Walk on the Wild Side

Final Cut



No one gets well in a hospital.

Dr Kirby Meredith had forgotten who had said that to him, but he hadn’t forgotten the words. He was a prematurely aging attending psychiatrist at a large hospital in Pine Hill, North Carolina. He had graduated from the medical school here, gone through his residency, attained his present senior status. Talk was that he would go a long way, perhaps chairman of the department when the time was right.

Dr Meredith was a non-intimidating, rather dumpy man of thirty-something, with sandy hair and grey in his frizzy beard. He wore the same striped ties he had worn for years, button-down collar shirts, and cotton Dockers. Still wore tight black leather dress shoes, and he pulled on a rumpled tweed jacket whenever he thought the occasion called for it: weekly court commitment hearings held here at the center; patient’s family inquiring as to family member’s progress. Shrinks do not wear white. Bad for patient rapport.

He hated wearing ties. If he ever set up a private practice, it would be T-shirts and maybe a sweater. A cardigan. No, just the T-shirt. Or some jogging sweats. Not that he ever jogged. Assume the air of informality. Patient at ease. Dream on.

Dr Meredith had just completed his rounds, was making medication adjustments to his charts, making mental notes regarding his students and staff, and considering journal club that evening, where he hoped his residents finally would be brought up-to-date on lithium therapy. There was a fine line between maintaining a manic-depressive and killing him, and the foreign resident who had confused q.o.d. with q.i.d. was going to speak at length upon the subject. In broken English.

“Dr Meredith.” The nurse knew better than to interrupt him needlessly, and Meredith felt the tension. “He says he’s your cousin, and it’s urgent.”

“Thank you.” Meredith picked up the phone. He shouldn’t be receiving personal calls here, unless from his wife or daughter. He worked hard, did not like to be interrupted. Once at home, he could find time for friends and family.

“Kirby!” said the voice over the phone. “It’s your favorite cousin, Bob. I got a problem, maybe. Janice told me how to reach you at the hospital.”

“What’s the problem, Bob?” Meredith thought Cousin Bob sounded drunk. He’d rarely seen him sober. Bob Breenwood lived about half an hour’s distance from Pine Hill and ran a small hardware business in a small town. They got together regularly to go fishing. Bob was always drunk. His wife and staff ran the business.

“Just started vomiting. Blood. Can’t stop it.”

Meredith froze for a moment. “How much blood?”

“I don’t know. I was cooking a steak on the charcoal grill, and then it just started.”

“Is it bright red, or is it sort of like dark and clotted, like it’s coming from your gums or sinuses, and you’ve maybe swallowed it and choked it up?”

“It’s bright red, and there’s more of it coming up. All the time. Oh, shit! I got to hit the toilet!”

Meredith was very firm. “Have your wife call 911. Emergency. Get over here without delay. You’re likely bleeding to death from ruptured esophageal varices. Do it now. I’ll be here. For you. There’s no time to waste. You’ll be dead in an hour.”

Possibly putting it a little too strong, but Meredith phoned 911 himself, with frantic details. Maureen Breenwood had already called. Meredith hovered about the Emergency Room, getting in the way, while explaining why an attending shrink was in the way. He was well liked, and the staff were ready when the ambulance Bob’s hematocrit was down to 10, for someone who liked to take down record lows. Typed and crossmatched, the units of blood finally flowed into his arm. He did not go into shock, by some miracle. A balloon was inserted past his esophagus, reducing the bleeding, and his blood pressure finally stabilized at 105/90 from 60/45. He should have been dead.

Dr Meredith observed, but stayed out of the way. He wouldn’t want two or three other shrinks all giving therapeutic advice as he interviewed his patient, and he respected professionalism. Instead he made frequent visits to Maureen, who had left the waiting room for the chapel, and reassured her as she spoke with the priest. Dr Meredith was an atheist, but therapy was therapy. Janice was coming over to be with her.

Cousin Bob was fully stabilized by three in the morning and off to Intensive Care. Dr Meredith checked Maureen into a nearby hotel and promised to phone if there were any complications, then returned to his office in the psychiatric wing and fell asleep on his couch.

Meredith woke up about seven, very groggy but too concerned to go back to sleep. He brushed his hair and brushed his teeth, washed his face and sprayed his armpits, put on a fresh shirt and tie from his file cabinets. He wondered why he bothered to pay a monstrous mortgage for their home. He phoned his wife to see if she might stay with Maureen a few hours while Ashley was at school, and to say privately to Janice that things weren’t going well—she knew that—and that he’d be home for dinner on time—she doubted that. Hell. This hospital was home.

Dr Meredith knocked back a cup of coffee at the administrative office, had another, tossed a buck into the coffee fund. He hated coffee. About time for morning rounds, and then he had group at eleven. He wished he were as young as his med students, or even the residents. Youth and enthusiasm. Hell, he wasn’t that old. He wished he had learned to play an electric guitar. Joined a rock band. Better the devil that you know. He poured another cup of coffee, then went to rounds.

Bob Breenwood was asking for him from the Intensive Care Unit as soon as they removed the balloon from his esophagus. Meredith delayed an outpatient appointment and went to see him instead of taking a late lunch. He wasn’t hungry.

Cousin Bob was a year and a half older than Meredith, something he wouldn’t let Meredith forget when they went skinny dipping together and Bob was growing hair on his crotch and Meredith was too young. Much later, Bob got him laid for the first time, doubledating in Bob’s family’s Nash Rambler with the fold-down front seat and a friendly high school girl and a convenient cemetery.

Meredith sat down on one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs at the bedside. Bad practice to sit down on the bed.

Maureen was sniffling, holding Bob’s hand. She was a stout brunette with acne scars, but a good cook, which is why Meredith reckoned Bob had married her, because she couldn’t keep house and the rest was none of his business.

Bob was as chunky as his wife: blue eyes, blond hair, rather short, no tattoos. Meredith had always thought them a good match. Happy, harmless couple. He was waiting for dozens of clueless offspring to appear.

Instead.

“Maureen,” said Bob. “Could you let me talk to Kirby in private? Just for a few minutes. After all, he’s a shrink.”

“Sure.” Maureen left the room.

Cousin Bob glanced around the Intensive Care Unit. There was fear in his eyes. Understandably.

“Liver’s gone, they say.”

Dr Meredith had read the charts. “Always a chance for a repair. This is 1973, after all.”

“Kirby, they’re saying I’m just a drunk. I don’t think they really give a damn”

“I’m here for you. I’m staff.”

“Did you know that I had TB years back?”

“No. You never told me.”

“Friend of mine got it doing time in some shithouse reform school. We’d pass cigarettes and beers back and forth. They found some spots on my lungs after he’d been diagnosed. Put me on their two-drug therapy. Public health shits coming by to make sure I took all my pills. Isoniazid and something, I forget. Took them for ten years or so at their lawful command. Turns out that the combination wipes out your liver long-term.

“Shit.” Meredith was familiar with the situation, but could think of nothing more profound to say. He wished he’d known about Bob in time.

“So now I’m here with a trashed liver, wiped out by the best medicine you can offer, told that I’m an alcoholic, serves me right. And they want to operate. Womak procedure, I think they call it. What do you think? I’m ready to walk.”

Dr Meredith had read his cousin’s chart. “Well, for whatever reasons, you are in liver failure, and you’re bleeding internally. Very badly. It will start again and maybe not stop. I’m a shrink, and your surgeon can explain it far better. Basically, they’ll remove your spleen and the region of your stomach and lower esophagus where these varices—knotted-up-blood-vessels—lie. The liver can take a lot of abuse, and only a small portion need recover. There’s work on liver transplants. I don’t see it happening soon, but you re buying time.”

“Then you think I should do it? The surgery?”

“I don’t see any real choice. I mean, if you start bleeding again....”

Bob grabbed his hand, weakly. “Kirby, I’ll go for it on your word.”

It was a nonelective case, and surgery was under way by lunchtime the following day. Meredith bought a stale ham sandwich from a machine, munched on it, phoned his wife. She wasn’t home. He fumbled around his desk and found some Maalox. By the time he’d had sessions with a few patients, it was growing dark and Cousin Bob had made it through surgery. Meredith spoke to him in the recovery room. He phoned his wife. She wasn’t home. Meredith went back to his house. He microwaved a low-cal dinner, ate part of it.

Bob seemed to have come through it all very well. Maureen was at his bedside. Meredith persuaded Janice to visit with her when Janice could spare the time.

“I had a dream, Kirby,” Bob told him two days post-op. “I’m not sure it was a dream.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’d climbed out of my bed, pulled out the IVs. I was fumbling my way along all these corridors. Lost. Just trying to get out. Go home.”

“I was somewhere in the basement—I don’t know how. I pushed open a door, thinking it led out. Only I was in the hospital morgue. Two doctors were doing an autopsy on a man. I think the man was me. I must have fainted, but I remember someone taking me back to my room. I’m afraid, Kirby.”

Dr Meredith considered. He decided to be reassuring. “Near-fatal illness. Major surgery. Anesthesia. Pain medication. Not an uncommon sort of nightmare Just rest and let your body heal. Just ask the nurse to call me if you have anymore bad dreams.”

He examined the charts, just in case, and found nothing out of the ordinary.

All of this was at the end of June. July brought in a new crop of interns, freshly graduated from med school and eager to excel. Dr Meredith lost a few of his residents, gained a few more, none of whom seemed promising, but that was his task—to bring them around. When he closeted himself in his office, he studied travel brochures.

Cousin Bob was now five days post-op and starting to take semisolid foods.

He choked on the cherry Jell-O. Maureen pounded his back and shouted for help. By the time the nurse arrived, Bob’s breathing passage was clear, but the spasms had opened some sutures, and this was causing pain and some bleeding. The nurse called for an intern.

The intern had only just arrived at the medical center, knew nothing about his patient, saw the post-op abdominal incisions and fresh bleeding, obvious severe pain—and ordered a liberal injection of morphine to quell pain and agitation. He hadn’t thought to check the charts for liver function, but he had been told that the patient in 221 was a hopeless drunk. Whatever. Who cares.

Cousin Bob died before Dr Meredith could rush over from the psychiatric wing. Janice came to be with Maureen. Meredith followed the body to the basement morgue. There would be an autopsy, although it was obvious to most idiots in white coats that a patient with minimal liver function had been massively overdosed.

“Shit! He’s back again!” The chief pathologist was breaking in another pale and trembling med student. Meredith suspected he enjoyed this sort of thing or he’d leave this to residents.

“What do you mean?”

“Patient stumbled in here a few nights back. Guess he just couldn’t wait.”

“Nothing in his chart about that.”

“One of your patients? Well, orderlies don’t like to report a fuss when there’s no harm done.”

“No harm done.”

“Looks bad for the hospital.”

No one ever gets well in a hospital.

Dr Meredith wandered from the basement morgue, seeking his office.

The oppressive walls soaked with pain and rage pressed down on him. He thought of a thousand Cousin Bobs—slowly, painfully killed by the best efforts of modern unfeeling medicine. No one ever gets well in a hospital.

Tomorrow he would clear out his office.

Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.





Brushed Away



As a teenager in the 1950s, Maurice Tarwater was considered by his peers to be hopelessly square, strictly from hunger, and probably queer. Perhaps it was because he wore his older brothers out-of-fashion hand-me-downs. Perhaps it was his acne. Perhaps it was his funny name.

He couldn’t dance. He listened to classical music instead of this new rock and roll. He couldn’t drive a car. His father insisted that a boy must be at least eighteen to begin driving lessons. He was hapless in sports. He didn’t smoke cigarettes at lunch break, and he didn’t touch a drop of smuggled beer at the few parties he attended. He was seldom invited. He was hopeless at dating.

In grade school he was the target of playground bullies. This continued. In high school phys-ed he wore his jock strap over his white cotton Y-fronts, afraid to expose his tiny dick and almost hairless crotch. When the gin-soaked coach forced him to take a shower, the rest of the boys made jokes about the size of his dick and its fringe of pale blond hair. Then they’d flap his ass with rolled up rat-tail towels as he struggled back into his Y-fronts.

He was born on the cusp for school admission, perpetually almost a year behind his dark-haired classmates. A year is important when you’re growing up.

It peaked when he was forced under threat of a beating to suck dicks in the shower room while the others watched. They were hairy. He hated hairy crotches. There were painful thrusts up his ass by soapy dicks. They were most of them virgins, although they bragged about back seat conquests, and came almost instantly. Just masturbating into a hairless wimp. A laugh riot. Rites of adolescence.

Five minutes or so in the shower room, over with, towel off, find white cotton Y-fronts, find algebra class, find snickers and stares, then find the bus home.

Word spread. Coach caught them eventually, and broke the crowd up. Maurice was expelled for a week and sent for psychological therapy. The rest got detention hall for rowdy behavior.

They beat him up after school when he returned.

Maurice never had any luck in dating after that. Not that he’d had much before. Somehow he graduated.

His grades were good. Maurice was quite intelligent, but because of his record as a sexual pervert who had been undergoing therapy (your record will follow you everywhere, he was warned), no college would accept him. His parents said that they would support him for another year. His family was strict Southern Baptist, and he had never been forgiven for his wanton deviant behavior. He never forgave them.

Maurice landed a job as file clerk at a hospital in Los Angeles. Far from home. He was very competent. Before long he was promoted to a minor supervisory position. His immediate superior occasionally gave him curious looks, but all went well for a time.

It was 1961.

Except for the shower room rapes, Maurice was still a virgin. And he was twenty-one.

Maurice had been enjoying an active sex life, however, on his own. It suited his needs. It bad suited his needs.

He frequented the sleazy newsstands, as he had done since high school. Playboy and all the rest, even the sleaziest magazines. Bare tits and ass, panties, bras and lingerie. Not a hair showing of a cunt. At age twenty-one, Maurice Tarwater had never even seen a photograph of a cunt, much less seen one in the flesh. Once, in high school, he had put his hand on his date’s breast, outside her dress. She had slapped him, called him a creep, and the party chaperons had told his parents.

A cunt was all a great mystery. His parents never explained or spoke about it, and his classmates all knew he was a queer.

He knew they didn’t have dicks. Somehow or other they still managed to pee. And have babies. He wondered if babies came out of their ass. That must be it. The pictures never showed it all.

This was because Maurice most enjoyed nudist magazines, sold from under the counter. He’d paged through them as a teenager—once he could find a newsstand dealer who would sell them to him—then masturbate frantically into rubbers he had bought with great stealth at a local hamburger joint. Saved and washed, he could get a dozen or more jerk-off fantasies at two for a quarter before they burst. His parents never caught him. He was lucky in this.

The nudes in the nudist magazines were always air-brushed. Cunts and pubic hairs all whisked away. Nothing but a smooth V between groin and thighs. Where then was this furry cunt that the boys at school had talked about? Probably they were making it all up to confuse him, like the time in the shower when they told him to pick up the soap and then goosed him with more than a finger.

Some of the book stores in Los Angeles had very large and very expensive books of classical art, mostly of nudes. Maurice bought several. Little help. He had known that women had breasts; their hands or something else was always in the way of their mysterious V. The men usually had something obscuring their genitalia as well: Maurice recalled his Baptist upbringing and decided it was usually a fig leaf. He bought some art books, described as studies of nude models for the budding artist. He discovered Betty Page in one, airbrushed like all the rest. Just the blank V. Was that all?

For some months Maurice contented himself by jerking off over photographs of air-brushed nudes and demure works of art. Isolation had been bred and beaten into him.

He had grown to love the smooth, clean lines of an air-brushed crotch. No wonder women could wear clinging nylon panties in those magazines, while he had to wear the baggy cotton Y-fronts his mother still bought for him. No dick to bulge out from under their skirts. No wonder they laughed at him.

Maurice bought a jock strap from a sports shop and a fig tree from a nursery. He glued a fig leaf to the pouch, then tried the jock strap on. He posed before his mirror. The costume did little for him and only brought back memories of the high school locker room. He had pretty features, a slight build, and not enough muscle to pose as Adonis or David. Well, it was worth the try. Smooth and clean, just like the pictures in the art books. No guilt. Very little bulge.

After a month he worked up the courage to purchase some panties in various sizes. “For my wife,” he said to the girl at the register, his face reddening. She only nodded, neither knowing nor caring.

Maurice tried them all on. Still a bulge. Tight or loose. No airbrush. He compared his reflection to his magazines. No bulge in their Panties. Where did it go? Air-brush? Fig leaf? Nothing there at all? No dick of any sort? All smooth and clean? Nothing nasty?

Maurice had to know. No one could tell him, if they would. It was 1961, and Maurice was twenty-one.

He looked young and innocent enough for the bartender to ask for ID, just in case Maurice might be a part of some cop sting. The bartender served him a rum and Coke. Maurice seldom drank. He nursed his drink at the bar. The place had sleaze engrained through the plastic decor. Maurice had scouted it out carefully, He had taken a few weeks of courage to work up to this point.

She was wearing a blonde wig and a tight black sheath dress. She was not all that much older than Maurice, and she sat down beside him, gave him the eye, wondered if he might buy her a drink, and the usual fell into place.

They had several drinks, as Maurice needed to buck up his nerve.

Eventually they left for a hotel room, and Maurice put down some money She said her name was Gale, and that was good enough as she undressed. Maurice had never seen a woman undress before. He was frozen.

“Here, let me help you.” Gale was stripped to her bra and panties, quickly done from long practice. She pulled off Maurice’s shirt while he fumbled with his shoes and socks, then got him out of his trousers.

“Big one,” she said, massaging his crotch. “You’ll be fun. She pulled down his Y-fronts, giving him a quick kiss on his dick.

Moving back, Gale removed her bra and panties—this John was petrified—then spread herself out on the bed. Well, come on.

Maurice stood still, gaping at her outspread cunt. His cock was only half erect. He continued to stare.

“First time, honey? Well, come on. It won’t bite you.”

Maurice continued to stare at the hairy monster. There was a slit between her thighs beneath the fur. Nothing like an air-brushed photograph. Women had a hole where a dick should be. His father had been right when he told him that women were dirty vessels of sin. At least she couldn’t hurt him. Not like the boys.

Gale rolled about seductively. “Look, if you’d rather have a blow job, that’s ten bucks extra.”

Shower room flashback.

Maurice instantly came, spurting long streams onto the bed. Gale had seen it all. “Still have to pay, kiddo. See me again when you’re not so nervous. Don’t feel bad. Happens to lots of men.” She began to dress.

Maurice spent a lot of nights worrying if he really were queer, just like his classmates had jeered. He bought some muscle magazines, looked at photos of young men in posing straps, bought some posing straps for himself, tried them on, posed in front of his mirror, tried masturbating while looking at the magazines. Not even an erection. He was pure.

The only sex that was good for him was to jerk off over those pictures of air-brushed cunts. No hairy slits. Clean and pure. Nothing dirty.

Not the hairy bullies in the shower room. Not being slammed back and forth until he knelt and opened his mouth.

There was nothing wrong with him.

Nothing dirty.

Not like the hairy slit in women. He’d never seen one until now, but the other boys had said that they had and described it, lying all the while. It had to be some aberration, like the few boys in the shower room whose dicks hadn’t been circumcised.

A clean, smooth V. That was what the nudist magazines showed. That had to be right.

There was nothing wrong with him.

Nothing dirty.

Clean and smooth. A fig leaf. Panties. No bulge.

No genitalia. Trust the magazines.

Nothing dirty.

There was nothing wrong with him.

Maurice Tarwater bought a nice attache case, and he filled it with things that he needed. It was easy to get them at the hospital, even for a file clerk. It was all very clear to him now. The photographs were correct. Cameras don’t lie.

He found Gale easily enough at the same bar, and they went to the same hotel. Surprisingly, she did remember him, probably because he had left her a good tip to cover his embarrassment that night. A few drinks, off they went.

Gale was first to undress, figuring that this was going to be another thirty-second trick, and there were more Johns out there. She left on her garter belt, stockings and heels. Saved time, and most Johns enjoyed the thrill. She made come-to-bed sounds.

Maurice had undressed and was pulling on some sort of G-string thing with a leaf attached to the pouch.

What’s that? ” Gale had seen some weirdos before “A fig leaf.”

“Whatever gets you hard.” At least he wasn’t wearing women’s underwear like the trick two nights ago. “Come on, Adam. Eve’s waiting.”

She spread her legs. No bulge. Hairy monster. Wet slit. No dick at all. It was worse than he’d remembered. His father had warned him.

“Want some cognac?”Maurice drew a flask from his case. “Helps to calm me down.”

“Sure. It’s your dime, remember.”

Eve drank. Adam pretended to sip.

Once the barbs had taken effect, Maurice gave her an injection of pilfered Demerol. It would be morning, if ever, before she recovered consciousness.

He removed a razor and shaving cream from his case, and he painstakingly shaved off every bit of hair from Gale’s crotch. Smooth as a baby’s bottom. But still that annoying slit.

He took out a suture kit and tightly laced her labia together. It demanded some work, as this was his first time, but it was almost right. There was some minimal bleeding. He dabbed at that with some cotton.

Using a lot of thick pancake make-up, Maurice filled in the furrow of her cunt, then smoothed it all down. A Vee. Clean and smooth. No hair. No nasty slit. Just like in the pictures.

His cock grew rigid as he looked at her. He pulled down the posing strap, then masturbated onto her air-brushed cunt, reaching the best orgasm he had ever known. He left the fig leaf over her cunt.

He thought about smothering her with a pillow, but murder was a sin and a crime, and no one gave a shit about a roughed-up whore. She could have the stitches out tomorrow. He left an extra twenty on the nightstand and decided to move on.

Maurice laid low for a few weeks. As expected, no interest in a roughed-up hooker. Cool. He bought some more posing straps, some more magazines of muscle boys posing in posing straps. Nothing. Penis not erectus. He was OK, all right, normal. F*cking lies from high school. He could scatter come all across a whore’s cunt. They’d never done that. Even to their wives.

He shot off rubbing himself through the nylon while wearing a pair of panties and reading a girlie magazine and looking at a girl’s big butt stretching against red transparent panties similar to his own. But that was normal enough. All the guys in the locker room did it. Jerk off. Every day. Didn’t admit it.

Used him for their secret fantasies. Soapy dicks. Goosing. Laughter. Penises shoving. Jock straps. Coaches. One day he’d get back at them all. Just now he knew he could get hard looking at girlie magazines. Normal.

He wiped himself clean and threw the damp panties into the laundry bin. The bra was still fresh, and he placed it into his lingerie drawer before going out for the night. There was nothing wrong with him.

Los Angeles sprawls for miles and miles and miles. Maurice found another, more distant bar.

He was soon dancing with Lana, who wanted a career in movies. Maurice said that he did too, and that he had some connections, but nothing definite. They had a few drinks and went to Lana’s apartment, to talk over prospects.

It was the sort of cheap lodgings that see too many Hollywood hopefuls come and go. Lana apologized for the apartment, Maurice poured her a drink from his case, and Lana went quickly to sleep. Then the syringe. Barbs and Demerol. Then the razor and the shaving cream.

Maurice undressed her carefully She had a lovely body and probably really was nearly eighteen. He shaved her crotch carefully, not wanting to hurt her.

Then he stitched her labia together tightly, smeared it all with pancake make-up until it was a perfect air-brush. Maurice changed into his posing strap and then pulled down his fig leaf. He hadn’t thought he could come this hard so soon again, but after much pumping he spurted all over her airbrushed cunt.

Feeling a little guilty, he left her there on the bed. There were worse lessons to be learned in Los Angeles. At least he hadn’t raped her.

There was Ashley. Runaway from Ohio.

There was Jessica. Needle tracks all over.

There was Terri. Already shaved. A model.

There were others.

They were just hookers. Loose women cruising the singles bars. He always paid, and he didn’t hurt them much.

Maurice kept moving. Los Angeles is a big load of a town. Lots of loose women. His father had warned him. Cops don’t care much about what happens to hookers and wannabes and runaways. Yes, they had an MO and some descriptions that might fit a few thousand men. Whores and drifters, ER takes out the stitches, no permanent harm, probably asked for it. Who cares?

Better work to do. Teenage gangs. Pot dealers. Underage drinkers. Car wrecks. Racing on Mulholland. If you got paid for kinky sex, then don’t come crying to us. You got what you asked for. Go back to Ohio where you belong.

Maurice was doing very well under this climate of opinion. He considered moving to San Francisco. Perhaps there he could find the perfect air-brushed companion of the night.

It really was time to move on, but Maurice had changed his hair style, grown a mustache, changed apartments, changed his wardrobe to resemble a rising corporate executive, and was doing very well at climbing into middle management, although his fellow workers thought he’d let success go to his head prematurely. There was talk about how he gained his promotions. F*ck ’em. Maurice had already secured a position as senior supervisor in San Francisco.

Maurice met Kim—or she met him—at a rather posh singles bar (they were just coming into vogue) and had the usual brief come-on. Kim was a trim brunette, very much into the Jackie Kennedy look. She was a surgical nurse at one of the hospitals, trying to sound very professional, and very much on the make. As a rule, Maurice would have left her alone, preying on the usual hookers and bar-flies, but he was transferring to the San Francisco job shortly And she was on the make. Nurse Floozie.

Perhaps a little casual dalliance. Nothing that could create difficulties. She had a beautiful smile. Probably gave good blow jobs. Wine and dine, then slam bang, thank you ma’am. If she kept her panties on, so he didn’t have to see that horrible hairy slit, he could probably come right into her face. She looked like she might like that. He would.

He gave her a false name, said he was an intern at another hospital. Always a good ploy with nurses. So it went as planned. A few more drinks than planned, but they were eventually in Kim’s apartment. A bit seedy, but then, nurse’s salary. Kim made them both drinks from her bar, then said she was going to slip into something more comfortable. Perfect. He’d soon slip her out of it.

Maurice finished his drink as he listened to her changing. Pleasant rustlings of women’s clothes, shifting off and on, on and off. He could smell her perfume. Probably putting on a baby doll nigh tie. The drink was a strong one.

Maurice passed out very suddenly.

When Maurice awoke, he was gagged and tied spread-eagled to Kim’s bed. He was naked, lying across a rubber sheet. Kinky. He was still floating on drugs, and there were needle marks sullen against his arm.

Kim was removing latex surgical gloves. They were covered with blood.

Gale was at the bedside. As was Lana. And Ashley. And Jessica. And Terri. And others.

Maurice gurgled helplessly.

“All finished,” said Kim. “And he’s coming around. No more Demerol. Let him enjoy it.” She set aside his suture kit.

Along with Kim, the others also were all naked. They all must have recently shaved one another, but their filthy slits were open and wet again, showing only a few scars from his surgery. He must remedy that. It was all some sort of hallucination.

Maurice was still too groggy to move on the bed, or to feel pain. Kim was handed a Kotex napkin, and she strapped it firmly over his crotch, securing it in place with lots of surgical tape. It fit perfectly. No bulge. Just like in the retouched photographs in the magazines.

They’d shaved him. No ugly pubic hair. Just a perfect V between his thighs. There was some blood on the Kotex.

“Let’s just leave him like this,” said Kim. “I only rented this place for the week. Registered as May West. Can you believe? The maid will find him in the morning. He won’t be pressing charges. He won’t be pressing anything. Maybe flowers.”

They each bent over him and showed him their clean, smooth crotches. Just like his. The scars were nice. They needed to be stitched and air-brushed once again.

Maurice struggled with the ropes as they dressed and left him. He was still too far under the Demerol to grasp the situation.

He stared drowsily at his air-brushed crotch, wishing to masturbate. A smooth, clean Vee. Airbrushed. No bulge. His dick would rise soon beneath the Kotex.

Then he realized the nature of the gag that was taped inside his mouth. Somehow he still managed one final orgasm.





Old Loves



He had loved her for twenty years, and today he would meet her for the first time. Her name was Elisabeth Kent, but to him she would always be Stacey Steele.

Alex Webley had been an undergraduate in the mid-1960s when The Agency premiered on Saturday night television. This had been at the height of the fad for spy shows—James Bond and imitations beyond counting, then countermoves toward either extreme of realism or parody. Upon such a full sea The Agency almost certainly would have sunk unnoticed, had it not been for the series two stars—or more particularly, had it not been for Elisabeth Kent.

In the role of Stacey Steele she played the delightfully eccentric— “kooky” was the expression of the times—partner of secret agent Harrison Dane, portrayed by actor Garrett Channing—an aging matinee idol, to use the expression of an earlier time. The two were employed by an enigmatic organization referred to simply as The Agency, which dispatched Dane and Miss Steele off upon dangerous assignments throughout the world. Again, nothing in the formula to distinguish The Agency from the rest of the pack—except for the charisma of its co-stars and for a certain stylish audacity to its scripts that became more outrageous as the series progressed.

Initially it was to have been a straight secret agent series: strong male lead assisted by curvaceous ingenue whose scatterbrained exploits would provide at least one good capture and rescue per episode. The role of Harrison Dane went to Garrett Channing—a fortuitous piece of contrary-to-type casting of an actor best remembered as the suave villain or debonair hero of various forgettable 1950s programmers. Channing had once been labeled “the poor man’s James Mason,” and perhaps the casting director had recalled that James Mason had been an early choice to portray James Bond. The son of a Bloomsbury greengrocer, Channing’s Hollywood-nurtured sophistication and charm seemed ideal for the role of American super-spy, Harrison Dane.

Then, through a casting miracle that could only have been through chance and not genius, the role of Stacey Steele went to Elisabeth Kent. Miss Kent was a tall, leggy dancer whose acting experience consisted of several on-and-off-Broadway plays and a brief role in the most recent James Bond film. Playboy, as was its custom, ran a pictorial feature on the lovelies of the latest Bond film and devoted two full pages to the blonde Miss Kent—revealing rather more of her than was permitted in the movies of the day. It brought her to the attention of the casting director, and Elisabeth Kent became Stacey Steele.

Became Stacey Steele, almost literally.

Later they would say that the role destroyed Elisabeth Kent. Her career dwindled miserably afterward. Some critics suggested that Miss Kent had been blackballed by the industry after her unexpected departure from the series resulted in The Agency’s plummeting in the ratings and merciful cancellation after a partial season with a forgettable DD-cup Malibu blonde stuffed into the role of female lead. The consensus, however, pointed out that after her role in The Agency it was Stacey Steele who was in demand, and not Elisabeth Kent. Once the fad for secret agent films passed, there were no more roles for Stacy Steele. Nor for Elisabeth Kent. A situation-comedy series flopped after three episodes. Two films with her in straight dramatic roles were noteworthy bombs, and a third was never released. Even if Elisabeth Kent succeeded in convincing some producer or director that she was not Stacey Steele, her public remained adamant.

Her only film appearance within the past decade had been as the villainess in a Hong Kong chop-fooey opus, Tiger Fists Against the Dragon. Perhaps it lost some little in translation.

Inevitably, The Agency attracted a dedicated fan following, and Stacy Steele became a cult figure. The same was true to a lesser extent for Garrett Channing, although that actor’s death not long after the series’ cancellation spared him both the benefits and the hazards of such a status. The note he left upon his desk: “Goodbye, World—I can no longer accept your tedium” was considered an enviable exit line.

The Agency premiered in the mid-1960s, just catching the crest of the Carnaby Street mod-look craze. Harrison Dane, suave superspy and mature man of the world though he was, was decidedly hip to today’s swinging beat, and the promos boldly characterized him as a “mod James Bond.” No business suits and narrow ties for Harrison Dane: “We want to take the stuffiness out of secret agenting,” to quote one producer. As the sophisticated counterpart to the irrepressible Miss Steele, Dane saved the day once a week attired in various outfits consisting of bell-bottom trousers, paisley shirts, Nehru jackets, and lots of beads and badges. If one critic described Harrison Dane as “a middle-aged Beatle,” the public applauded this “anti-establishment super-spy.”

No such criticism touched the image of Stacey Steele. Stacey Steele was the American viewing public’s ideal of the Swinging London Bird—her long-legged physique perfectly suited to vinyl mini-dresses and thigh-high boots. Each episode became a showcase for her daring fashions—briefest of miniskirts, hip-hugging leather bell-bottoms, see-through (as much as the censors would permit) blouses, cut-out dresses, patent boots, psychedelic jewelry, groovy hats, all that was marvy, fab and gear. There was talk of opening a franchise of Stacey Steele Boutiques, and Miss Steele became a featured model in various popular magazines seeking to portray the latest fashions for the Liberated Lady of the Sixties. By this time Elisabeth Kent’s carefully modulated BBC accent would never betray her Long Island birthright to the unstudied ear.

Stacey Steele was instant pin-up material, and stills of the miniskirted secret agent covered many a dorm wall beside blowups of Bogie and black-light posters. Later detractors argued that The Agency would never have lasted its first season without Stacey Steeles legs, and that the series was little more than an American version of one of the imported British spy shows. Fans rebutted such charges with the assertion that it had all started with James Bond anyway, and The Agency proved that the Americans could do it best. Pin-up photos of Stacey Steele continue to sell well twenty years after.

While The Agency may have been plainly derivative of a popular British series, American viewers made it their favorite show against formidable prime-time competition from the other two networks. For three glorious seasons The Agency ruled Saturday nights. Then, Elisabeth Kent’s sudden departure from the series: catastrophe, mediocrity, cancellation. But not oblivion. The series passed into syndication and thus into the twilight zone of odd-hour reruns on local channels and independent networks. Old fans remembered, new fans were born. The Agency developed a cult following, and Stacey Steele became its goddess.

In that sense, among its priesthood was Alex Webley. He had begun his worship two decades ago in the TV lounge of a college dorm, amidst the incense of spilled beer and tobacco smoke and an inspired choir of whistles and guffaws. The first night he watched The Agency Webley had been blowing some tangerine with an old high school buddy who had brought a little down from Antioch. Webley didn’t think he’d gotten off, but when the miniskirted Miss Steele used dazzling karate chops to dispatch two baddies, he knew he was having a religious experience. After that, he watched The Agency every Saturday night, without fail. It would have put a crimp in his dating if Webley had been one who dated. His greatest moment in college was the night when he stood off two drunken jocks, either of whom could have folded Webley in half, who wanted to switch channels from The Agency to watch a basketball game. They might have stuffed Webley into a wastebasket had not other Agency fans added their voices to his protest. Thus did Alex Webley learn the power of fans united.

It was a power he experienced again with news of Elisabeth Kent’s departure from the series, and later when The Agency was cancelled. Webley was one of the thousands of fans who wrote to the network demanding that Stacey Steele be brought back to the show (never mind how). With the show’s cancellation, Webley helped circulate a petition that The Agency be continued, with or without Stacey Steele. The producers were impressed by such show of support, but the network pointed out that 10,000 signatures from the lunatic fringe do not cause a flicker on the Nielsen ratings. Without Stacey Steele, The Agency was out of business, and that was that. Besides, the fad for overdone spy shows was over and done.

Alex Webley kept a file of clippings and stills, promotional items, comic books and paperbacks, anything at all pertaining to The Agency and to the great love of his life, Elisabeth Kent. From the beginning there were fanzines—crudely printed amateur publications devoted to The Agency—and one or two unofficial fan clubs. Webley joined and subscribed to them all. Undergraduate enthusiasms developed into a lifelong hobby. Corresponding with other diehard fans and collecting Agency memorabilia became his preoccupying outside interest in the course of taking a doctorate in neurobiology. He was spared from Viet Nam by high blood pressure, and from any long-term romantic involvement by a highly introverted nature. Following his doctorate, Webley landed a research position at one of the pharmaceutical laboratories, where he performed his duties efficiently and maintained an attitude of polite aloofness toward his coworkers. Someone there dubbed him “the Invisible Man,” but there was no malice to the mot juste.

At his condo, the door to the spare bedroom bore a brass-on-walnut plaque that read HQ. Webley had made it himself. Inside were filing cabinets, bookshelves, and his desk. The walls were papered with posters and stills, most of them photos of Stacey Steele. A glass-fronted cabinet held videocassettes of all The Agency episodes, painstakingly acquired through trades with other fans. The day he completed the set, Webley drank most of a bottle of Glenfiddich—Dane and Miss Steele’s favorite potation—and afterward became quite ill.

By now Webley’s enthusiasm had expanded to all of the spy shows and films of the period, but old loves die hard, and The Agency remained his chief interest. Webley was editor/publisher of Special Assignment, a quarterly amateur magazine devoted to the spy craze of the ’60s. Special Assignment was more than a cut above the mimeographed fanzines that Webley had first begun to collect; his magazine was computer-typeset and boasted slick paper and color covers. By its tenth issue, Special Assignment had a circulation of several thousand, with distribution through specialty bookshops here and abroad. It was a hobby project that took up all of Webley’s free time and much of his living space, and Webley was content.

Almost content. Special Assignment carried photographs and articles on every aspect of the old spy shows, along with interviews of many of the actors and actresses. Webley, of course, devoted a good many pages each issue to The Agency and to Stacey Steele—but to his chagrin he was unable to obtain an interview with Elisabeth Kent. Since her one disastrous comeback attempt, Miss Kent preferred the life of a recluse. There was some dignity to be salvaged in anonymity. Miss Kent did not grant interviews, she did not make public appearances, she did not answer fan mail. After ten years the world forgot Elisabeth Kent, but her fans still remembered Stacey Steele.

Webley had several years prior managed to secure Elisabeth Kent’s address—no mean accomplishment in itself—but his rather gushing fan letters had not elicited any sort of reply. Not easily daunted, Webley faithfully sent Miss Kent each new issue of Special Assignment (personally inscribed to her), and with each issue he included a long letter of praise for her deathless characterization of Stacey Steele, along with a plea to be granted an interview. Webley never gave up hope, despite Miss Kent’s unbroken silence.

When he at last did receive a letter from Miss Kent graciously granting him the long-sought interview, Webley knew that life is just and that the faithful shall be rewarded.

He caught one of those red-eye-special flights out to Los Angeles, but was too excited to catch any sleep on the way. Instead he reread a well-worn paperback novelization of one of his favorite Agency episodes, “The Chained Lightning Caper,” and mentally reviewed the questions he would ask Miss Kent still not quite able to believe that he would be talking with her in another few hours.

Webley checked into a Thrifti-Family Motel near the airport, unpacked, tried without success to sleep, got up, showered and shaved. The economy flight he had taken hadn’t served a meal, but then it had been all Webley could manage just to finish his complimentary soft beverage. The three-hour time change left his system rather disordered in any event, so that he wasn’t certain whether he actually should feel tired or hungry were it not for his anxiousness over the coming interview. He pulled out his notes and looked over them again, managing to catch a fitful nap just before dawn. At daylight he made himself eat a dismal breakfast in the motel restaurant, then returned to his room to shave again and to put on the clothes he had brought along for the interview.

It was the best of Webley’s several Harrison Dane costumes, carefully salvaged from various Thrift Shops and yard sales. Webley maintained a wardrobe of vintage mod clothing, and he had twice won prizes at convention masquerades.The pointed-toe Italian boots were original to the period—a lovingly maintained treasure discovered ten years before at Goodwill Industries. The suede bell-bottoms were custom-made by an aging hippie at an aging leather crafts shop that still had a few psychedelic posters tacked to its walls. Webley tried them on at least once a month and adjusted his diet according to snugness of fit. The jacket, a sort of lavender thing that lacked collar or lapels, was found at a vintage clothing store and altered to his measurements. The paisley shirt, mostly purples and greens, had been discovered at a yard sale, and the beads and medallions had come from here and there.

Webley was particularly proud of his Dane Cane, which he himself had constructed after the secret agent’s famous weapon. It appeared to be a normal walking stick, but it contained Dane’s arsenal of secret weapons and paraphernalia including a radio transmitter, recording device, tear gas, and laser. Harrison Dane was never without his marvelous cane, and good thing, too. Alex Webley had caused rather a stir at the airport check-in, before airline officials finally permitted him to transport his Dane Cane via baggage.

Webley still clung to the modified Beatles haircut that Harrison Dane affected. He combed it now carefully and he studied his reflection in the room’s ripply mirror. The very image of Harrison Dane. Stacey Steele Miss Kent—would no doubt be impressed by the pains he had taken. It would have been great to drive out in a Shelby Cobra like Dane’s, but instead he called for a cab.

Not a Beverly Hills address, Webley sadly noted, as the taxi drove him to one of those innumerable canyon neighborhoods tottering on steep hillsides and the brink of shabbiness. Her house was small and featureless, a little box propped up on the hillside beside a jagged row of others like it—distinguishable one from another chiefly by the degree of seediness and the cars parked in front. Some cheap development from the 1950s, Webley judged, and another ten years likely would see the ones still standing bought up and the land used for some cheap condo development. He felt increasingly sad about it all; he had been prepared to announce his arrival to some uniformed guard at the subdivision’s entrance gate.

Well, if it were within his power to do so, Webley intended to bring to bear the might and majesty of Special Assignment to pressure these stupid producers into casting Elisabeth Kent in new and important roles. That made this interview more important than ever to Webley—and to Miss Kent.

He paid off the cab—tipping generously, as Harrison Dane would have done. This was perhaps fortuitous, as the driver shouted after him that he had forgotten his attache case. Webley wondered how Dane would have handled such an embarrassing lapse—of course, Dane would never have committed such a blunder. Webley’s case—also modelled after Dane’s secret agent attache case, although Webley’s lacked the built-in machine gun—contained a bottle of Glenfiddich, his notes, cassette recorder, and camera. It was essential that he obtained some photographs of Miss Kent at home: since her appearance in the unfortunate Tiger Fists film, current photos of Elisabeth Kent were not made available. Webley had heard vicious rumors that the actress had lost her looks, but he put these down to typical show biz back-stabbing, and he prayed it wasn’t so.

He rang the doorbell, using the tip of his cane, just as Dane always did, and waited—posing jauntily against his cane, just as Dane always did. The seconds dragged on eternally, and there was no response. He rang again, and waited. Webley looked for a car in the driveway; saw none, but the carport was closed. He rang a third time.

This time the door opened.

And Alex Webley knew his worship had not been in vain.

“Hullo, Dane,” she said. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“How very good to see you, Miss Steele,” said Webley. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.”

And she was Stacey Steele. Just like in The Agency. And Webley felt a thrill at knowing she had dressed the part just for the interview—just for him.

The Hollywood gossip had been all lies, because she hardly looked a day older—although part of that was no doubt due to her appearance today as Stacey Steele. It was perfect. It was all there, as it should be: the thigh-length boots of black patent leather, the red leather minidress with LOVE emblazoned across the breastline (the center of the O was cut out, revealing a daring glimpse of braless cleavage), the blonde bangs and ironed-straight Mary Travers hair, the beads and bells. Time had rolled back, and she was Stacey Steele.

“Come on in, luv,” Miss Steele invited, in her so-familiar throaty purr.

Aerobics really can do wonders, Webley thought as he followed her into her living room. Twenty years may have gone by, but if The Agency were to be revived today, Miss Kent could step right into her old role as the mod madcap Miss Steele. Exercise and diet, probably—he must find some discreet way of asking her how she kept her youthful figure.

The living room was a close replica of Stacey Steele’s swinging London flat, enough so that Webley guessed she had removed much of the set from the Hollywood soundstage where the series was actually shot. He sat down, not without difficulty, on the inflatable day-glo orange chair—Dane’s favorite—and opened his attache case.

“I brought along a little libation,” he said, presenting her with the Glenfiddich.

Miss Steele gladly accepted the dark-green triangular bottle. “Ah, luv! You always remember, don’t you!”

She quickly poured a generous level of the pale amber whisky into a pair of stemmed glasses and offered one to Webley. Webley wanted to protest that it was too early in the day for him to tackle straight Scotch, but he decided he’d rather die than break the spell of this moment.

Instead, he said: “Cheers.” And drank.

The whisky went down his throat smoothly and soared straight to his head. Webley blinked and set down his glass in order to paw through the contents of his case. Miss Steele had recharged his glass before he could protest, but already Webley was thinking how perfect this all was. This would be one to tell to those scoffers who had advised him against wearing his Harrison Dane costume to the interview.

“Here’s a copy of our latest issue...” Webley hesitated only slightly “...Miss Steele.”

She took the magazine from him. The cover was a still of Stacey Steele karate-chopping a heavy in a pink foil spacesuit. “Why, that’s me! How groovy!”

“Yes. From ‘The Mod Martian Caper,’ of course. And naturally you’ll be featured on our next cover, along with the interview and all.” The our was an editorial plural, inasmuch as Webley was the entire staff of Special Assignment.

“Fab!” said Miss Steele, paging through the magazine in search of more photos of herself.

Webley risked another sip of Glenfiddich while he glanced around the room. However the house might appear from the outside, inside Miss Kent had lovingly maintained the ambiance of The Agency. The black lights and pop-art posters, the psychedelic color schemes, the beaded curtains, the oriental rugs. Indian music was playing, and strewn beside the vintage KLH stereo Webley recognized early albums from the Beatles and the Stones, from the Who and the Yardbirds, from Ultimate Spinach and Thirteenth Floor Elevator. He drew in a deep breath; yes, that was incense burning on the mantelpiece—cinnamon, Miss Steele’s favorite.

“That’s the platinum bird you used in ‘The Malted Falcon Caper,’ isn’t it?”

Miss Steele touched the silver falcon statuette Webley had spotted. “The very bird. Not really made of platinum, sorry to report.”

“And that must be the chastity belt they locked you into in ‘The Medieval Mistress Caper.’” Again Webley pointed.

“One and the same. And not very comfy on a cold day, I assure you.”

Webley decided he was about to sound gushy, so he finished his second whisky. It didn’t help collect his thoughts, but it did restore a little calmness. He decided not to argue when Miss Steele refreshed their drinks. His fingers itched for his camera, but his hands were trembling too much.

“You seem to have kept quite a few props from The Agency,” he suggested. “Isn’t that the steel mask they put over your head in ‘The Silent Cyborg Caper’? Not very comfortable either, I should imagine.”

“At times I did find my part a trifle confining,” Miss Steele admitted. “All those captures by the villains.”

“With Harrison Dane always there in the nick of time,” Webley said, raising his glass to her. If Miss Steele was in no hurry to get through the interview, then neither was he.

“It wasn’t all that much fun waiting to be rescued every time,” Miss Steele confided. “Tied out in the hot sun across a railroad track, or stretched out on a rack in a moldy old dungeon.”

“‘The Uncivil Engineer Caper,’” Webley remembered, “and ‘The Dungeon To Let Caper.’”

“Or being strapped to a log in a sawmill.”

“‘The Silver Scream Caper.’”

“I was brushing sawdust out of my hair for a week.”

“And in ‘The Missing Mermaid Caper’ they handcuffed you to an anchor and tossed you overboard.”

“Yes, and I still have my rubber fishtail from that one.”

“Here?”

“Certainly. I’ve held on to a museum’s worth of costumes and props. Would you like to see the lot of it?”

“Would I ever!” Webley prayed he had brought enough film. “Then I’ll just give us a refill.”

“I really think I’ve had enough just now,” Webley begged.

“Why, Dane! I never knew you to say no.”

“But one more to top things off,” agreed Webley, unable to tarnish the image of Harrison Dane.

Miss Steele poured. “Most of it’s kept downstairs.”

“After all, Miss Steele, this is a special occasion.” Webley drank. He had a little difficulty with the stairs—he vaguely felt he was floating downward, and the Dane Cane kept tripping him— but he made it to the lower level without disgracing himself. Once there, all he could manage was a breathless: “Out of sight!”

Presumably the downstairs had been designed as a sort of large family room, complete with fireplace, cozy chairs, and at one time probably a ping pong table or such. Miss Kent had refurnished the room with enough props and sets to reshoot the entire series. Webley could only stand and stare. It was as if an entire file of Agency stills had been scattered about and transformed into three-dimensional reality.

There was the stake the natives had tied her to in “The No Atoll At All Caper,” and there was the man-eating plant that had menaced her in “The Venusian Vegetarian Caper.” In one corner stood—surely a replica—Stacey Steele’s marvelous VW Beetle, sporting its wild psychedelic paint scheme and harboring a Porsche engine and drivetrain. There was the E.V.O.L. interrogation chair from “The Earth’s End Caper,” and behind it one of the murderous robots from “The Angry Android Caper.” Harrison Dane’s circular bed, complete with television, stereo, bar, machine guns, and countless other built-in devices, was crowded beside the very same torture rack from “The Dungeon To Let Caper.” Cataloging just the major pieces would be an hour’s work, even for Webley, and a full inventory of all the memorabilia would take at least a couple days.

“Impressed, luv?”

Webley closed his mouth. “It’s like the entire Agency series come to life in one house,” he finally said.

“Do browse about all you like, luv.”

Webley stumbled across the room, trying not to touch any of the sacred relics, scarcely able to concentrate upon any one object for longer than its moment of recognition. It was all too overpowering an assault upon his sensory mechanisms.

“A toast to us, luv.”

Webley didn’t remember whether Miss Steele had brought along their glasses or poured fresh drinks from Harrison Dane’s art nouveau bar, shoved against one wall next to the mind transfer machine from “The Wild, Wild Bunch Caper.” He gulped his drink without thinking and moments later regretted it.

“I think I’d like to sit down for a minute,” Webley apologized.

“Drugged drinks!” Miss Steele said brightly. “Just like in ’The Earth’s End Caper.’ Quick, Dane! Sit down here!”

Webley collapsed into the interrogation chair as directed—it was closest, and he was about to make a scene if he didn’t recover his balance. Automatic cuffs instantly secured his arms, legs, and body to the chair.

“Only in ’The Earth’s End Caper,’” said Miss Steele, “I was the one they drugged and fastened into this chair. There to be horribly tortured, unless Harrison Dane came to the rescue.”

Webley turned his head as much as the neck restraints would permit. Miss Steele was laying out an assortment of scalpels and less obvious instruments, recognized by Webley as props from the episode.

“Groovy,” he managed to say.

Miss Steele was assembling some sort of dental drill. “I was always the victim.” She smiled at him with that delightful madcap smile. “I was always the one being captured, humiliated, helplessly awaiting your last-minute mock heroics.”

“Well, not all the time,” Webley protested, going along with the joke. He hoped he wasn’t going to be ill.

“Are these clamps very tight?”

“Yes. Very. The prop seems in perfect working order. I think I really ought to stretch out for a while. Most embarrassing, but I’m afraid that drinking this early...”

“It wasn’t enough that you seduced me and insisted on the abortion for the sake of our careers. It was your egotistical jealousy that finally destroyed me. You couldn’t stand the fact that Stacey Steele was the real star of The Agency, and not Harrison Dane. So you pulled strings until you got me written out of the series. Then you did your best to ruin my career afterward.”

“I don’t feel very good,” Webley muttered. “I think I might be getting sick.”

“Hoping for a last-second rescue?” Stacey Steele selected a scalpel from the tray, and bent over him. Webley had a breathtaking glimpse through the cut-out of LOVE, and then the blade touched his eye.

The police were already there by the time Elisabeth Kent got home. Neighbors’ dogs were barking at something in the brush below her house; some kids went to see what they were after, and then the police were called.

“Did you know the man, Miss Kent?”

Miss Kent nodded her double chins. She was concentrating on stocking her liquor cabinet with the case of generic gin she’d gone out to buy with the advance check Webley had mailed her. She’d planned on fortifying herself for the interview that might mean her comeback, but her aging Nova had refused to start in the parking lot, and the road call had eaten up the remainder of the check that she’d hoped would go toward overdue rent for the one-storey frame dump. She sat down heavily on the best chair of her sparsely furnished living room.

“He was some fan from back east,” she told the investigating officer. “Wanted to interview me for some fan magazine. I’ve got his letter here somewhere. I used to be in films a few years back—maybe you remember.”

“We’ll need to get in touch with next of kin,” the detective said. “Already found the cabbie who let him out here while you were off getting towed.” He was wondering if he had ever seen her in anything. “At a guess, he waited around on your deck, probably leaned against the railing—got a little dizzy, and went over. Might have had a heart attack or something.”

Elisabeth Kent was looking at the empty Glenfiddich bottle and the two glasses.

“Damn you, Stacey Steele,” she whispered. “Goddamn you.”