Harlan Ellison - Spider Kiss

Luther coughed self-consciously, covered it with another, a forced cough from deep in the throat.

Shelly dragged on the cigarette.

The elevator sighed open beyond the door, and the doorbell went off an instant later. They each started, and Shelly recovered first, pushing back his chair. “I’ll get it. Must be Jeanie.”

When he opened the door, the girl caught him with her eyes, and there was a glint of something quick, taunting, smoldering. She smiled, lowering her eyes coquettishly. “Hello, Sheldon,” she said, whispering it; calculated sexuality couched in a tight challenge. One step out of reach. It was wholly incongruous: this was Shelly, or Shel or Shel-baby, but never, except by Mama Morgenstern, Sheldon.

He felt his face going tight; the bitch with the heart like a popsicle. She edged past him, her smile turned elsewhere, but somehow (Bast, you cat goddess!) still on Shelly. He watched her back as she moved across the room … the play of her legs, moving more than her body. She had a way of carrying herself that most tall girls had never learned. It was the movement they spoke about when they used the word statuesque.

Silkenly, gliding, coming off the balls of the feet in little, long strides that stretched the fabric of her slim skirt taut; strides that made strangely disturbing emotions run through the Colonel’s right-hand man.

“Good evening, Colonel Freeport,” she said, and though there was nothing in the tone, Shelly could detect a come-on as flagrant as any he’d ever encountered.

Jean Friedel was on the make.

Not for Shelly and his measly twenty grand a year, but for something bigger. Perhaps Freeport, perhaps anyone else who had wanted what she wanted. Did it really matter who?

This was the tempting shape of the hungry ones in Jungle York.

“Good evening, Jean.” The Colonel smiled at her with the particular return-smile of a man who has known a woman, and further, knows what she is, who she is. Shelly found a spiteful pleasure in the knowledge that though Jean looked at Sheldon Morgenstern as small peanuts … still, she would never hook the Colonel. Freeport might make her, if she was offering it, but she was being conned. By an expert.

“We’ll be needing your superlative stenographic abilities, my dear.” Freeport leered at her. To Shelly, it was the smile of the cat, gauging tibia, fibula and femur. To Jean Friedel, it was a return image of her own come-on.

To Colonel Jack Freeport, it was getting the job done. A girl who thought she would get something for “service” would be certain to give good—service.

“Jean, I’d like you to meet Luther. You’ll be taking down some things Luther has to say in a few minutes, and we want to be sure you keep it in strictest confidence.

“We have big things planned for this boy.” He waved her on to Luther, who stared at the tall, dark-haired girl with an open appraisal.

It was slave-block time in the land of Luther Sellers.

The boy leaped up and shook hands with the hotel stenographer vigorously. His smile was as engaging in intensity as his scowl had been facing Asa Kemp. “I’m very pleased to meetcher, Miss—” He left it hanging the way he had seen it done in the movies.

She gave him a beggar’s smile and moved the flash and fire back to Freeport. “I’m ready any time you are, Colonel.”

I’ll just bet you are , thought Shelly.

Freeport waved Shelly and Jean to chairs at the table, settled back with another pill and a glass of water. For a moment Luther stood staring at the trio, then he too sat down, placing himself across the table from the others. Almost as though sides were being drawn up.

“Well, Luther, it’s time we dispensed with some very small business details,” the Colonel said. He beamed at the boy and opened his mouth to speak again.

“Sixty percent.” Luther stopped him. “I get sixty percent of my own contract.”

Shelly was too amazed to notice the Colonel’s expression, but he was certain it was one of blood-draining confusion. Of course, the boy would pull off no such hat trick, but the gall … the temerity…

One hour later, far less time than any of them thought it would take, Colonel Jack Freeport (Savannah, New York, Cannes and London) had agreed to a contract the terms of which assigned Shelly Morgenstern thirty percent of Luther Seller’s earnings, himself thirty percent, and the boy retained forty percent. It was not that unusual a legal form, except Freeport had never before gone that route. He owned one hundred percent (where more was not feasible) of any enterprise he dipped into, and at the end of that contract, there were several shifts in attitude.

Freeport realized he had a live item on his hands, one which was not going to be duped, and for that reason came to the competition better prepared; Freeport was unsettled about Luther’s hipness in gaining majority control of his own contract—how had he pulled that cursed stunt?—but he was already counting unhatched chickens.

Luther’s opinion had changed, also. He was not so much in awe of these dynamiting promoters. He had bluffed once, had made it stick, and realized his muscles were firmer than he had thought.

Shelly changed his mind radically: Luther’s brand of WhatMakesSammyRun was not innocent ruthlessness. It was calculated. At that moment, what had been vague distaste for his brain child, turned chameleon-like into outright dislike.

As for Jean Friedel…

The base of operations had shifted. In her heart of hearts she could not see the difference between grave-robbing and cradle-robbing. All’s fair …

And so that was how Luther Sellers gained control of the valuable contract of Stag Preston.

Since one admired the other so much, it seemed just naturally the way the old mop flops. Or as Shelly put it in one of his getting-more-frequent introspective moments: That, friends, is how the old train derails .

Phil Moore did things with Luther Sellers that Pygmalion would have admired. It was decided at a policy meeting that they would avoid the Jerry Lee Lewis image (spangled jackets, yellow ochre peg-cuff pants, fifteen pounds of marcelled hair, green lace shirts), while at the same time steering away from the Pat Boone brand of cleanliness. He was consequently inculcated by the mysteries of slim Continental suits, Italian loafers, conservative gray ties and a manner of walking, talking, thinking that retained the minuscule charms of his Kentucky roots, forcefully brought out the humble, disarming manner so psychologically necessary for proper identity, while at the same time reinforcing the animal sexuality of the boy.

They tried names on.

Luther fitted badly inside a charcoal-gray name like Bruce Barton. He glared out hostilely when covered with Alan Prince. The vulgar innuendo of Brick Colter sat on his shoulders jarringly, and Matt Gore almost made it but was eventually discarded because the sleeves were too long.

It was Shelly who came up with Stag Preston.

Natural? Like a run of sevens.

As it was analyzed nine months later in a journal of general semantics: “We cannot by any means overlook the simplest explanation of the surname; it is that combination of onomatopoeia and naturalism quickly identified as masculine, forceful, imperative. Stallion, stud, stag —each of these conjures the phallic interpretation, sets aside any misconceptions of homosexuality due to the nature of the bearer’s style or bearing, and leads the gestalt female attention to the heart of the bearer’s presentation. ‘Preston’ bears the same hard quality, in much the same manner employed by Thomas Hardy when he called the hero of The Mayor of Casterbridge Michael Henchard . Henchard, trenchard. Such awareness, on the part of those responsible for Mr. Preston’s public image, of the subliminal potency of the sound of certain words, merely indicates yet another of the many reasons for this young man’s success.”