Jeff Gelb: Hot Blood: Tales of Erotic Horror

"Hey!" Scarlett shouted. The bubble burst over her lips. "What're you do —»

The thang, totally out of control, overturned the table on its rigid ascent. Scarlett went over, too, and as Dave stood up he saw with a mixture of horror and fascination that the thang protruded at least fifteen inches from his burst zipper. Scarlett started to get up, furious and beautiful, and she saw it. Her face blanched, going fish-belly white under the red glare. She made a soft moaning sound, and fell backward to the carpet in a dead faint.

The brunette dancer screamed and pointed. Dave was trying to grasp hold of the thang, but it was writhing back and forth like a cobra, and he realized with fresh terror that his testicles had swollen to the size of small cannonballs. Somebody hit the jukebox, the needle skidding screechingly across the tracks. There was a moment of dead silence as Dave grappled with the thang. It had grown two more inches, and was still pistoning itself outward bound.

"Good God A'mighty!" a hoarse male voice yelled. "The sumbitch is possessed !"

People rushed for the doors, overturning tables and chairs. Dave's thang was monstrously thick, the size of a small artillery piece. Its weight careened him around the room in crazed circles, and behind the bar a Latin-looking guy held up a Crucifix and dived for cover. Dave caught the thrashing head; he ran for Bourbon Street, turning the thang like a rudder before him.

He was sure that in all the generations of its existence, Bourbon Street had seen many sights. He doubted, though, that any of those sights had caused such commotion: shouting, laughter, shrieks, and screams, fainting from some of the women. The thang's head could've fit in a combat helmet, its twenty-two-inch length throbbing with menacing intent. The French Quarter revelers parted before him, and Dave saw a red-eyed drunk salute him and keel to the concrete. A carriage horse reared up, pawing the air, its own equipment puny in comparison to the thang.

Shouts and screams followed him down Bourbon Street. Two tall, big-boned women in glittery dresses yelled, "Glory be!" and "Lord I'm havin' a heart attack!" Dave had staggered several paces beyond them when he realized they were men dressed as women. A group of people who wore white makeup and frightwigs began to chase him along the street, and whether they were men or women Dave didn't know. He gripped the thang, ruddering it in the direction he needed to go, and he prayed he could get to his hotel before… well, just before.

He ran through the dimly lit lobby, leaving the guy behind the counter gawking and frantically wiping his glasses. Then Dave hoisted himself up the stairs, the thang's head banging on the risers before him. He fled to his room, slammed the door shut, and threw the latch.

He pressed his back against the door, gasping for breath.

The thang began to shrink. It rapidly deflated, along with the bulging blue testicles. Dave felt his center of balance shifting, and he staggered around a bit before he could find his equilibrium again. The thang went down through seventeen inches, fifteen, thirteen, eleven, nine, six, four… choke! … three. And then the devilish thang hung like a boiled shrimp again, the testicles the size of small river stones. The pounding of his pulse had subsided, and all that blood had been re-routed to the main currents once more.

Dave laughed. It had a crazy note in it, because Dave had realized Miss Fallon's elixir certainly worked — but if every erection was gargantuan, what woman would welcome such a monster? His head spun; he got to the telephone, tore open the phone book, and turned to "Fallon." There was a baker's dozen. Feverishly he began to dial the first number. A man answered and immediately slammed the phone down when Dave asked, "Does the woman who has the voodoo shop live there?"

And so it went, hang-up after hang-up. One woman scorched his ears with salty Cajun expletives. Dave sat with the phone in his lap after he'd called the last Fallon and an elderly man had told him to go to hell. It was going to be an eternity before dawn.

Dave took a cold shower. The thang slept, deceptively small. Dave got in bed, pulled the sheet up to his neck, closed his eyes in the steamy room, and counted sheep. He found himself counting moist-lipped strippers, dancing on tabletops. The thang gave a little twitch that made the hair stand up on the back of Dave's neck. He thought desperately of having a tax audit, and the thang settled down once more. Dave turned over on his stomach and finally went to sleep.

He opened his eyes. It was still dark. The noise of Bourbon Street had quieted, but his heart hammered. What had wakened him? He lay still, listening.

From the street came a woman's shout, a voice that was sultry and perhaps more than a little intoxicated: "Hey, anybody want a freebie? Last call, fellas! Ginger's givin' it away!"

Oh, my God, Dave had time to think, before his body began to rise on a fleshy, throbbing pole.

"Hey, you studs!" Ginger called. "Come on! I need a man, baby!"

Dave grabbed hold of the iron bedframe, locking his fingers. The thang wriggled out from under him, already seventeen inches long and rapidly expanding in girth. The huge head twisted toward the room's door, and it began thrusting with a strength that wrenched his grip from the bedframe. The thang pulled him with it, onto the floor, and as Dave landed on his belly the cannonball-sized testicles quivered and marched toward the door like alien pods. The thang was in control now, and Dave reached up, grabbing a table; it crashed over, along with a lamp. The thang strained upward, trying to grip the doorknob.

"Come on!" Ginger called impatiently. "Anybody got six inches he wants to get —»

Oh, Lord, Dave thought; if she only knew.

The thang's head rammed against the door. There was no pain, but the door cracked. Dave grabbed the thang, as if he were choking a snake. The thang twisted loose from his hands and battered against the door. With a single, violent thrust it smashed through the wood, a fleshy battering ram, and sent nerveshocks all the way to the top of Dave's skull.

"I want to paaaarrrrrteeeee !" Ginger howled, like an outcast animal.

"I'm in charge here, dammit!" Dave shouted as he grabbed the writhing thang with both arms and dragged it back in. "I'm in charge here, you dumb piece of me —»

The thang turned, reddened as if enraged, and twined itself around Dave's throat.

He could see the headline of the newspaper when they found his body. That image gave him strength; he grappled with the thang as it squeezed his throat, servant against master, and his testicles pulsed like renegade brains. He got his hand in the coils, forcing some breathing space. The thang twisted away from him, almost disdainfully, and crashed against the door. The hinges creaked, one of them tearing loose from the wall in a flurry of paint and splinters.

"Aw, ya bunch of cockless bastards!" Ginger said; her voice was fading as she drifted on along Bourbon Street.

The thang thrashed wildly back and forth, pistoning against the door. The second hinge broke, and the door crashed down into the hallway. Another door opened, an elderly man and woman peering out; they saw what appeared to be a naked man fighting a pale python, and they retreated into their room and began to drag furniture against their door.

Dave caught the thang in a strangling grip. The head turned crimson, the veined length coiling back and forth in muscular fury. "No!" Dave shouted, sweat on his face. "No! No! No!"

He thought he heard the damned thang whimper. It shrank, and the testicles almost instantly decreased. In another moment the thang had contracted to its usual tiny self, and Dave was never so glad of anything in his life.