I came, ejaculating heavily into the pillow, which suddenly increased its movement. I threw the pillow off me, and it landed on the carpet, glinting wetly in the diffused light from the bathroom. I grabbed the other pillow and heaved it against the wall.
I was breathing heavily, both with panic and with the exertion of my sexual activity. Other than my breathing, the room was silent.
I could hear the pillow perfectly.
"Good," it whispered, its seductive voice sounding sated. "So good."
Sickened, appalled by what had just transpired, feeling both guilty and victimized, I put on my pants and dashed out of the room to my car. I locked the doors and sat unmoving in the dark, listening to my own breathing and the sound of my heart, trying to stop my hands from shaking.
Good.
So good.
The clock in my car said it was twelve thirty. I was tired, but I could not sleep. I stayed there, unmoving, wide-awake, until dawn. At a little past three, a square white shape inched its way up the side of the motel room window. Moonlight glinted off my semen, and I felt like vomiting.
I wanted to kill the pillow.
But how can you kill a piece of cloth filled with stuffing?
My vacation was almost over, and I realized that I'd have to return to work in three days. Where would I live? How could I live, knowing that whenever I tried to sleep, my pillows would try to attack me?
Have sex with me.
Kill me.
Rape me.
I knew, deep down, that the pillows meant to do me no physical harm. But what they did want to do was so terrifying, so perversely alien, that I could not think about it. I could not handle it. So I stared at the window and tried to figure out my next move. The rational ideas I discarded almost immediately. Rationality was not a legitimate defense against the irrational. What was next? An exorcist? Spiritualist? Faith healer?
When dawn arrived and the coffee shop opened up across the street, I went in for some breakfast. I ordered hash browns and eggs with orange juice. I stared at my plate after the waitress brought it, and I could think of no way to escape from this horror. No matter where I went, no matter what I did, this would continue. I knew that, even if I slept alone on a hard park bench, some article of cloth would find me and attack me.
Rape me.
I took a bite of my egg and used the napkin to wipe my mouth.
"Thank you," the cloth whispered.
I dropped the white napkin and stared at it. It looked for all the world like a miniature pillow. As I stared, I noticed that one of the creases looked almost like a smile. A smile of unbridled lust. I felt no shock, though. I felt no terror. I was too jaded for that. I'd gone through too much.
I looked down at the napkin, then across the street at the motel. In the bright light of early morning, I could clearly see the white squares against the motel room glass. But they no longer seemed like they were waiting to pounce. They no longer seemed malevolent.
They seemed forlorn.
Like they were waiting for me to come home.
I picked up the napkin. It was soft and silken. "Kiss me," it whispered. "Touch me." I looked across the street at the motel room window, and I found myself becoming aroused.
What was it they did to help people get over their fears? Made them face those fears? Made them confront their problems? I knew there was no way I could escape from the pillows. I would have to meet them head on.
The waitress brought my check, which I paid. I waited until she left the room before standing so she wouldn't see my erection.
I walked back across the street and stood for a moment in front of the window. The two pillows were pressed against the glass. The one which had taken advantage of me the night before looked soiled, dirty, and disgusting, covered with a crust of dried semen. But the other pillow, long and white, soft and supple, looked clean and fresh and innocent.
Inviting.
I licked my dry lips, thought for a moment, and took the key out of my pocket.
I went into the room and closed the door behind me.
Maya's Mother
I wrote the story "Bumblebee" for Richard Chizmar's anthology Cold Blood. A horror story set in contemporary Phoenix with a noirish detective for a protagonist, it was written quickly. I cashed my check when payment arrived, shelved the book when I got it, and promptly forgot about the piece.
But readers didn't.
I don't think Cold Blood sold particularly well, but more than any other story I've written, "Bumblebee" has inspired fans to write and ask for a sequel. I finally wrote one many years later for the paperback magazine Palace Corbie. It was titled "The Piano Player Has No Fingers" (all of the stories in that issue were titled "The Piano Player Has No Fingers"; the gimmick for the issue was that all contributors would write a story using that as the title). I thought that would be the end of it, but still the requests kept coming.
So for those of you who asked, here's another one.
***
It was hot as I drove through the desert to the Big Man's. The place was out past Pinnacle Peak and at one time had probably been the only house out there, but now the city was creeping in, and there were only a few miles of open space between the last subdivision and the dirt road that led to the Big Man's compound.
I turned onto the unmarked drive, slowing down, peering through my dusty windshield. The Big Man had made no effort to landscape his property, but there was a lot more out here than just cacti and rocks. Doll parts were hanging on the barbed wire fence: arm and leg, torso and head. Mesquite crosses stood sentry by the cattle guard. A blood-drenched scarecrow with a coyote skull on its shoulders faced the road, arms raised.
I hadn't expected him to be so spooked—or at least not so superstitious—and I was starting to get a little creeped out myself as I ventured farther into the desert and away from civilization. He wouldn't say over the phone why he wanted to hire me, had said only that he had a case he wanted handled, but the few details he'd given me were enough to pique my interest.
His house was on a small rise, surrounded by saguaros, and was one of those Frank Lloyd Wrightish structures that had bloomed out here in the late fifties/early sixties when the Master himself had set up his architectural school north of Scottsdale. It was, I had to admit, damned impressive. Low, geometric, all rock and windows, it blended perfectly with the environment and bespoke an optimism for the future that had died long before they'd built the square shoe-box that was my dingy Phoenix apartment complex.
One of the Big Man's men was out front to greet me, and he ushered me inside after allowing me to park my dirty shitmobile next to a veritable fleet of gleaming Mercedes Benzes. The interior of the house was just as impressive as the outside. Lots of light. Potted palms. Hardwood floors and matching furniture. I was led to an extra-wide doorway and ushered into a sunken living room approximately five times the size of my entire apartment. "He's here," the flunky said by way of an introduction.
And I finally got to meet the Big Man.
I'd heard of him, of course. Who in Phoenix hadn't? But I'd never met him, seen him, or even spoken to him. I looked at the man before me, underwhelmed. I'd been expecting someone more impressive. Sydney Greenstreet, maybe. Orson Welles. Instead, this Richard Dreyfuss look-alike stood up from the couch, shook my hand, and introduced himself as Vincent Pressman.