Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

That'll fix him.'

The children met again the next morning.

`Where are you going?' asked the first child.

'I'm going wherever the wind blows,' answered the other.

This reply also stopped the youngster, who hurried back to his Dicemaster.

`Ask him tomorrow where he's going if there's no wind. That'll fix him.'

The next day the children met a third time.

`Where are you going?' asked the first child.

`I'm going to the store to buy bubblegum,' the other replied.

from The Book of the Die

Chapter Eighty-three

`Daddy? Why do I have to brush my teeth every day?'

the little girl asked.

`Try this new tube I've got for you, Suzie, and you'll never ask that question again.'

[Close-up of a big long tube of Glare Toothpaste]

But I had to look away because Gina was kneeling on the floor, her hands tied behind her back with her bra, and

Osterflood, with his pants and undershorts bunched at his feet but still dressed in white shirt, tie and suit jacket, was thrusting with his erect, pink weapon at her mouth, cursing her at every poke. I felt I was watching a slow-motion movie showing some huge piston at work, but some flaw in the machinery resulted in the rod's seeming frequently to miss the wide-open mouth which Gina, large-eyed and expressionless, was presenting. Osterflood's sword of vengeance against the female race kept sliding past her cheek or her neck or poking her in the eye. Whenever she would seem to have a good mouthful (she would close her eyes then), Osterflood would withdraw, raging, and thrust away sporadically, redoubling his curses. It wasn't clear whether he hated her more when she sucked him in or when he missed contact and bounced painfully off her forehead. In both cases he seemed like a movie director enraged because she, the actress, didn't mouth her lines correctly.

`Ahhggg! How I hate you,' he yelled and lurched forward and collapsed onto the couch beside me. I smiled over at

him.

He struggled sideways into a sitting position.

`Undress me, you disgusting, filthy hole,' he said loudly.

A cute, frightened peasant girl had joined the number-one earnest American and was pleading with him passionately

about her corn crop. Without any apparent effort, Gina freed her hands and dropped the bra back onto the rug next to

her skirt and sweater and the buttons and the pipe and came to the couch to undress him.

`Get me a drink,' he shouted to no one in particular as Gina tried to slide his pants over his shoes and off. She stood

and said `Sure, honey. You want some acid?'

`I just want your ass, you sink!' he shouted after her.

`It's for the good of your country,' the firm TV voice said.

Osterflood's sword was melting into an arch at the moment but mine wasn't. My body was tingling all over pleasantly and I had to adjust my .38 and my other rod (semi-automatic), to make all continue tingling pleasantly. I wondered how Osterflood could keep his hands off those breasts and buttocks and I deeply resented all his talking and his abominable aim.

He gulped down the drink she brought him while she slowly untied and removed each of his shoes and the CIA man drove a tractor and then on her knees in front of him she removed his necktie, unbuttoned one by one the buttons of his shirt and - all in a slow-motion movie which I watched as if it were a faithful newsreel of the Second Coming #161;she had just managed to slide the second sleeve of his shirt down off his left arm (the peasants I could hear were cheering now and I glanced briefly to catch a glimpse of a forest of white, toothy grins), when Osterflood's huge, muscular arms loomed out, closed around her, his face plowed into her face and his mouth sunk into her mouth.

Gina groaned sharply and the way she twisted indicated he must be hurting her somehow.

`You bastard!' she snapped shrilly when she got her mouth free. She hit him as good a slap as she could from her close-up position, and he grinned and sunk his teeth into her shoulder. As she scratched at his back he toppled her backward onto the rug with a tremendous crash. When he raised himself off her to place his weapon into the disgusting cesspool, she got in a few blows at his face and then he was in and working.

There wasn't much to see: just Osterflood's big buttocks moving a few inches up and down as he plowed away at Gina's rich earth and her fingers splayed out on his back and occasionally changing position, as if she were playing chords. Gina was groaning, when Osterflood abruptly rose to his knees, flipped her over onto her stomach like a farmer working with a sack of wheat and fumbled with his weapon to reengage the enemy in her other cave. When he thrust himself into her and fell forward upon her Gina let loose a terrible scream. It corresponded so perfectly with gun shots from the screen that I looked back quickly to see a beautiful, frightened peasant girl with a ripped blouse clutching the arm of the number one earnest American and the peasant spies blasting away from behind a chicken coop.

Gina was fighting with her right arm to raise herself and twist Osterflood off and out -of her, but he bore down, pulling, her hair with one hand and controlling her right arm with the other. His professional-wrestler role seemed to be paying off.

`Bitchbitchbitch,' he gasped, and the American was dragging the beautiful peasant girl through a cornfield and bullets were shattering the kernels every which way and Osterflood was banging Gina's head against the rug and the American tossed a grenade and whomp! the chink peasants were splattered like fertilizer over the cornfield and 'Diediedie-bitchbitch,' Osterflood hissed and with a supreme thrust deep into her anus they both screamed.

An unearthly silence filled the room. The beautiful peasant girl was looking with most frightened eyes from the pieces of peasant to the earnest American. 'My God,' she said.

`Steady,' the deep voice answered. `We've won this round, but there's always more of them.'

Osterflood rolled off his conquered foe with a grunt, his weapon still cocked, but presumably discharged.

Gina's hilly form lay quietly for a few moments and then she got to her knees and stood up. Although she was still facing away toward the TV set, I could see blood running in a tiny stream down the right corner of her mouth and something was smeared down the inside of one thigh. Slowly she moved off to the left and disappeared into what seemed to be a bathroom.

I was perspiring a good deal and a lady was smiling ecstatically as she held up her laundry and I found myself sailing over to the liquor cabinet and fixing three more drinks, adding mostly melted ice.

Osterflood was lying on his back when I sailed back again, but he sat up to take the drink I offered him. He stared

wild-eyed at me.

'I'm going to be killed,' he said.

I'd forgotten all about that.

He clutched at my pants leg, spilling part of his drink on the rug.

'I'm going to die. I know it. You've got to do something.'

'It's all right,' I said.

'No, no, it's not, it's not. I feel it strongly. I deserve to die.'

`Come into the kitchen,' I said.

He stared wild-eyed at me.

'I want to show you something,' I added.

`Oh,' he said, and with a great effort he turned himself onto his hands and knees and staggered to his -feet.

I flowed off behind his whale-like form toward the kitchen and as he passed through the door in front of me I drew

my gun from my pocket, raised it in a long endless arc up over my head, and then down with all my force onto the top

of Osterflood's huge head.

'Wha'sat?'

Osterflood said, stopping and turning, and slowly raising a hand to his head.

I gazed openmouthed at his erect, swaying, hulking body.