Harlan Ellison - Spider Kiss

“Hold it a minute, Jeanie … hey … oh hell, she hung up, Stag. It was Jean. She has some contracts, she’s on her way over. I told her we’d wait.”

Stag looked over the girl critically. Her skin was a honey-tan, and her body was firm, tight, built the way teen-aged girls had never been built when Shelly had been that age and the girls wore colored bobby sox and pennies in their loafers. Stag liked what he saw. He didn’t want to wait for Jean and the contracts, lose any of the two hours he had.

Today was quickie day. Every day was quickie day.

The original Stag Preston was hungry, and felt no need to wait for his dinner. “I don’t feel like waiting. I’m going up to the hotel for a rest.” He turned to the little redhead with the ponytail and the large chest. “Hi, I’m Stag Preston, who’re you?” The smile was straight out of the Crocodile That Swallowed Captain Hook.

She colored and answered softly, “I’m Marlene. I’m President of the Secaucus Stag Preston Fan Club.” She beamed.

Stag turned to Shelly with a questioning glance.

“New Jersey,” Shelly explained.

Ohhh , Stag made a wide head-movement back to Marlene. “Oh, sure, of course! Secaucus, New Jersey . Great town, very pretty.”

Shelly died a little inside as Stag called an industrial town more marshland-and-stink than habitation a “great town.” It was customary when riding the tollways past Secaucus to place thumb and forefinger over nose, and pray. But the busty redhead swallowed the schmaltz and continued beaming.

As Stag studied his prey, deciding what gambit would be least taxing to get the chick up to the hotel room, Shelly studied Stag. In the clean sunlight coming off the fire escape he was quite a different image from the one thrown against nightclub dims or onstage spots. He was no longer the young and vital Stag of Louisville days, or that night in Cleveland when ABC-Paramount Records had first seen him. He drinks too much now , Shelly thought, cataloging what he could see in the planes and lines of Stag’s face. He’s running in company too fast and worthless. And no one can tell him anything. He won’t last past forty; the gaff’ll kill him .

A voice deep inside added, If we’re lucky .

Yet Shelly realized Stag’s popularity had not waned. If anything, it had grown, by the mystic underground communication system of the teen-agers who loved him. Teen-agers just like sexy little Marlene here. A girl who was going to be main course on Stag’s next meal.

“Well, listen … uh, Marlene? Marlene. Listen, I’m a little beat, you can understand.” She nodded on schedule. “And I’ve got to go up to my hotel for about an hour or so, but since I’ve met you I’d like to give you a souvenir, a memento you know, somethin’ personal of mine to keep. How’d you like that?”

Ding ding ding!

Shelly’s eyes rolled up in his head at that one. Had Marlene been anything but a precocious teen-ager, brought up on the saliva of confession magazines, toothpaste ads that guaranteed her charm as well as protection , and a distorted Hollywood view of life in our times, she would have laughed the crude proposal back into Stag’s teeth. But all her sex had been on the sofa in the rec room while Mom and Dad watched the big tv upstairs, or in the rear seat of a compact car while the drive-in movie raged above, so she turned crimson again and nodded agreement.

“Great,” Stag said enthusiastically. “Shelly, you stick here and wait for Jeanie with the contracts. I’ll just walk Marlene over to the—”

“I’m coming along.”

Stag’s face got hard suddenly. “I said you could wait, here , Shelly. I’ll walk Marlene over to the—”

“I’m coming.”

His jaw muscles jumped, and his mouth worked, but he did not repeat himself. More words and it would become apparent that there was something not quite proper in what Stag had suggested, or it might even (Heaven forbid!) convey the impression that Stag was not sovereign of all he surveyed. “Okay, sure, Shel,” Stag agreed with the bite of the asp in his voice.

Shelly wrote a note to Jean Friedel asking her to leave the contracts. It was obvious to Shelly that had Jean not called to say she was coming over, Stag would not have bothered taking the girl to the hotel, he would have made his play here in the dressing room.

They left by the stage entrance and as they emerged from the fire door, Marlene gave a squeal and ran to her friends still clustered and waiting. Stag bolted to the waiting taxi; Shelly lagged—without spoken instructions—for the girl.

“Listen, listen, hey, I’m goin’ over to Stag’s hotel for a souvenir. Listen, you come on along and wait outside downstairs and I’ll get him to wave to you,” Marlene burbled. “I’ll get him to step to the window with me an’ an’ an’ Trudy, hey, you take a pictchuh of us willya, huh?” Her words were excited, tripping, confused in pleasure.

Trudy—the fat girl with pimples—nodded furiously that if Marlene could get Stag to step up to the window and lean out, or onto the balcony or whatever the hotel had, she would be nutty insane wild craaaazy to take a pictchuh!

So Marlene waved, joined Shelly, and got into the cab for the three block ride over to the Sheraton-Astor, the Colonel’s big suite, and Marlene’s souvenir from her idol, Stag Preston.

Oh pretty baby , thought Stag Preston, am I gonna give you a souvenir . Fa-jooomp!

Marlene squealed when she saw the opulence of the suite. The Colonel was out and the place was silent; vulgarly garish in the full sunlight of day, a suite designed for dusk-to-dark-to-dawn living but uncomfortably blaring in the light of day.

Shelly mixed himself a drink, waiting for Stag to make his play, and settled into a chair near the door.

Stag suggested to Marlene she might use one of the bathrooms to powder her nose, in the event of a picture being taken, and when the redhead had swirled into the bedroom the singer advanced on Shelly.

“Hey, listen, guy, what the hell is this?”

“Statutory rape, Stag.”

“Say, listen, get your finger outta my eye, baby. This kid has a set on her like a cow. Don’t tell me she don’t know what it’s all about. If she had as many stickin’ outta her as she’s had in her, she’d look like a pin cushion.”

Shelly sipped at his Scotch. “What’s the matter, Stag, isn’t Carlene keeping you happy these days? You got to take off after every good looking piece that comes in range?”

“Now, listen, Shelly … nothing’s going to happen to her. I promise you. Just grab a quick feel. Hell, I’ve only got—” he consulted his wristwatch, “—another forty minutes before I have to be back at The Palace. I promise not to make the kid do anything she doesn’t want to do. But who the hell are you to stop her if she wants to neck with Stag Preston for a while. Probably the biggest thrill of her life.”

Shelly thought about it for a moment. Actually, the girl was as hip as any chick her age, with her looks and build, would be. If he went in the next room Stag wouldn’t try anything. He’d hear any noise. And so what if Stag did feel her up a little? She’d blush and carry the tale back to the Secaucus Fan Club like a banner:

You know what happened when he hugged me? I mean Stag Preston! He put his right hand here and he was smilin’ all the time, you wouldn’t expect it almost in public but he was so strong, y’know, and when he kissed me I mean he Frenched me and all, y’know, oh God it was the wildest and“

It wouldn’t do any harm, not if there was someone handy in the next room in case Stag got out of hand. And it would keep the animal at bay a little longer, till he could take it out on Carlene. That was safest, letting him release his hungers on a paid—no, stop thinking like that, she used to live with you, stop thinking of her with recriminations, she’s no more a paid whore than … just stop thinking that way. Stop!