with Rod. She wasn't absolutely sure when he had died, but she had a good idea it was Saturday night because from the look of him he was at least a couple of days overripe. She did some calculating and figured she'd been screwing a corpse for at least three days before it had begun to attract bugs. She gave a shiver of disgust at the thought of the roach, but not at what she'd done.
Lisa got dressed quickly and, taking an ounce of Rod's Bolivian marching powder and several of his syringes with her in her pocketbook, left the apartment quietly. No one saw her. All she had to worry about now was Rod's friends. She was counting on the fact that all they knew of her was her first name and what she looked like, and, because of the heavy cocaine use that had gone on, they probably wouldn't want to get involved.
When Doctor Peter Ruttles showed up at her door that evening, Lee greeted him in her hottest leather outfit and easily talked him into taking her to the local Holiday Inn where she had taken the liberty of reserving a room for them in his name. What she didn't tell him was that she had reserved the room for exactly three days.
At the end of the three days, during which time a "Do Not Disturb" sign hung on the door constantly, Lisa slipped out of the room and out a side exit of the hotel unnoticed. When the cleaning lady finally saw the "Do Not Disturb" sign taken from the door of the room the next day, she entered and found Dr. Ruttles dead. He was naked and bound to the bed with nylons. An empty syringe was sticking out of his arm, his decomposing member was still erect, and an eternal smile was etched on his face.
BEDROOM EYES
Michael Newton
They knew him at the Ecstasy Arcade. Which is to say, they recognized his face, receding hairline, business suit (invariably gray or black), the raincoat which he wore or carried with him every day, regardless of the weather. No one knew his name, but that was unimportant. They had seen the color of his money, and he never caused a scene.