The House (8 page)
Authors: Edward Lee
"Blast ye and your kind—
all
sinners and offenses against God in your devilish machines and evil electric light!" At the pause of Solomon's rock-hewn voice, the night around them fell dead silent. Then the rector's callused finger pointed at Leonard like a pistol. "We shant be tainted by your luciferic pleasures, and I warn you to
never
venture into our humble midsts! We embrace a life of poverty just as our Saviour did! So keep away from our fold."
all
sinners and offenses against God in your devilish machines and evil electric light!" At the pause of Solomon's rock-hewn voice, the night around them fell dead silent. Then the rector's callused finger pointed at Leonard like a pistol. "We shant be tainted by your luciferic pleasures, and I warn you to
never
venture into our humble midsts! We embrace a life of poverty just as our Saviour did! So keep away from our fold."
And with that, the roughened Epiphanite turned and began to walk away as quickly as he'd arrived. But something irked Leonard, and he felt he had no choice but to inquire.
"Wait, er, sir? Mr. Solomon?"
The stern man turned, his face tensed to crevices like cracks in a dried creekbed. "That's
Rector
Solomon, of the Blessed Order of Epiphanites!"
Rector
Solomon, of the Blessed Order of Epiphanites!"
"Uh, right, Rector Solomon," Leonard faltered. "But I was wondering—" Indeed, Leonard was, due to the Rector's initial comment. How could this man know what this house really was, and what took place here? Had he snuck up here one night and looked in the windows? Had he talked to the long-haired man—Asshole—whom Leonard had replaced? And if so, what consequences might be present?
"What did you mean when you said...you knew what we were doing up here?"
The narrowed eyes raged back. "Evil is blind
and
dense! That we
reckon
you and your kind is my meaning, young sinner! The
ungodliness
of your lightbulbs and radios and television sets! The smile of
satan
in your motor-cars and aeroplanes! The evil—the pure and undiluted devil-bred
evil
, young man!—of your ovens and your washers and your toasters!" The rector turned and began to stomp down the weedy hill, waving a white-cuffed arm. "So stay thee behind us!"
and
dense! That we
reckon
you and your kind is my meaning, young sinner! The
ungodliness
of your lightbulbs and radios and television sets! The smile of
satan
in your motor-cars and aeroplanes! The evil—the pure and undiluted devil-bred
evil
, young man!—of your ovens and your washers and your toasters!" The rector turned and began to stomp down the weedy hill, waving a white-cuffed arm. "So stay thee behind us!"
Leonard watched after him for a moment, perplexed. "Well how do you like that?" he muttered under his breath. "Toasters are evil."
««—»»
Leonard almost appreciated Rector Solomon's peculiar intrusion, for it served to divert from the impact of his predicament. Later, he roamed the house without much purpose, just to walk, just to keep moving. If he kept moving he would be less prone to think very deeply and hence calculate this very incalculable situation.
In the first bedroom on the left, he was punched in the face by a stench. He flicked on the light, gagging, and saw the bloodstained drop cloths, the bloodstained work bench, and a bloodstained knitting needle on the floor. At least the body had been removed. In the corner, like an unnoticed scrap, lay something that resembled a crinkled piece of fried eggroll wrapper. Leonard left the room when he realized it was a slough of desiccated human skin.
Another bedroom stood completely empty, while another whose floor was also covered by plastic drop cloths, reeked of oaty excrement and dank animal smells. Leonard backed out.
In the last bedroom, he found the girls. They lay blissfully unconscious and curled up amongst one another on a bare, stained box-spring. Two stubby candles were lit, filling the room with flutters, and on the floor lay tell-tale spoons, rubber tubes, and narrow hypodermic needles. "No, daddy, don't!" Snowdrop blurted in her narcotized sleep. Then Sissy lolled up on an elbow, her near-dead eyes awake.
"Welcome to hell," she slurred and collapsed again.
Leonard blew the candles out and left, closing the door behind him.
««—»»
Suffice it to say, in summation rather than exposition, it was the aforementioned sequence of events that had supplanted Leonard to the current ordeal. The events had begun roughly ten months ago, and in those ten months he had used his prowess for motion photography to produce several dozen short films, or "loops," as they were called then, about twenty minutes each on an edited sixteen-millimeter master. Vinchetti aka "Vinch The Eye" was very pleased with the quality of Leonard's work as Rocco generally brought mentions of praise on his Friday night arrivals. Ninety percent of the works Leonard produced involved the sexual congress between animals and humans, namely Sissy and Snowdrop, who by some mode of miracle managed to stay alive for the entirety of those ten months. Dog flicks, donkey flicks, horse flicks, and pig flicks comprised the mainstay of Leonard's cinematic repertoire, and compilations thereof, and it was Leonard who devised snappy titles such as
Rebecca of Horse-Fuck Farm,
Barnyard Babes
,
Makin' Bacon
,
Doinkin' Donkeys, Horsin' Around
, etc.
Rebecca of Horse-Fuck Farm,
Barnyard Babes
,
Makin' Bacon
,
Doinkin' Donkeys, Horsin' Around
, etc.
As for the human element of these endeavors, it was generally Sissy who got the hardest end of the business as her cohort Snowdrop spent more time unconscious than awake. Poor Sissy. She was a trooper, though, a woman of considerable capability. For reasons Leonard never quite understood, pornographic cinema demanded one immutable priority: the externalization of the act, or what Rocco referred to as "The Wet Shot" or "The Money Shot." I.E., the displacement of the male ejaculant onto some aspect of the woman's physical geography. When the male contributor was human, this was an easily procured feat. An animal, however, proved much more difficult, yet it was here that Sissy excelled. Often the climactic requirements struck Leonard as disgusting to the point of absurdity. For instance, once Rocco and Knuckles had brought up a beautiful white Palomino stallion, and Rocco had demanded a "bagged shot." Leonard didn't even know what he meant but alas Sissy, the veteran, did. After performing preliminary fellatio on said steed and then adroitly achieving several positions of intercourse, she knelt up under the creature, slid back the sheath over the penile bone and then covered said penile bone with a clear plastic bag. Vigorously, then, and with learned skill, she manually masturbated the horse until such a time that it spent itself into the bag, providing a volume of cloudy, water-thin horse sperm that must've equaled something like eight ounces. That was a trick in itself but what Sissy did next took all trophies. "What, uh, what now?" Leonard asked, camera still running. Sissy made no verbal response. Instead she shrugged, she sighed, and she upended the bag into her face. Most cascaded down her small-breasted chest, yet enough was caught in her mouth to appease the camera. Leonard, belly roiling, zoomed in on Sissy's face whereupon she swallowed to end all doubt.
"All in a day's work," she croaked, then hurried to the fungus-streaked bathroom to vomit.
««—»»
Such was the lion's share of Leonard's duties. What he'd always wanted: the director's chair. But it was also his job to process all the footage and then edit the "final cut" which provided the 16mm master that Rocco would pick up and turn in to the lab for mass duplication. About three-quarters of everything Leonard shot would later be cut; it was with the big Sankyo editor that hundreds and hundreds of feet of basic footage would be distilled down to the 20-30 minute master-cut. Leonard took pride in his editing, and he was very good at it. So what if this was animal pornography?
The job should still be done right,
he affirmed, and it wasn't like he had anything else to do.
The job should still be done right,
he affirmed, and it wasn't like he had anything else to do.
And it was late one night during one of these editing sessions that Leonard noticed something
very
startling...
very
startling...
"Oh my...
God,
" he muttered. Leonard cut the SLOW-FORWARD switch to STOP and blinked. He stared momentarily at the Sankyo's bright 9-by-11inch viewing screen.
Did I just see a...
God,
" he muttered. Leonard cut the SLOW-FORWARD switch to STOP and blinked. He stared momentarily at the Sankyo's bright 9-by-11inch viewing screen.
Did I just see a...
He blinked again, his mind holding.
The screen glowed in a brilliant green landscape of rolling hills—the hills, in fact, just behind the house out back. The mule flick Rocco ordered this week was in the can—and very much at the expense of Sissy and Snowdrop's hands and knees—whereupon Leonard had gone outside to shoot some title footage. Animal flick notwithstanding, it was a nice touch: rolling green hills and distant farmland. But now that he had the footage in the editor, he noticed this:
At the far left corner of the frame, a woman's face could be seen peering over an unruly hackberry hedge.
"Am I seeing things, or is there a face in the frame?"
Suddenly Leonard felt like the disconsolate photographer in
Blow Up.
"Oh, man," he thought. An interloper had strayed unseen onto his exterior set! Thank God the Sankyo had a heat-guard; he kept the frame frozen, then put a Leica 1x1 magnifier over the tiny, grainy face behind the hedge. A pretty face, for sure: oval and nearly cherubic, bright, inquisitive surf-green eyes. What Leonard couldn't figure, however, was the thing she was wearing on her head, not a hat, but a white cotton bonnet sort of thing, tied under the chin. Like something a pilgrim would wear.
Blow Up.
"Oh, man," he thought. An interloper had strayed unseen onto his exterior set! Thank God the Sankyo had a heat-guard; he kept the frame frozen, then put a Leica 1x1 magnifier over the tiny, grainy face behind the hedge. A pretty face, for sure: oval and nearly cherubic, bright, inquisitive surf-green eyes. What Leonard couldn't figure, however, was the thing she was wearing on her head, not a hat, but a white cotton bonnet sort of thing, tied under the chin. Like something a pilgrim would wear.
He blinked further, gritting his teeth as he focused, and that's when the Sankyo's heat-guard gave up the ghost. The frame darkened, then bubbled, then burned.
And it was gone.
"Yes, I must be seeing things," he tried to convince himself. It was easier to believe that, though deep in his heart he suspected it was fantasy. Who could this person be, and what was she doing?
"No. I'm starving, I'm tired, and I've been held prisoner for months. It was nothing but hallucination..."
Fine. But one thing still bothered him. The strange tie-down bonnet that the
hallucination
wore on her head. Yes, it did indeed look like something a pilgrim woman would wear.
hallucination
wore on her head. Yes, it did indeed look like something a pilgrim woman would wear.
Or perhaps an Epiphanite.
««—»»
Sometimes "kinks" were required. These did not involve animals but instead an extreme manner of
human
participation. Sometimes the humans were Rocco's Mob pals, sometimes they were degenerates, or "stunt cocks," either paid or coerced to partake in the cinematic festivities. One night Rocco trooped in with all ten members of The Crew. "It's the Champagne Special tonight, kid. Get your camera." A Champagne Special, yes, but no bottles of Perrier-Jouet were in evidence. Instead, all members of the crew quite roughly fornicated with Sissy and Snowdrop and, at the proper moment, ejaculated into a champagne flute. After all of the boys had spent themselves—twice in some cases—there was a
formidable
accumulation of sperm in that glass. "Down the hatch, bitch," Rocco instructed of poor Sissy, handing her the flute. Leonard zoomed in as Sissy swallowed the entire contents of the glass in one gulp. Then "shower" loops: men urinating on the gals, into their mouths, into the vaginas. The "piss enema" provided a favorite variant: some gentleman voiding a full bladder into one of the girl's rectal vaults, after which she—usually poor Sissy—was required to pose for Leonard's camera as she displaced the urine from her bowel in a spectacular gush. Tame, though, compared to the "scats," which required the girls to eat human and/or animal excrement...
human
participation. Sometimes the humans were Rocco's Mob pals, sometimes they were degenerates, or "stunt cocks," either paid or coerced to partake in the cinematic festivities. One night Rocco trooped in with all ten members of The Crew. "It's the Champagne Special tonight, kid. Get your camera." A Champagne Special, yes, but no bottles of Perrier-Jouet were in evidence. Instead, all members of the crew quite roughly fornicated with Sissy and Snowdrop and, at the proper moment, ejaculated into a champagne flute. After all of the boys had spent themselves—twice in some cases—there was a
formidable
accumulation of sperm in that glass. "Down the hatch, bitch," Rocco instructed of poor Sissy, handing her the flute. Leonard zoomed in as Sissy swallowed the entire contents of the glass in one gulp. Then "shower" loops: men urinating on the gals, into their mouths, into the vaginas. The "piss enema" provided a favorite variant: some gentleman voiding a full bladder into one of the girl's rectal vaults, after which she—usually poor Sissy—was required to pose for Leonard's camera as she displaced the urine from her bowel in a spectacular gush. Tame, though, compared to the "scats," which required the girls to eat human and/or animal excrement...
Leonard, gratefully, had only had to film one "nek" flick in his career as underground pornographer. When one of the more attractive prostitutes on Vinchetti's "circuit" had died—be it via overdose or strangulation for "holding out," turning "CI" (Confidential Informant) or, indeed, dropping "dime" (the running of one's mouth to authorities)—the
corpus delectus
was expeditiously brought to the safehouse and several "stunts" would have sex with it. Rocco was always one of the stunts, donning the rubber Lyndon Johnson mask to conceal his identity. Pissing, shitting, and ejaculating on women was not technically illegal. Fucking a corpse, however, was, violating federal law and most state annotated codes as a first- or second-degree felony via some term such as gross sexual malfeasance or non-consensual congress. Leonard had filmed it all, though, like the obedient director he was, as Rocco and several other masked stunts had had a grand old time making whoopie with the dead woman. Afterwards, they left, ordering Leonard to bury her in the yard.
corpus delectus
was expeditiously brought to the safehouse and several "stunts" would have sex with it. Rocco was always one of the stunts, donning the rubber Lyndon Johnson mask to conceal his identity. Pissing, shitting, and ejaculating on women was not technically illegal. Fucking a corpse, however, was, violating federal law and most state annotated codes as a first- or second-degree felony via some term such as gross sexual malfeasance or non-consensual congress. Leonard had filmed it all, though, like the obedient director he was, as Rocco and several other masked stunts had had a grand old time making whoopie with the dead woman. Afterwards, they left, ordering Leonard to bury her in the yard.
Leonard had seen some "wet" flicks in the previous film-maker's inventory but thankfully he'd never had to shoot one himself. A "wet" flick was a film involving extreme sadism. "White" meant fake, and "wet" meant real. This was a grainy, poorly lit feature in which a skinny young woman was stripped and hung by lashed wrists from a hook on the wall. A staunch implementation of torture was then purveyed: needles in the breasts, in the nipples, in the clitoris, like that. Not exactly
Thoroughly Modern Millie.
While watching this particular feature, Leonard at least was able to convince himself that it couldn't possibly get worse but of course he was very wrong.
Thoroughly Modern Millie.
While watching this particular feature, Leonard at least was able to convince himself that it couldn't possibly get worse but of course he was very wrong.
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