Edward Lee - The Minotauress

"I would never say fuckin' Camus!" the Writer almost bellowed.

"—and all those other socially paralyzed misfits."

The Writer steeled himself. "I'll ask you again... Who are you?"

"Jesus, man. You're a published novelist, aren't you?"

"Of course!"

"And didn't you graduate from Yale's English Lit Department with a 4.0?"

The Writer bristled. "Harvard," the word ground out of his breath.

"Did you every really read Conrad, or did you just skim the Cliff Notes?"

This was mortifying. "You're impossible, so I'm hanging up," he informed the phantom voice but now—

The line was dead.

The Writer was left to stand, phone to ear. He could see his own reflection, however scratched, in the chrome box-face. Calm down, he told himself. This is just an alcohol-induced hallucination, nothing more. I'm simply going to go back to my room and go to bed. There's no doppelganger there, no "double," no metaphorical twin. This is just job-stress and too much drinking...

But he did decide to have one more beer before he left. His ruminations, however, stalled him before he could go back inside. Nancy having a sexual dream about him last night was disturbing, of course, because he'd had one about her as well. But that was coincidental, and, as good-looking as she was? Who WOULDN'T have sexual dreams about her? The bull's head on the baby? Now that duped him; the Writer hated Greek Mythology. But it was the hallucinotic phone-voice that puzzled him more. It came from MY subconscious so... how come I don't get it? It was clearly a reference to Joseph Conrad, the acclaimed English writer whose Heart of Darkness proved perhaps the greatest fictional work of applicable modern nihilism ever written, not just the dark heart of Africa but the dark heart of Man.

What could that... have to do with...

Then the Writer recalled his own personal favorite of Conrad's: "The Secret-Sharer."

The story of a merchant sailor, and the man sleeping in the bunk above him... is himself...

His better half...

THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK! he heard next, and jumped at the start.

It sounded like someone kicking a metal door, and beside him, indeed, was a metal door which appeared to be a walk-in refrigerator room for beer. But—

THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK!

It wasn't coming from there. It's coming from... , and the Writer turned his head toward the back lot.

That U-Haul?

Gravel crunched as he walked over, measuring careful steps to off-set his drunkenness. Probably another hallucination, he deduced, but he almost shrieked right after he tapped on the U-Haul's door and was immediately answered by:

THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK-THUNK! and also a muffled squeal.

Someone gagged, kicking and screaming...

He jerked around at the sound of more crunching footsteps. It was Lud, carrying a shuck-and-jive smile.

"There ya are. I was wonderin' where ya got to, son. And can ya believe it? My carry-out burger still ain't ready! Thought I'd come out fer some fresh air whiles I wait—"

"Sir!" the Writer exclaimed. "I think there's someone being held against their will in the U-Haul!"

The wise old man chuckled. "An ab-duck-sher-un, huh? Son, you been watchin' too much'a the news all 'bout that crazy homer-sex-shul fella up north. Ain't nothin' in the U-Haul ‘cept a billy goat I'se driven up ta my sister's place in Crisfield."

The Writer's heart beat down in relief. "Oh, thank God, Lud. Guess I'm a little drunk now—I thought sure I heard a human in there."

"Looky here, son. I'll'se show ya," and then Lud withdrew a flashlight and opened the U-Haul door.

CLACK!

PART three:

ACTUALIZATIONS

(I)

Dicky and Balls returned from their run for Clyde Nale at about 10 p.m. that night. They drove back from their Kentucky distro point with silent smiles on their faces—smiles not so much stemmed in the fact that they'd earned solid money but instead in the knowledge that tomorrow at this time—with any luck—they'd be sitting on much more money. They had no way of knowing that the most paramount actualization of their lives was about to unfold—in fact, they didn't even know what actualization meant.

They stopped back at Dicky's house briefly for a beer, then got back on the road. It was a Van Gogh night blooming overhead. Moonlight dusted the winding asphalt like queer frost. Eventually Dicky broke the content silence as the ‘Mino barreled onward.

"What time ya figure we should get ta Crafter's house?"

"I reckon we'd best wait till midnight," Balls said and, of all things, he'd pronounced the word midnight as "mid-nat." "I'se like that time. The witchin' hour'n all."

"Shore. It ain't far ta Governor's Bridge Road, so's what'cha wanna do fer the next two hours?"

Balls rubbed his hands together. "After a hard day'a runnin' shine? I'd say we'se could use a coupl'a cold ones at the Crossroads."

Dicky nodded and drove on. It sounded cool to him, and why not? After transporting illegal liquor across state lines and laying a momentous "ruckin'" on an innocent woman... that's Miller Time.

Ah-ha...

Attentive readers will recall Ida, the unfortunate and very pregnant volunteer at Clyde Nale's Hock Party, and they will likely be curious as to what happened to her (while less attentive readers or, more regrettably, readers now interminably bored by a convoluted narrative structure, won't care), but as previously conveyed, poor Ida was dragged naked and barely conscious from the ‘Mino before Dicky and Balls had proceeded to Kentucky. After all, she'd called Balls an "asshole," and this was not a prudent thing for a woman to call him. So Dicky had pulled into a convenient wooded clearing—as were rife in these parts—and Balls wasted no time restricting her mobility. Her wrists he'd Flex-Cuffed together and then lashed to the base of a tree while her ankles had been separately cuffed and tent-staked to the ground in a manner which forced her legs apart. The naked woman was now an awesome sight to any practiced sociopath: skin white as proverbial parchment and beaded with cold sweat, eyes bugging, black pubic thatch strained and pushing outward below the five-months-pregnant belly. Balls took several more chugs off those swollen breasts, marveling at the flavor and texture of the sweet, liquor-tinged milk.

" Dang that's good!" he celebrated. "Dicky, you needs ta take a hit. Ain't nothin' like it."

Reluctant as ever, though, Dicky declined but did find the attendant imagery stimulating enough to extract his member and masturbate.

Meanwhile, Balls weighed some thoughts. So taken was he by Ida's milk-gorged breasts and conical nipples that he knew he just had to give her a good old fashioned Tittie Fuck, but, alas... .

Her stomach was too big to accommodate the required position.

Dicky's face twisted up as his own belly jiggled during his act of masturbation. He stomped his heels twice, grunted "Uh!" once very loudly, and ejaculated onto a tree. The viscid emission seemed to resemble a proofreader's mark for New Paragraph.

It was a satisfying climax for Dicky. He shucked the last of it out, then flapped some spillage off his hand. When he looked toward Balls, however—

"Aw, come on, Balls! Ya don't need ta be pullin' more'a that crazy shit! We gots ta get on the road!"

Balls wouldn't hear of it. "Just keep yer shirt on, Dicky. This tramp's set'a knockers are just so primo, I ain't gonna be happy till I have me a Tittie Fuck. So that stomach on her's just got ta go... "

See, while Dicky had been slaking himself, Balls had gone to the car to fetch the Stanley-brand manual brace-drill that he'd used so effectively on that scarecrow with tits at Spit McKully's not too long ago.