Pornucopia (12 page)

The tableau remained. The white had not yet softened the black, but was making progress.

Prior limbered his two-headed snake and stepped into the shower with the pair already soaking there. That hot water felt extremely good, now! They didn't notice him, though it was now quite crowded. Their bodies were plastered together, chest to breast, merging at face and crotch, and the hot water coursed down along all available channels. Klo was stretched and Black humped to accommodate those connections, so that the one was not dumpy and the other not tall. It was working very nicely, actually. She stood on tip-toe, and her feet lifted from the floor with every slow thrust Black made, and her buttocks tensed and quivered alternately.

"A touching scene," Prior murmured, but neither heard him. "No sense rushing things, I agree."

He separated his dual projections and used his hands to curve them around the two-backed beast. First he concentrated on Klo's flexing posterior, guiding the right fork up into the dark wet cavity between buttocks and thighs. The preferred location was occupied already, of course, but the secondary one remained vacant. He didn't object to anal penetration, when it was not his own anus being penetrated.

He knocked against the tight sphincter. At first it resisted, but then, no doubt in response to the sensations of the moment, it relaxed, and he got the head of the snake in. Then that tense-quiver, tense-quiver rhythm as her toes left the floor helped him, and he worked up a respectable depth.

Now for the other half. He carried the left fork around to Black's back haunch and aimed for the secondary (but only) location there. Because he was already anchored on the right, he had to stretch to make the left. Fortunately the member had been designed for just such manipulations and was elastic. The tip reached target, and, after several charges, found its lodging.

Not a moment too soon! The long pig climaxed violently and the ebony ivory bastard triggered off in response. Both anuses clenched and puffed with the jettison rhythm, sending dual shock waves of urgency into Prior's crotch. He fancied he could feel the ejaculate galloping from the one body to the other, pressing against each rectal cavity and the member lodged therein. Prior was experiencing both halves of the orgasm, and was building for the most solid eruption himself since his prosthetic graduation!

Black, his organ spent, became aware of his other apertures. "What's this pig at my face!" he cried, jerking back his head. "What's this shit up my ass!" he yelled, jumping away.

Prior's left extension stretched like rubber but did not let go. Klo saw it too, now. "Snake!" she screamed, bolting for the exit. Her anus, too, was clenched like a trap on Prior's half member.

"Snake!" Black cried, echoing her. He seemed to be twice as shy of reptiles as she, oddly.

Black scrambled out of the shower, and Klo was pacing him. Both seemed berserk. Prior followed, perforce. The two halves of his penis remained hooked in the two sealed sphincters, and he could not detach it from his own side while it was under such tension.

Black burst out the door and into the snow, dragging his company with him. Klo skidded alongside him, then caught her footing and raced ahead. Like two thoroughbreds hauling a harness-cart, the black stallion and the white mare hauled Prior Gross along on rubbery bands stretching from crotch to crotch. The vanilla flew to the sides as their bare feet slipped and kicked.

Then they hit a maple-syrup slick. Black windmilled, caught Klo by the left breast, and held his position. Prior's soles skidded on the goo. Now he was a water-ski amateur, his cord hitched to two live boats.

Klo's foot struck an encrustation of crystallized sugar—probably maple-sugar. She did a split and spun off to the side. Since she was the only one retaining secure footing, until this point, a splendid crash was in the making.

Prior's penis-head popped out of her bottom and snapped back stingingly. With half his forward pull deflected, Prior fell to the other side. Here there was an outcropping of pistachio that piled up as he plowed sidewise through it. This tension, combined with the shrinkage sponsored by the cold, was enough finally to yank out the other glans, and he rolled to a stop half-buried in green snow.

He was freezing. But before he uncovered himself he twisted off the bifurcate, shrunken member and threw it away. Not only had his orgasm been stifled, he had been hauled roughly and painfully from a hot shower to sub-freezing cold, and he had no one to blame but his penis!

Black trotted back, shivering. He saw the splay of pistachio. He pounced. "Got it!" he exclaimed, lifting the discarded member. "Fucking two-headed snake!" He inspected it more closely. He did a doubletake. He faced Prior, who was just standing up and brushing off the green. "Where'd you get this, Gross?"

So Black wasn't entirely naive about prosthetics. "Doctor named Oubliette Emdee, back on Earth." Prior shivered and started back for the camp. "Want her address?"

Black considered, hefting the member. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. If she makes these in basic black."

"She doesn't make them, she fits them. But she has quite an assortment."

Black became almost friendly as the three of them crowded back into the warm room, shaking off ice. "It ain't that I hate you less, you white cocksucker, but that I hate cops more."

"Nice to know," Prior said neutrally. It was possible to get along with Black if you didn't argue with him, as Klo had shown.

"Yeah. There's this squad of whiteass cops back home. Cops ain't
all
bad—I heard of one once that wasn't, anyway—but these ones—five, six of 'em—need a proper screwing. Know what I mean?"

"Six at once?" This man had big ambitions!

"Got to be, or they'll scatter. Every night they bust up somebody's crap game, grab the stakes, and play it out themselves. All them fat asses, bending over..."

Prior laughed. "I'll write out her address for you!"

The third day's hike was stiff, but still Klo didn't break. Now they mounted massive projections of rocklike sugar crystals that crumbled treacherously when subjected to the slightest stress or warmth. The candy grime got into their suits and wouldn't quite melt and wouldn't quite dry. At the margins of neck, wrist and ankle it became the consistency of half-chewed taffy (which it was) and pulled and chafed. In the crotches of thigh and armpit it became the consistency of luke-warm milk-chocolate, the kind that melts in your hand not in your mouth (which it was), and sucked and gooked with every motion. In the hair of the head it became caked butterscotch pudding; in the hair of the pubes, caked vanilla icing.

"Up farther where it's colder we'll be able to use pitons," Prior said, for all the dubious comfort that was worth. Anything would be better than this gooey intermediate zone!

Stage Three was nestled in a chocolate crevasse. The chocolate looked like bare dirt, just as the distant pistachio looked like living foliage and the vanilla snow like vanilla snow. But the consistency of this chocolate was more like wood. The cabin roof was piled with purple—blueberry or black raspberry flavor, Prior judged.

"After this, the climb gets rough," Prior said as they scraped rancid rind off their torsos. "This is higher than most parties get, so it's no shame to turn back."

"I hear no white man's made it all the way up," Black said, with the accent on "white."

"I hear no man's made it up," Klo said, her accent on "man."

"Not to Stage Five, no," Prior admitted. "No human beings of any color or sex. The robots built that stage, and a couple of
them
were lost in glaciers or something."

"I ain't even going to fuck, tonight," Black said grimly.

"Who asked you to?" Klo demanded. "You attract snakes."

"Save my great black godless strength to put beautiful black Black on the friggin' white pinnacle," he finished, glowering at Prior. "First man to make it."

Prior laughed. "If we make it, you can step on the top first. You're the paying customer. I have other plans."

"Yeah?" Black looked at him suspiciously. "What?"

"I'm going to climb the Cherry Tree." It was safe to talk about it now; they wouldn't comprehend the reference anyway, or care one way or the other.

"The Cherry Tree! You mean
that's
up there? On top of ol' Icecream? I changed my black mind!"

"You know about it?" Prior asked, surprised.

"I'm a man, ain't I? I got a cock, don't I? But that sure ain't my kind of cunt. I ain't goin' near it!"

Prior was intrigued. "You'll risk your precious black life to climb a stupid mountain of ice cream, but you're afraid of a little tree?"

"
That
tree, yes! I don't mind dying so much, but I'm choosy about how my ass gets reamed." He rubbed his backside, perhaps remembering what Prior had done the day before, but decided not to make an issue of it.

It occurred to Prior that the talking statues hadn't told him everything. "I only want to climb it and get the spire at the top. You can stand back and watch. If I fall, I'm the only one who gets hurt. Then the robots will come and carry us all back down. What's so frightening about that?"

Black shook his head as he stepped into the shower. "You're a whiteassed pekkernosed candy-coated bugging stooge, but you don't deserve what you're headed for. I tell you this for your own cornholing good: lay off the Cherry Tree."

"Why? I
need
that spire."

"Like elephant turds in your beer you need it! And you can't get near it."

"I'm curious too," Klo said as Black emerged from the shower. The Negro hadn't taken long at all this time; apparently he was serious about not fornicating. "What's so dangerous about a tree—a cherry tree, yet?"

Black ignored her and looked at Prior inscrutably. "They's no fool like a white fool!" He pondered while he toweled off his robust torso and Klo got into the spray of hot water. "Hokay. I know a little magic—black magic, of course—enough to haul down a branch or two. Suppose I bring one here, so you can see it? Then you'll know."

"You can bring the Cherry Tree here?" Prior was excited.

"A
branch
of it, paleass. That's enough. You look at it—then you can quit, and we'll just sashay back down the mountain, and not break any ill wind about it, okay?"

"Quit?" Prior demanded incredulously. "Because of a look at one fool branch? You're nuttier than I thought, and that was pretty damn—"

"I'm
smart
," Black said, taking no offense. He brought out a red crayon and began marking off a large pentagram. "You got a notion that'll wipe you out—and not only in this life."

"For someone who doesn't believe in God—" Klo said, poking her head and one breast out of the spray. Then she saw the pentagram. "Hey! That's how you summon a demon!"

"Don't bother me, pig. This is tricky."

Prior decided not to bother him either. Black was acting as if he knew what he was doing.

The Negro completed the diagram, then brought out a package of powder and a candle.

"Talk of the dark ages!" Klo said, coming out. Prior was ready for his own shower, but decided to keep his clothing on despite the discomfort until he had a better notion what this was all about.

"The
black
ages," Black corrected her automatically. "Now you two stand back. I've got an amulet to protect me, but your only safeguard is this diagram. Don't step in it, don't get too close—DON'T DRIP ON IT, BITCH!" he screamed as Klo did get too close. She stepped back hastily and wrapped the towel about her.

Black glared at her a moment more, then resumed. "When I light this—"

"Sure," Prior said, amused. Black magic, indeed! He scratched a wrinkle in his scrotum where some chocolate had lodged itchily.

Black set the candle in the center of the pentagram. It promptly fell over. "So it's like that, eh," he muttered. He lit a wooden match and melted the candle's base so that the wax dripped, then set it down firmly in the puddle. This time it stayed. He used the same match to light the wick. When the candle flame was steady he popped the lighted match into his mouth to extinguish it, stood back beyond the rim of the pentagram, poured some of the powder into his palm, and made a last check to see that Klo and Prior were well clear.

Black chanted:

FEE FOO FII FANCH, I SMELL THE SAP OF A CHERRY BRANCH!

BE YE GREEN OR BE YE BRASS, I'LL GRIND YOUR WOOD TO WIPE MY ASS!

As he chanted, he threw a pinch of powder into the candle flame, taking care not to enter the pentagram himself, and there was a bright flash.

As Prior's sight cleared, he saw within the pentagram a mass of foliage. It was a limb from a tree—and a single bright red cherry showed.

"There it is!" Black grunted, sweating.

"Sure enough," Prior agreed, not knowing what to make of it. It was the spire he required, not the actual branches of the cherry tree, and their removal from the tree wouldn't make it any easier to climb.

"Now will you leave Mt. Icecream?" Black asked.

"Because you tore one branch off a cherry tree by magic?" Prior chuckled, walking toward it. "What kind of a white fool do you take me for?"

"Stay back, idiot!"

Prior ignored him. He stepped into the pentagram and kicked at the lone cherry.

His foot never landed. The greenery metamorphosed into a tremendous demon-shape. A huge gray hand shot out to fasten around Prior's neck.

"So you'll grind my wood to wipe your smelly little pucker, eh?" the demon boomed, blowing sawdust in Prior's face.

Prior was just beginning to comprehend what Black had tried to warn him of. He should have realized that this was no ordinary cherry tree. How could it grow in perpetual snow, otherwise? Now he was in trouble.

"No, no!" he gasped, trying to free his neck from the crushing grip. "All I wanted was to—"

"To take my cherry!" the demon cried. "Well, let's see you try it, sucker! My cherry has never been breached by mortal man, but there's always a first fucking time, right?"

"To get the spire!" Prior finished, beginning to black out.

"To get the spire!" the demon mimicked. "As if you could mount to the divine dildo without first plucking the cherries off the five guardian branches of the Tree! Well, I am the least of those branches, and I have taken the cherries of better mortals than you, fool. I'll wipe your ass, all right—right out from your puny body!"

"Cherries?" Prior was confused, and the hand choking him did not facilitate his clarity of mind.

"Well," said the demon conversationally as he squeezed. "Technically they aren't cherries unless they're ripe and fresh and female, and most aren't, unfortunately." It gave Prior's neck another painful tweak. "But you know what I mean. Unfucked."

Prior finally twisted his neck free, leaving some skin and possibly a vein or two behind, and sucked wind. "No I
don't
know what you mean. All I came for—"

The demon put a talon in Prior's collar and ripped the shirt lengthwise. "All you came for was to grind my wood. Ha ha. Well, grind, mortal,
grind
!" It ripped Prior's trousers open, the claw narrowly missing a testicle. "Shit, mortal—not only are you deficient in wit, charm, and personal hygiene, you're missing a copulatory organ! Wait till I tell my siblings about
this
!"

Prior still didn't quite understand what was going on, but was sure he didn't like it. He was naked now, and of course the demon had never been clothed. And the demon had a fat nine-inch phallus stiffened for business.

Prior tried to pull away and get out of the pentagram, but the demon tripped him and sent him sprawling. Prior tried to roll, and the demon kicked him back. It was, in fact, a game of cat and mouse; the demon couldn't help chuckling every time Prior's chance at escape turned out to be illusory.

Prior noticed, however, that the cheery cherry demon stayed well clear of the burning candle. Maybe the thing really
was
made of wood, and would go up in smoke—literally—if ignited.

Prior reached for the candle. But the demon, no fool, was too quick for him. It caught his foot, twisted it, and threw him down prone with the step-over toe hold. "Hey!" Prior screamed inanely.

"Sorry—business before pleasure," the demon grunted regretfully. "Much as I'd like to play with you longer—chew your balls, bite your dong, squeeze the shit out of both ends of you, and all that innocent fun—I have to inflate you first."

Prior opened his mouth to scream for help, but saw that Black and Klo were staying well clear of the pentagram. They wouldn't come in after him. This wasn't betrayal so much as common sense. It was his own fight, brought about by his own stupidity in blithely entering the forbidden diagram.

The demon positioned itself, its heavy limbs holding down Prior's own. It leaned forward and banged woody fists into Prior's thighs. "Get them open, flabhole—I can't see your cherry." And the trunklike penis rammed into a tender buttock. Prior felt as though he were being impaled on a dull stake.

In fact, he finally had the message. He was about to get raped.

"You see, only the unfucked can hope to attain the Spire," the demon said conversationally as it zeroed in for another shot. "That's the way it is. So we five branches eliminate threats by fucking everything that approaches. Beautifully simple, is it not?"

The demon shifted about in order to gain better penile leverage—and in so doing released the submission hold on Prior's leg. This happened just as Prior realized the truth about cherries. This coincidental (?) juxtaposition galvanized him; he jumped and scrambled so suddenly that the demon was caught offguard.

Prior somersaulted out of the pentagram where the demon could not follow. "Gee, it was a virgin hole, too," the creature lamented. "Unsoiled by anything other than shit, water, a few fingers—and an Eeg egg." It nursed its disappointed phallus. "An only slightly tarnished cherry."

"Good for you, white turdling!" Black exclaimed. "You won through on your own. Now I can banish the branch and—"

"Leave it there!" Prior gasped, suddenly determined. The notion of getting mutilated or killed had been bad enough, but the threat against his assiduously-defended rectum had made him really angry. He dived for his supply pack.

"What are you doing?" Klo cried apprehensively. "Don't you know when to quit? That thing might break out and screw us all!"

Literally, Prior now knew. But this didn't change his mind. He plunged a hand in and brought out the twelve-incher. He clapped Monster to his socket and waited while it burgeoned. "I came to climb the Cherry Tree, and this branch sure needs some climbing."

"Man!" Black said admiringly as the pigskin towered turgidly, vaguely resembling a football in its full formation.

Prior marched toward the pentagram, phallus clearing the way like a snowplow. "Now I'm armed, you manfucking woodpecker! Come and get it!"

The demon seemed daunted, for Prior's fighting member was longer by three inches and leather-tough. But the spell and diagram kept the supernatural creature there, and this was its fucking business.

Prior stepped into the combat zone again, leading with that massive genital bludgeon. The demon's nerve broke; it was outgunned. It tried to run, but bounced off the invisible shield outlined by the pentagram and fell, its front scorched. Prior strode forward and caught it from behind, reaching a hand down and under to grasp the hanging testicles and yank the entire loin back. With his free hand he hauled one of the large gray arms around, tweaking those demonic balls when he encountered resistance. Soon he had the demon's hands and feet together, and tied them in one bundle with the remains of his torn trousers: wrists and ankles crossed under the clumsy knot.

Now the demon got over its momentary shock and struggled earnestly, but that delay had been fatal for it. Prior wrestled the folded posterior into an upright posture and applied the pulsing tip of Monster to the demon's anus. The sphincter resisted, so Prior stepped back and kicked it with his snowboot, leaving a smear of caked vanilla across the hole. The muscle loosened only enough to fire a gaseous stench at him, then sealed as tightly as before. The demon flesh was tough!