Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

'I'm glad you turned over,' came the voice from his mouth. 'I want you from behind like a dog.'

It was not his voice.

He was holding her down with arms that were just too strong; they were like metal bars; she felt like a rabbit in a cage that was too small for it, and then he was entering her from behind — god damn him, this was rape — and it hurt, and now he was shifting his cock, putting it up her ass — 'Oh you bastard you shit!'

'What's the matter, sweet Candy?'

Not his voice?

She heard his clothes ripping. He had both his hands clamped down on her wrists, his knees on the bed, so how could he be ripping his clothes? There must be someone else in the room helping him. Maybe she wasn't dead. Candy hadn't heard anything about it on the news. Maybe Pearldoll wasn't dead, maybe she was here and they were going to sacrifice her on this pentagram —

And then she saw the woman's hands closing on her forearms. Those little white fingers with their oxblood nails. Pearldoll's. Digging into her forearms from behind. Then moving up to her breasts, digging into them with her nails, hurting, piercing, blood running over her nipples. A scream caught in Candy's throat.

They were taking her together. Pearldoll had hidden herself up here — must be lying close beside him.

Candy squirmed, trying to turn around to spit in the bitch's face. Frank held her down, and Candy only managed a glimpse over her shoulder. Saw only Frank's face, laughing without sound, something weirdly faggy in it. Maybe he was a repressed gay and that's why he was raping her up the ass and, God, they were going to kill her —

Panic went off, burned like a Fourth of July sparkler in her, and she thrashed and screamed at them, tried to see Pearldoll so she could kick her, could only see Pearldoll's arms, fingers clawing at her eyes. Tried to wriggle free, it was hurting more and more and more…

The red candle on the little blue Santa Fe-style end table beside the bed had been burning awhile, was pooled with quivery molten candle wax. Candy shot a hand out, grabbed the candle, flung its hot wax over her shoulder into the grinning bastard's eyes…

He shrieked with a sound like a cat under a car's tire, and his grip loosened for a moment, Pearldoll's, too. Candy wrenched loose, clawed free of them.

Scrambled around to face them, looking for something to throw.

Froze.

Frank's clothes lay in tatters beside the bed. There were two of them, facing Candy — two of them there, nude. The light made it seem… No. It wasn't the light.

There was only one. Made of two. Frank's head and shoulders and arms. And her arms, growing out of his torso, down under his arms. Pearldoll's arms and hands looking too small on Frank's body, making Candy think of Buster's Revelle model of a Tyrannosaurus.

He had no dick. He had no cock. He had a…

'No way,' Candy said. 'No fucking way.'

It was Pearldoll's face. (Where was the door?) Pearldoll's face in his crotch, instead of his genitals. (Find something to throw.) Pearldoll's giggling, rabid-animal face.

Looking out from Frank's crotch, Pearldoll opened her mouth. Frank's cock came out of her mouth instead of a tongue. She had his cock for her tongue.

Frank opened his mouth, and then she saw that he had two tongues, one smaller and pinker than his own. Her voice came out of his mouth. Her voice mixed with his. 'Want you. Always wanted you. Frank said you wouldn't share.' Taunting. 'Frank wouldn't kill you. Wouldn't hurt you. Bitch. Bitch. Brother Devil gave Frank to me and me to Frank and you, now. Bitch, bitch, bitch —»

Candy sprinted for the door. White fingers with oxblood nails closed on her wrist, jerked her off-balance so she fell facedown, skidding. The air knocked out of her.

Pearldoll's voice chanted in Spanish. A wave of weakness washed over Candy. A sweet, warm weakness. A weakness that soothed and murmured comforting lies. She was limp, like that time she'd taken three ludes, like a jellyfish, and someone was dragging her to the white sheet with the red pentagram…

It felt nice, being dragged that way. Like the rug was a big tongue licking her whole body, warm and wet. Stoned. Stoned on something. Magic or drugs or both. Fight it.

There was no fighting it. Not even when Frank straddled her and she saw Pearldoll's face descending toward hers, filling her vision, a pretty Japanese-Swedish face surrounded by pubic hair, legs to either side, coming down at her. Mouth opening. Quivering from inside that mouth, veinily tumesced, his cock, plunging toward Candy's mouth…

Suck, something commanded, and she did, and choked, and then Pearldoll pushed closer and began to chew off Candy's lips, and it all took a long time, and it was funny how little it hurt to be eaten alive…

'Love to eat Candy,' said Pearldoll and Frank.

Before she was drawn in to a puddle of warm blood and liquid flesh, like red candle wax melting, she wondered what part of Frank's body her own face would look out of.

THE KIND MEN LIKE Karl Edward Wagner

She was better than Betty Page,' said Steinman. 'We used to call her Better Page!'

He laughed mechanically at his own tired joke, then started to choke on his beer. Steinman coughed and spluttered, foam oozing down his white-goateed chin. Chelsea Gayle reached across the table and patted him ungently on his back.

'Thanks, miss. It's these cigarettes.' Morrie Steinman dabbed at his face with a bar napkin, blinking his rheumy eyes. He gulped another mouthful of beer and continued: 'Of course, that always made her mad. Kristi Lane didn't like to be compared to any other model — didn't matter if you told her she was ten times better. Kristi'd just pout her lips that way she'd do and tell you in a voice that'd freeze Scotch in your mouth that there was no one like her.'

'And there wasn't,' Chelsea agreed. 'How long did you work with her?'

'Let's see.' Steinman finished his beer and set down the empty glass with a deep sigh. Chelsea signaled to the barmaid, who was already pouring another. She guessed Steinman was a regular here. It was an autumn afternoon, and the tired SoHo bar was stagnant and deserted. Maybe soon new management would convert it into something trendy; maybe they'd just knock it down with the rest of the aging block.

'I was working freelance, mostly. Shooting photo sessions sometimes for the magazines, sometimes for the mail-order pin-up markets, sometimes for the private photo clubs where you could get away with a lot more. Of course, 'a lot more' back in the fifties meant 'a lot less' than you can see on TV these days.

'Thank you, miss.' Steinman sipped his fresh beer, watching the barmaid walk away from their booth. 'I remember doing a few pin-up spreads of Kristi for Harmony Publishing back about '52 or '53 — stuff for girlie magazines like Wink and Eyeful and Titter. They'd seem tame and corny now, but back then…'

The paunchy photographer rolled his eyes and made a smacking sound with his lips. Chelsea thought of a love-stricken geriatric Lou Costello.

'After that I shot several of her first few cover spots — magazines like Gaze and Satan and Modern Sunbathing. That must have been the mid '50s. Of course, she was also doing a lot of work for the old bondage-and-fetish photo sets, same as Betty Page. I heard once that Kristi and Betty did a few sessions together, but if that's true no one I know's ever seen them.'

'Did Kristi Lane do any work for Irving Klaw?'

'Not a lot that I can recall. I remember introducing them sometime about 1954, or was it 1953? I think they