Pornucopia (16 page)

He buried Black in the cherry-flavored terrain, and found some chocolate snow for a shroud. "You gave good advice, you ebony racist," he said by way of benediction. "I'll take care of the cop-fucking matter for you, if I ever get back to Earth. Keep cool."

Black kept cool. He was frozen stiff.

Four branches of the Cherry Tree had been severed—each one worse than the last. Surely the worst was yet to come. But now he had to go on. He would vanquish the final demon, or die in the fucking attempt.

He arrived at last at the bottom of the cavern system, in the very heart of Mt. Icecream. Here he found a fountain: liquid ice cream spurting up from a tiny nozzle, shooting high up through a gap in the pinnacle, and fanning far above into perpetual snow. As he watched, the color changed from yellow to green: vanilla to pistachio.

"PISStachio," he murmured. "How appropriate."

Mt. Icecream, it seemed, was a cold but active volcano—and this nozzle was the apparent source of it all. It must have taken centuries for the mountain itself to form.

But what lay below the nozzle? Surely all that ice cream came from somewhere! Was the core of the planet made of it, and was this the only hole in the crust for it to squirt out? That seemed ridiculous on numerous grounds. But at the moment he found no better explanation for what he witnessed here.

He stepped close to that ever-jetting phallus, feeling the convective wind at his back, and probed at the base. There might be a pipe leading in, a conduit for pressured ice cream—

Heavy footfalls sounded behind him. Prior whirled to face the last branch of the Cherry Tree.

It stood about seven feet tall. It looked a little like a griffin and a little like a goblin, but mostly like a walking phallus with priapism. It had snaggle-tusks that projected from the place its mouth should have been but wasn't, and a wickedly hooked beak without nostril-holes, and saber-claws, and a spiked tail and barbed wings. Its upthrusting animal ears were metallic, with serrated saw-blade edges but no apertures into the head. Its grotesque eyes were mere patches of light-sensitive skin. Its penis was just about two feet long from bell to balls, and proportionately massive. And it was absolutely rigid.

"An eeg!" Prior cried, recognizing the form. "An adult eeg!"

The creature made no answer. How could it, without a mouth? How could it really see him or hear him or smell him, with those sealed-over organs of perception? Now Prior saw that it had no apertures of any kind, especially not a rectum. Just that atomic cannon of a penis.

Prior still wore Normal, and the respite he had gained by urinating into the last branch allowed him to bring it to attention with reasonable dispatch despite the lingering chill. He knew he could ejaculate, once he found appropriate lodging. But this demon was invulnerable, for it was completely without orifices. In all the galaxy there was no finer single-purpose fucking machine!

The eeg charged on stubby goblin-legs, its phallus swaying heavily as though about to unbalance the entire body. The demon's eye-patches glowed cherry red, and so did the tip of its penis. What internal fires did this leakage presage?

Prior tried to run, but his feet skidded on the ice and he sprawled ignominiously. The eeg came to stand over him, huge chicken-feet on either side of his body, that volcanic member looming. The intrusion of that timber would surely split a human body wide open! But there was no ready escape. The cold of the cavern floor gripped his naked body; was that why he shivered so?

The demon lowered the boom. That hinged instrument was as thick and solid as Prior's thigh! It banged brutally against his buttock, a solid wooden club.

Prior realized that he was in luck—of a sort. A penis that size couldn't possibly penetrate his anus, mouth, or any other bodily aperture!

The eeg reached down with spindly arms and hauled Prior up with astonishing strength. It carried him to a region of massed stalagmites: giant spokes of cherry ice rising erotically out of the floor. It jammed him between two of them, headfirst, and shoved him down, so that his torso was pinned where the columns came together at the base.

Oh-oh! Now he was thoroughly anchored. That huge penis just might get into him, if driven with enough force while he was tied down. After all, the Assyrians used to drive wooden stakes up the rectums of their captives and mount them along the highways! And the eeg was bracing against a fortuitously placed third stalagmite, orienting itself so that its entire strength could shove the cannon into the recalcitrant hole. The eeg must have done this many times before; trust it to know its infernal business!

The club drove at Prior's posterior, harder and harder. His buttocks were bruising, his poor little sphincter was hopelessly outclassed. Neither flesh nor cartilage could withstand the savagery of this assault. It was like giving birth to a baby, sidewise—except that he was no mother, this was no baby, and it wasn't going but coming. In more ways than one.

The icy stalagmites chilled his sides—but his body heat was melting them in return. Prior realized that he had a chance here to escape. He waited for another eeg-thrust, then sucked in his breath and shoved back against those translucent columns with both hands.

It worked! He squirted out of that stockade, a human watermelon seed goosed by an inhuman battering ram. He crashed into another stalagmite, bruising a shoulder—but he was loose! He had another chance to escape!

The eeg made a mouthless roar and lumbered after him. Prior dodged behind the icy column. One advantage he had now: he was more agile. Much more of his muscle was in his arms and legs, while the greatest mass of the eeg was in its terrific penis. The creature was inherently off-balance; it had to lean back just to stand up straight, and it couldn't accelerate rapidly around corners.

Poor as its eyes and ears seemed, the demon obviously had an excellent notion where Prior was. Did it use magic to follow him so accurately? In that case, why hadn't it bound him with an immobility spell, the way the other branch had?

Prior could guess the answer to that: it must take some intelligence to master the complexities of magic, and the eeg's brain was only big enough to master the simplicities of fornication. And pursuit.

Prior scrambled over a mound of solidly frozen cherries, then paused to watch from hiding. If he wanted to escape this diabolic creature, let alone overcome it, he'd better find out what powers it had beside fornication!

First he heard a sniff-sniff, snuff-snuff. Oh? Was its nose perforated after all? Prior knew what to do in that case!

Then the eeg came into view. Its penis was leaning toward the floor, cantilevered, the bulging glans almost touching the ice, and the elephantine slit at the end was sniffing out the trail.

So that was the secret! Versatile member, there!

But if it was smell that gave him away, he was doomed. He could avoid the eeg for a considerable time, but eventually he would have to rest or sleep. He was sure the eeg, being basically demonic, never had to do either. It would never even stop to defecate, with no anus. It would just keep going indefatigably. In time it would surely catch him, no matter where he went, now that he had challenged it by entering its lair.

Prior whipped around another slender stalagmite—no, this one was a stalactite, hanging from the ceiling—and stumbled as it snapped off in his hands.

He righted himself and looked at what he held. A spear!

He took the caked shirt he still carried and wrapped it about the basal end, both to protect his hand from the cold and to prevent the icy needle from melting. With this he might make his own hole in the eeg, and ram home there for victory! "Now come and get it," he snarled. "If you can come after you get it...."

The demon, too stupid to be cautious, approached. The penis lifted, centering on him as though it were a sword in its own right. And perhaps it was, or at least a bludgeon. Prior fenced with it.

"Touche!" he yelled, lunging.

The rapier scored—but slid off the penis. He lunged again—and was deflected again.

"Wouldn't you know it!" he griped. "Invulnerable meat!"

But he made ready for another attack. Maybe a swift stab in the balls—

The eeg-penis burbled. Fluid squirted from its slit, striking the stalactite-weapon. The ice melted instantly, and the spear broke in half.

"Oh, no!" Prior cried, dismayed. He needed a metal rapier, and there was nothing here but ice. He fled, wishing there was a river or something for him to lose his scent-trail in, or some cubbyhole the eeg couldn't reach.

Then he remembered the mound of cherries. He veered back to it and used the stub of his sword to pry loose a handful. He wheeled and pelted the demon with the red bullets.

Then he noted that some were not shaped quite like cherries. He inspected one of these more closely—and discovered that it was actually a frozen testicle.

Well, they were still solid, stinging little missiles. He knew the strikes annoyed the creature, though they could hardly hurt it. Maybe it was angry because its trophy-collection was being scattered.

The mighty penis aimed again, swinging grandly around as though mounted on gimbals. Prior tried to button the slit with a well-aimed cherry-ball, but his marksmanship wasn't that good. More fluid gooshed forth, arching beautifully and descending to strike Prior's arm. It was hot and gooey and repulsive. He jerked away but the gob clung to him. He slapped at it with his other hand—and it stuck there too, stretching out between arm and hand in a glistening string, that cooled as it thinned and hardened as it cooled. It smelled richly of butterscotch.

Good God! This wasn't ejaculate as he knew it—it was taffy!

Prior lurched on. The hardened goo just would not come off without taking the skin along too. Now his mobility was seriously hampered. What if the next ejaculation struck his legs? Or his face?

He couldn't escape the eeg and he couldn't fight it. What else remained?

What else but copulation?

He imagined being reamed by that horrendous member, and half a gallon of boiling taffy being firehosed into his colon, and knew he couldn't surrender. He'd kill himself first.

In the midst of this noble sentiment, he slipped on a rolling cherry and went down on his face. This time he hit hard, because his arms were entangled in solidified taffy jack. Light and darkness tinged with cherry-red exploded in his eyes, and he knew he was on the verge of unconsciousness. An unconsciousness he was unlikely to emerge from before being stuffed with butterscotch.

One thing fixed in his mind: what the hell was a cherry demon doing with butterscotch in its generative tract? The eeg should at least be consistent!

The light and the darkness and the bit of red swirled through face and brain, dancing shadow-shapes of zero depth. White and black stretched and strove as though at war and shaped themselves into a silhouette, and the image was of an ebony head with red in the mouth.

"You two-bit, whiteassed, lily-pekkered shit!" the head said.

"Black!" Prior cried. "How good to hear your compliments again! I thought you were dead!"

"I
am
dead, you pale-faced mother-sucker! That whore-demon defucked me, may the Good Lord piss on her."

"The Good Lord didn't get around to it, assuming that He still lives. But if it makes you feel better, I—"

"Shut your farting face, bleachturd!
I'm
dead (that's how I know God
ain't)—
but
you
still got heat in your balls. Get up and fuck that fucker!"

"But the eeg is invulnerable!" Prior bleated.

And woke. The vision of Black was gone, and the eeg was hauling his torso into position for the final ass-sault.

Well, he had Black's posthumous advice, for what it was worth. All he had to do was fuck the fucker (to use the big dead Negro's quaint idiom)—when the eeg had no orifice for the occasion.

Then his mind cleared, helped by a jolt from the demon, and he understood.

The eeg was dragging him arsey-versey past the geyser of ice cream. Prior jerked and twisted and managed to fling one booted foot into that rising column. Instantly his leg was wrenched up, splattering peach ice cream over them both, and he and the demon were hurled sidewise. The eeg's grip was broken, the taffy on Prior's arms cracked with the cold, and he scrambled free again.

He got to his feet and ran. His toes were numb from cold and shock even through the sturdy leather, and his entire leg was coated with peach syrup, but it remained serviceable. He lunged for his pack and pawed through its contents.

The eeg caught up again and resumed hauling, feet-first. It certainly didn't have much imagination! The demon probably had more intellect in its scrotum than in its birdlike skull, at that. But Prior had what he needed: Pipecleaner.

No problem about removing Normal. That member was thoroughly flaccid and half-frozen again under the ice cream. He twisted it off as the demon continued dragging, threw it away and applied the spaghetti-limp substitute, warming it with his two hands. Then he relaxed and concentrated on concupiscence, while his head bumped along the cherry ice. Oubliette, now... and her sister Tantamount. There was a female who really needed some penile edification, and not in the operating room.

He waited for his opportunity while Pipecleaner swelled into raw macaroni rigidity. Just as the demon got him to the stalagmites, Prior wrenched around, slender phallus erect and eager. "What do you think of
that
, eggshit?" he demanded.

The eeg's monster penis creaked down like a drawbridge and sniffed. Then the demon began shaking with laughter. Prior's challenging member was no larger in diameter than the slit in the tip of the eeg's phallus!

And as the eeg quaked with its derisive emotion (it probably hadn't had a laugh like that in centuries), Prior took careful aim, braced himself, and thrust. At that slit.

Pipecleaner rammed straight up the giant urethra of the demon.

Prior was fucking the fucker.

The eeg pulled back, amazed; but Prior grabbed handfulls of its disgusting hairy scrotum and hung on. He continued to drive his knitting needle up the cannon-bore.