The Minotauress

At last the space between them collapsed, and that warm, paragonic body was pressing him against the wall. Feminine heat and redneck perfume blanketed him; it seeped into his nostrils and through his pores like the most indulgent narcotic. When her hands slid up his chest, he felt pleasantly electrocuted. He moaned, then, nearly convulsing when she licked up his neck, sucked his earlobe, then stuck her hand inside his shirt to his bare skin. 'I just got such a fixin' fer you, I'se all in a tizzy,' she whispered. She'd opened his shirt fully now, and pressed her bare breasts against him. The sensation catalyzed him in a rapport of euphoria that he could only describe as heavenly. Her nipples seemed to sweetly brand him and then she licked along his neck again, giggled, and finessed a delectable tongue into his mouth. The Writer's arms wrapped around her as if holding onto an abstraction that would prevent him from plummeting to his death—a death that he might even welcome in the midst of this ephemeral bliss.

Suction pulled his tongue into her mouth. Her hand cradled his crotch, squeezing in pulses and inciting an erection that was suddenly so hard it hurt. Carry me away, he thought to the Fates. He convulsed in the gentle jaws of this penultimate contradiction—Evanescent permanence, he mused. Cacophonic silence. Fleeting immortality...

'I belong to you body'n soul,' a delicious whisper twanged in his ear.

She's Thomas Pynchon's V, he knew. She's the woman I want the most but, alas, the woman I can never have, because to have her is to beckon chaos.

The Writer could barely breathe as he gingerly pushed away from her and the rest of her world-tainted perfection.

'You're the woman of my dreams, Nancy,' he returned her whisper, 'and that is the reason I must go now... '

Her smile lit up every corner of his psyche as she daintily backed away, bunny ears pitching. 'I'll'se get you one'a these days... '

'I know,' he croaked. 'Goodnight... '

'See ya tomorrow, Mr. Writer!' she said and slipped back into her room, and—yes!—she'd pronounced the word writer as 'ratter.'

Shuddering, his mind a schism now, the Writer entered his own room and turned in the feeble light.

Did a shadow move?

A ghost, perhaps?

After a night such as this, could his spirit now be a beacon for apparitions?

No, I'm just tired and exhilarated at the same time. So much happened tonight: portents, marvels, the sheer unfathomable...

His lighter stalled beneath the cigarette he'd just put in his mouth. He was staring down at his desk. Beside the Remington Standard Typing-Machine No. 2 was a veritable stack of paper.

A drone filled his head when he picked it up. Three hundred pages at least, and every single one filled with type-written words.

My God, my novel... He stared further, as if over a cliff. It's finished...

He looked at the first page and gulped. The original title, WHITE TRASH GOTHIC, had been typed over with X's, and a line below it, a mysterious new title had been typed. The new title was this: THE MINOTAURESS.

THE HORN-CRANKER

PROLOGUE

The high sun beamed in the sleepy South Dakota summer, and its light painted the boy's already well-tanned arms. This was all part of him, part of his rich and hardy upbringing. The grazeland scent, the whipping wind, and the sun.

The day's beauty sang across the endless land.

'Their horns are their power, son,' the boy's father warned. Rugged, overalled. Kind-eyed but resolute. 'So ya gotta take that power, take it right away from 'em. Otherwise, they'll gore ya; they'll ram their horns right up your ass. I seen it happen to a man once, and it weren't pretty. He died like a dog 'cos his shit mixed all up with his blood.'

Wow! the young boy thought. Shit... mixed with blood!

'He got to pukin' too, throwin' up his own shit right there in the cattle-gate.'

Wuh—WOW!

The boy was but nine years old at the time of this crucial indoctrination. He didn't know what dick hair was, nor sex, nor did he even know what the infrequent hardening of this dinger meant. It was just something that happened. The boy was innocence unspoiled. Until now.

'So here's what'cha do—' The boy's father grabbed the instrument—called a torque-plier—and raised it in the sun. 'Handy as a pocket on a shirt, boy—this here pair'a horn-crankers.' He took a strong, hard huff, and fit the queer tool's clamps over the steer's horn.

Then twisted for all he was worth.

The act begot the strangest sound, like a hinge squeaking, then wood splintering:

kreeeee-CRUNCH!

'Eeee-YEAH!' the boy's father grunted with earnest effort, and simultaneously the wicked tool in his hands successfully yanked the left horn out of the 1,900-pound Black Angus gelding's skull.

The steer, understandably, howled.

The young boy looked into the hole that had been caused by this rude and cruel extraction. A gritty, wet hole in the skull now replaced the once-proud horn. Pinpoints of blood began to appear inside.

Wow! the boy thought. A hole—in its head!

The mammoth beast bucked in its steel gate, still howling, snot flying away in ropes. Metal clattered, hooves pounded the earth.

'If it could get out of there, son, it'd gore us lickety-split. It'd kill every thing that moved.'

The boy peered closer at the huge trapped beast. Yeah, but it CAN'T get out! It CAN'T! Then came a fit of giggling.

Next, the boy's father wrenched out poor beast's second horn.

kreeee-CRUNCH!

The steer, again, howled. Its howl trumpeted over the farm's vast expanse like a vociferation from hell...

'There ya go.'