“You answered my question!” she said, her amazement for the moment overriding her disgust at this dirty culture.
“Well, I’m magic, of course,” the announcer’s voice replied.
She realized that it was the video set talking, not a human person just off-camera. The man she had seen before had been just a model to show the outfit. “Now we come to the matter of food, as our couple eats out on a date. Most of it is ordinary, but some like it exotic.” The picture showed the man and woman sitting down to a meal of sausage. Except that closer inspection revealed that the sausages looked like nothing so much as human refuse. The rolls resembled blobs of horse manure, and there was a pitcher of what she hoped was lemonade, but looked like urine.
“That food,” she said.
“Ah, you noticed! Yes, this delicacy is crafted to resemble assorted turds in appearance and taste. It is of course wholesome and nutritious, but can hardly be distinguished from—”
“Next topic,” she said tightly.
“The food is gathered by specially trained workers.” The picture showed an old man with a shovel scooping up poop in an alley frequented by dogs. He delivered it to the cook, who fried it in a pan with seasoning. It looked exactly like small sausage, similar to what she had recently eaten.
She got up to turn off the set.
“My little joke,” the announcer said. “That isn’t really the source.”
“Then quit with the food,” she said grimly.
“After their delicious repast, they go on a sleigh ride.” The picture showed them on an open sleigh hauled by a single naked woman. There was no snow, but somehow the runners slid along the ground without apparent friction. More magic, of course. The woman had heavy breasts and stout thighs and seemed competent to haul it along. She wore a headband with the word PROSTITUTE. “The runners are lubricated by a film of soap,” the announcer explained helpfully.
“Oh, this really slays me,” the woman on the sleigh exclaimed. “What a great ride!”
The man burst into song. “Oh what fun it is to ride on a one whore soap an’ slay!”
That did it. She got up and marched on the TV.
“There is more you need to know,” the announcer said quickly. “I will continue my orientation presentation.”
But she had had more than enough for the present. “Perhaps tomorrow,” she said, and turned the set off. She had learned that her abduction was probably not coincidental. She was here for a reason, and she wasn’t eager to learn that reason yet. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t like it. So if she could get away with delaying the presentation until she had a better strategy for escape, she would do it. Meanwhile her baby needed nursing.
Chapter 3—Spire
Prior woke with his decision made: he would go to rescue his ideal woman, whoever she might be—The Maiden in the Tower. The succubus might not really care for him as a person, but she had no reason to deceive him in something like this. He would be satisfied with even a less than ideal woman, provided she was shapely and obliging.
But first he would fetch the Spire, the cosmic dildo or phallic horn of plenty. Because it had enormous power and information, and armed with it he should be able to handle just about anything. He knew better than to go into a land accessed by the eeg-trail without solid protection. There was no telling what magical hazards there would be along the way.
He drove to a section of town he hadn’t visited in a year, and to the house of the lady penis doctor named Tantamount Emdee. He parked several blocks away, as he wanted to remain anonymous, and walked to the house. That was because he suspected he would not be welcome at that address.
It wasn’t there. Instead there was a huge dirty-white mound of gunk. Oh, yes—he had set the Spire on his formula of smegma and left it to jet fullblast. Tantamount had stolen his penis to study his anti-VD smegma; he had repaid her by giving her more of it than she could use. He was the only one who could turn it off. Evidently it had overflowed and buried her house in the intervening year. Served her right. But by this time her joy with all that research material might have become something akin to annoyance at its unremitting volume.
There was a steam shovel there, scooping out great chunks of solidified smegma and dumping it onto a truck. The mound had a gap in one side where the shovel had excavated, but the house still didn’t show. It was hard to keep up with the output of the Spire. Even if they got it all trucked away, how would they salvage the house? It would stink forever of spoiling smegma. His revenge had been more than adequate.
But now he needed to take back the Spire. That would cut off the flow and allow them to clear the property, in time. A year seemed sufficient to have made his point. If he ever encountered Tantamount again, she would surely be careful not to cross him anew.
He approached the truck driver, who was lounging in his cab, paging through a girlie magazine. “What’s up?”
The man glanced down at him. “You don’t know? You must be new to these parts.”
“I am,” Prior agreed. No sense in trying to explain his real connection; he might get arrested for creating a public nuisance. “This looks like an ambergris mine.”
“Richer than that. This stuff’s a universal cure for venereal disease. The doctor leased the rights to a drug company and moved out six months ago. The royalties must’ve made her rich by now.”
So Tantamount had gone commercial. Naturally she had appreciated the value of such a supply of such a substance. She must have retired and moved to a big-city penthouse. So his revenge had not been complete; instead of destroying her, he had made her wealthy. Well, that was the way it went.
But under that mound was the Spire. He had to get in there and fetch it. How was he to do that? The pile seemed pretty solid.
Still, there had been caves in Mount Icecream, and there could be caves here too. He walked around the mound, examining its surface. Sure enough, he found cracks in the hardening stuff. The constant addition of new smegma would be pushing up in the center, squeezing out to the sides, like lava in a volcano, forcing the outer layers to fracture and separate. He should be able to wedge inside, though he would get thoroughly grimed. Well, so be it.
He found a large vent and squeezed into it. The smell was not pretty, but he would wash when he was done. The crack twisted, narrowed, then widened as it came up against a wall of the house. The house had burst asunder, the walls shoved outward by the pressure of the burgeoning stuff within, and was now a wreck. But he was able to traverse the cavelike gaps and make his way to its one-time laboratory area where the Spire was mounted.
Except that the smegma had hardened into a vault covering the area, with only the continuing surge of new smegma at its apex. How was he to get past this? It seemed as hard as granite.
Then he saw a keyhole in the side. Unfortunately he didn’t have a suitable key.
Or did he? After a moment he realized that the region resembled a human vulva, with the hole where the vagina would be. That suggested a key of a special nature.
He checked his collection, and brought out a penis of the right configuration. He screwed it onto his socket. Then he imagined Tantamount with her skirt off and her bare legs spread. That brought his member stiffly erect.