Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

Scott never answered her question, never even heard it, and a few seconds later, Candy turned away, shaking her head.

The following Saturday, Scott was waiting for Acne Face, having decided upon his strategy the night before.

'I know what you've been doing,' he whispered as he accepted the ticket. Startled eyes met his own, then darted away.

'I don't…' The sound drifted off.

'Wait for me outside, half an hour after the show ends.' Scott spoke more firmly. 'I won't tell anyone if you do what I say.'

There was no reply, but the look of guilt that passed over the acne-scarred features was as good as a confession.

There were no changes in that evening's double feature.

'I'm Scott.' He offered his gloved hand in the darkness outside of the theater. The slouched figure standing in the shadow made no effort to respond. 'What's your name?'

'Chuck. Chuck Scusset.'

'Pleased to meet you, Chuck. Look, it's freezing out here. Why don't we go to some place quiet and talk about this, somewhere warm?'

And so it was that they ended up in Chuck Scusset's cluttered apartment less than six blocks from the theater.

Scott was no fanatic about neatness, but he was appalled by his surroundings. Chuck lived in what amounted to a bed-sitting room with an adjoining half bath on the third floor of one of Managansett's seedier apartment buildings. Other than the bed, there was a single folding chair and a card table, no other furnishings. Chuck's clothing was apparently stored in two cheap suitcases and a half dozen cardboard boxes he had retrieved from behind one of the local markets. Chuck had taken the chair, so Scott was forced to sit on the bed, the only relatively uncluttered area available.

It was evident that Chuck was a science-fiction fan. There were piles of genre paperbacks and digest-size magazines lining every wall, covering the card table, under the bed, filling the few shelves mounted on the walls. A model of the starship Enterprise stood in one corner of the room, surrounded by figurines of monsters, aliens, and space-suited humans. There was no other indication whatsoever of human habitation except for an occasional candy wrapper or empty potato chip bag.

'So how do you do it?' Scott asked.

'I didn't do anything,' came the sullen reply.

'No shit? The movies just changed themselves and you let me come up here just because you're a nice guy.'

No response.

Scott leaned forward, hands on knees. 'Listen, Chuck, you're messing with copyrighted material here. You could get into a lot of trouble doing that.'

'I don't hurt anything!'

Scott sat back, sighing with satisfaction. 'Ah, but you do change things, don't you?'

For a few short seconds, it seemed as if Chuck were going to retreat into denial once more, but at last he nodded.

'All right, then, we can work out a deal, can't we?' Scott didn't wait for an answer. 'Show me what you do it with.'

Chuck looked away, apparently staring at a water stain on the far wall. 'Can't.'

Scott made an impatient noise. 'Cut the crap, Chuck. You already admitted you're doing it, now show me the goddamned thing, whatever it is!'

The head snapped back in his direction and the lips grew firmer. 'I can't! I do it with, you know, my head. Like, I imagine how I want the story to be, and it changes.'

This wasn't at all what Scott expected, and he wasn't sure he liked it.

'You mean, there's no machine or anything like that? It's just something you can do and no one else?'

Chuck nodded.

Visions of a vanishing fortune raced through his head. But perhaps everything was not lost. He could arrange private showings, charge hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars for the privilege of viewing an altered version of some movie or another. Maybe Chuck could substitute Cary Grant for Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind or something. But wouldn't the studios want a big cut if he did that or maybe even file an injunction or lawsuit against him?

'Listen, Chuck, there might be a lot of money in this for us.'

'What do you mean?'

Scott gave a general summary of his ideas, not wanting to be too specific, partly because he didn't want Chuck to realize how nebulous his plans were, partly because he wanted to give the impression that arcane knowledge was necessary. It wouldn't do to allow Chuck to believe he could manage on his own.

'How much can you change things anyway? Could you maybe do a whole movie from nothing?'

Chuck shook his head and almost smiled. He'd begun to relax a bit, Scott noticed, but the set of his shoulders and neck was still alert, intent. 'No, I can only, you know, guide things as they go along. If I try to change too much, I lose control. It's like there's too much to keep track of.'

Scott nodded. 'Too bad, but I kind of thought that might be the case. That's why you only changed some of the movies, right?'

'I guess.' With the sudden mood swings that Scott had already begun to recognize, Chuck was taciturn again.

'How come all the sex anyway? That's what gave you away, you know.'

Chuck looked away, his hands twisting in his lap, un-speaking.

'Come on, we're going to be friends, you and me. We don't need to have any secrets. If we're going to get rich, I have to understand how this works, how you make it happen, how much you can do.'

Without turning away from his contemplation of the wall, Chuck shook his head.

Exasperated, Scott slapped his knees with his palms. 'Listen, Chuck, I'm trying to be nice about this. Remember, I know about you; I can tell people what you've been doing.'

His companion didn't speak, but he began twisting in his seat and his head moved nervously. Scott thought he had things sired up pretty well, decided it was necessary to push his point now, before Chuck had time to think things through.

'How would you like it if I told people you were a sexual pervert, Chuck? Would you like that?'

Chuck's head swung around, eyes wide, mouth moving now, hands clenched together so firmly that the knuckles were white. 'I wasn't hurting anybody! It was all just pretend!'

'Sure, just pretend sex. And pretty rough sex, too. Rape and beatings and pain, right, Chuck? That's the way you like it, isn't it?'

Head twisting from side to side, Scott's companion seemed to be searching for an escape route. Convinced that he had his victim securely hooked, he leaned back, lying full length on the bed.

'But that's okay, Chuck. I won't tell anyone that you're a sicko whose only value to anyone, including himself, is that he has this trick with his head that lets him change the ways motion pictures appear on the screen. As long as you play ball, your secret is safe.'

'No! No one's gonna tell again, not ever.'

At first, the words and the tone were so out of place, Scott didn't register the meaning. He raised his upper torso, balancing on his elbows, and saw that Chuck's posture had altered completely. He was leaning forward now, hands raised and clenched into fists, and now his eyes met Scott's squarely.

'I'll do you just like I did my old man.' And suddenly, inappropriately, Chuck began to smile.

Scott felt the change first in his chest, a funny, itching sensation that fell just short of pain. For a second, he thought he might be having a heart attack, unconsciously glancing down at his own body. Slowly but perceptibly, his chest was swelling out, forming a recognizable, if somewhat overstated, shape. The buttons on his shirt popped and the material peeled back, revealing not his familiar, mildly hairy chest but, instead, a creamy, abundant female bosom.