"Who"s there," he said, trying to keep a desperate quaver from his voice.

"Shhssssssssssssssssss," something answered. It could have been a rattlesnake or a cat as easily as a human.

Something touched him, grabbed him at the waist. Tony froze, not knowing whether compliance was safest or if he should strike-and possibly risk getting stabbed or shot by his unseen a.s.sailant. Actually, he supposed the hands on his body couldn"t be accused of a.s.sault. He was the intruder here, after all.

The pressure on his left side abated and he felt a tickle at his crotch. His zipper protested in the dark, and then his belt loosened. Still he couldn"t move. He was so scared he wanted to scream, to run, but he could do neither, only stand flat against the wall in the groping night as his underwear dropped to his feet and something cold and smooth brushed against his c.o.c.k-which completely ignored the paralyzed fear of the rest of him and responded with an instant erection.

Which was first gripped and tugged by a cold hardness, like the surgical probing of a doctor wearing rubber gloves for a prostate exam, he thought. And then there was a wetness, an engulfing, and the two gripping appendages began working the rest of him, pinching his b.u.t.tocks, sliding down his thighs, moving with icy grace across the hair of his chest. They were warming now, as was Tony, who had surrendered the fear, surrendered his questions. He pressed his hands to the wall as the caressing hands worked their erotic way across his skin, the unseen mouth working with unbelievable expertise up and down his hardened member. Teeth trailed lazily across just the right nerves, fingers pinched his nipples at just the right moment. As the tingling in his groin grew to a waterfall of breath-stealing sensation, Tony realized that this was, indeed, the perfect b.l.o.w.j.o.b and closed his eyes as the moment exploded.

When he opened them again, the hands had receded. He was sitting on the room"s short, sandpaper-rough carpet and could see now, sort of, in the darkness. There was no one else in the room.

"No names, no faces, no price," the peep show graffiti had said. "Unspeakable pleasure."

It delivered what it advertised, he thought, just as something small and hairy darted across his leg. Tony jumped up, ending his reverie with a shiver. Pulling up his pants, he left the room still buckling his belt. Too weird, he thought, hurrying back to his car. He was weak as he slid in behind the wheel. The experience had been so intense, so draining ... It was incredible, he thought, but too weird for me.

"Tony? Tony?"

The vision of the blonde G.o.ddess from the peep show burying her head between his legs in a shadowy derelict hotel room vanished, replaced by the less welcome sight of his balding overweight boss, leaning over the desk and staring at him with a perplexed expression.

"Tony, you"ve been drooling into s.p.a.ce for the past 15 minutes. Are you alright?"

Tony shook his head to clear away the stubborn ache of his daydream.

"Yeah, Bob. Sorry. I just ... didn"t get much sleep last night."

"Why don"t you go lay down in the lounge for a few minutes?" Bob Mackenzie smiled. "I"d tell you to go on home, but I do need to have that Web report by the end of the week, you know."

"I know. You"ll have it. I"m just having a little trouble concentrating today is all."

Bob chuckled, a dry, lifeless sound, and clapped Tony on the shoulder. "Well, wake up, man." He turned and lumbered back into his office. But Tony caught his watchful eye staring across the hall at him throughout the rest of the afternoon. And try as he might, the blonde kept nuzzling back into his consciousness. It was embarra.s.sing. He couldn"t leave his desk without first taking several minutes to meditate on b.l.o.o.d.y images of mutilated animals and abandoned babies to deflate the tent in his pants. First the incredible movie with the G.o.ddess and then the bizarre b.l.o.w.j.o.b last night-the two were merging together in his thoughts, a union so powerful his s.e.x was reacting as if he were a male dog surrounded by females in heat. When five o"clock rolled around, he moved like a zombie towards the door, praying n.o.body was looking at the zipper of his pants. It was bulging, and as he fumbled in his pocket for car keys he suppressed the almost unstoppable urge to grab and go for it, right there in the middle of the office.

Bob watched his trancelike gait from his desk and called across the office just before Tony reached the door.

"Get some sleep tonight, Ton."

"Uh-huh," he mumbled in reply. He knew what he was going to get tonight.

He threw the Chinese in the microwave when he got home, and this time managed to fork the mess down, though with little enjoyment. Loni called while he was rinsing off his dishes. He let her do most of the talking-she missed him, hoped he was fine. Did he eat the Chinese she left? She got in OK, her sister Angie was waiting on the platform with her husband Dan. They were going to the zoo tomorrow. Tony answered automatically when necessary, while his attention focused on watching the blonde G.o.ddess who had somehow materialized in his kitchen. She spread her legs apart on the dinner table, her shockingly pink lips opening and closing with mesmeric rhythm while her mouth whispered: "Come to me, Tony. c.u.m in me, Tony. Come to me, Tony. c.u.m in me, Tony."

"Tony."

"Huh?"

"Have you heard a word that I just said?"

"Yeah, hon, I just got, um, distracted. There"s some kids running through the backyard."

"Well, go s.h.a.g them out. I"ll talk to ya tomorrow. I love you."

"Love you too, hon. Bye."

He cradled the phone in its receiver. The table was empty but for some delinquent grains of rice. But he could still hear her soft, crystalline voice-pleading like a ponytailed little girl, yet husky like a woman with a bad need for a man, any man.

Then it was nine o"clock and he was walking down the sidewalk towards room 112. He didn"t really recall driving there, he realized, as he knocked on the door again. He didn"t really remember what he"d done since hanging up the phone. But the door swung open with its raspy complaint and his c.o.c.k was so hard he felt he might burst with antic.i.p.ation.

The door closed behind him and this time there was no delay before the hands were taking down his pants. It was strange, this silent s.e.x, he thought. There was no sound but his breathing, the beat of his heart, both increasing in tempo and timbre until he cried out in pa.s.sion. "Yes. Yes. Suck me dry, baby. Take every last drop."

And with that command, somehow, she did. At the summit of o.r.g.a.s.m he suddenly drew a breath of pain as her demand increased. He could feel her pulling him inside her, sucking him out through his p.e.n.i.s. His head was spinning, a glittering fireworks display lit up before his eyes.

And then it was over, and he was collapsed on the floor, drained of the power to move. He had never experienced anything so powerful, so pleasurable.

"Who are you?" he whispered, as her hands pushed at his chest. He laid back on the floor as she directed and felt her hair trailing up his thighs to tease his belly. It was just like his daydream, he realized, and as he closed his eyes to imagine the glowing naked skin of the G.o.ddess, the woman between his legs began to work on him once more. This time when he reached his peak, he pa.s.sed out.

It was after 3 a.m. when he crawled into bed, a painfully erect pole between his legs.

At 4 a.m. he was staring at the L.E.D. light on his clock radio, sweat streaming from his forehead, his hands uncontrollably glued to his c.o.c.k.

This was insane. He"d seen a p.o.r.no with a hot babe, and then gotten sucked off a couple times by some nut who freaked about being seen. Why couldn"t he let it go? He"d never been this h.o.r.n.y in his life. What would Loni think? She wouldn"t care much about the movie or the little fantasies, and getting an anonymous bj wasn"t exactly cheating-she ought to be happy someone took care of it for her, he thought. No, she wouldn"t be too angry about that stuff. But if she saw him here sweating with l.u.s.t over another woman-actually two, one of which he"d never in the strictest sense seen-that, she wouldn"t relish. In an attempt to snap himself sober, he fastened onto an image he"d seen in a doc.u.mentary. Soldiers dead on the battle field, arms and legs streaked with red, entrails leaking out from between clenched hands, heads lying 10 feet from the crater where the rest of the body was mangled ...

The erection in his hands didn"t even flag. And then his conscious mind lost control and the soldier with his guts hanging out suddenly stood up and pushed the bleeding mess back inside with one hand while unb.u.t.toning his pants with his other. They fell to the ground and Tony saw the golden triangle of the blonde G.o.ddess below the ruptured belly. The soldier rubbed his face and her ice-blue eyes and pink lips were suddenly speaking to him.

"Come to me Tony, c.u.m in me."

Tony rolled over and began to cry.

When 9 a.m. rolled around Tony was in his chair at the office, but Tony was not in. Black circles ringed his eyes and his right hand lay useless and twitching at his desk. His left hand was in his lap.

"Report coming along OK, Tony?" Bob asked from across the hall. He hadn"t seen Tony move since he"d stumbled in a half hour before.

"Uh-huh," came the answer. But the man still didn"t budge.

When afternoon arrived and Tony didn"t seem any more aware, Bob sent him downstairs to the corporate doctor. There was a wet spot on the man"s pants which left Bob praying silently that his key employee was not sicker even than he looked.

"Well Tony, your blood pressure is low today," Dr. Regsic chirped at him. "Let"s get up on the scale." The meter flashed 156 lbs and she looked down at her chart.

"You"ve lost almost 20 pounds over the past couple months, Tony. Have you been on a diet?"

He shook his head no.

"Exercising?"

No.

She shook her head.

"Get up here on the table and unb.u.t.ton your shirt."

He did as she asked.

"How did you get those?" she frowned and bent towards him for a closer look. He hadn"t noticed this morning, but there were 10 red trawls down his chest, starting with a weak red glow at his shoulders and turning dark purple as they narrowed to converge in a single thick corridor at his bellyb.u.t.ton.

He was silent for a minute, and then offered: "My wife gets, um, excited."

"Drop your pants, Tony."

She didn"t sound like she"d take an argument, so he stood and undid his belt. His pants slid down immediately, revealing first, that he"d somehow forgotten underwear this morning, and second that the purple bruise led downwards from his belly to the tangle of hair beneath.

The doctor gasped at the sight. Tony thought she was impressed with his size-he was, of course, still erect. But her eyes did not look l.u.s.tful, rather, they were disgusted. He focused on the object of her stare and saw that it too was red and purple-and swollen to twice its normal size.

"Look, Tony. I don"t want to tell you what to do in your bed, but if your wife is responsible for this-I"d consider divorce. I don"t even want to know how this happened, but you"d better rule out s.e.x for the next week or two. I"m going to give you an antibiotic just in case you"ve got that infected."

She walked over to the white cabinets across the room and pulled out a tube.

Instead of a dumpy fortyish woman in an overly long lab coat, Tony saw the bronze muscular b.u.t.tocks of the G.o.ddess crossing the room, the dark lure of the crack between her legs led his hand to his lap. Her stride was lolling, casual. Her hips swayed suggestively, the ripples in her back and across her waist invited his tongue. She looked across her shoulder at him, flipping a mane of bleached hair over her shoulder. Her eyes touched his with electricity and she winked.

"Come to me, Tony."

She turned around to show him all.

"c.u.m in me, Tony."

"G.o.d, what is wrong with you?"

Dr. Regsic stood in front of him, her jaw hanging open.

"I"m not going to say anything about this Tony, but I am going to recommend a counselor."

She reached over and pulled a paper towel from a roll on the wall.

"Here. Clean yourself up and go home. I"ll leave a prescription of antibiotic for that-you better hope it doesn"t scar-and some ointment as well. Come back tomorrow, I want to see how you"re doing."

She was there again at 9, just like before.

"Who are you?" he asked again, as his jeans bunched around his ankles. Still she would not answer, but her hands were hot tonight, full of rhythmic l.u.s.t. He felt a sticky wetness on his leg. With the rest of himself, he felt only her power. Her fingers blazed trails of ice and fire across him, but it was her mouth that centered her magic. As she pulled him inside her, the pleasure radiated back into his body, a feedback of ecstasy. He knew now the purple trails across his chest were her conduits of pleasure, he could feel every pulling sensation electrify those paths with heat. It could have been the intoxication of the moment, but a dull cobalt illumination seemed to leak from the weave she worked upon him, growing brighter and dimmer with the waxing and waning of her pressure upon him. And as she reached up to carve another channel on his chest, he saw why she insisted on darkness. Her left hand was maimed. The thumb and pinky fingers were whole, their long red-capped nails raked his flesh as any woman"s. But the middle three fingers lacked nails-in fact, they seemed to lack flesh as well. It looked as if she"d dipped her hand into a radiation soup. That would explain the hard coldness he had felt the past three nights as she first cupped and cajoled his loins. With cold bony fingers ...

But her skill made up for any deformities. Again and again she brought him to o.r.g.a.s.m, he groaned and begged her to suck him dry once more. And every time she did. Again the night ended with his losing consciousness in the throes of release. Again he awoke to find her gone, and spent the remaining hours tossing in his bed. And the next two nights were the same.

On Friday Bob put him on report and turned the Web project over to another department. Tony went back to Dr. Regsic.

She tried to keep the alarm from reaching her voice, while noting that his blood pressure had dipped dangerously low and he"d somehow lost another 10 pounds since Tuesday. But when he removed his clothes, her breath hissed with disgust. The purple bruising covering his torso looked like a gridmap. And it all led to a p.e.n.i.s the size of a cuc.u.mber. Not an overly healthy looking one at that. She handed him the name of "a good doctor" at the hospital scribbled on her business card.

"Go there. Now," was all she said. It was three in the afternoon, but he went.

Not to the hospital, though, to the hotel.

As he pulled into the parking lot-for the first time in daylight-he saw how truly decrepit the place was. Weeds sprouted everywhere through cracks in the asphalt. A "For Sale" sign was tacked on below the big Redroom Hotel placard above the main office door-which was boarded shut. Apparently the Gentech Government Laboratories, whose fence b.u.t.ted up to the back of the hotel property, weren"t bringing in enough business to support a hotel. Or maybe after the outcry a few years ago about GGL"s genetic testing program, they had steered business away. The hotel windows that weren"t covered in graffitied plywood were broken, ragged gla.s.s ma.s.saged gently by shredding curtains in the low breeze. Yes, this hotel had been closed for awhile, he supposed. So how had there been lights on in some rooms the other nights? And how long had She been there? This was probably a prost.i.tution pit even when it was open for legitimate business, he guessed, wondering if his G.o.ddess had plied her strange trade here even then. Were there others like her in the other rooms? Could the cold blue lights he had seen night after night have been the flares of others undergoing the same consuming pleasures as himself, not the glow of cathode ray tubes? He found that he no longer cared, and strode unerringly towards 112. Closed or not, he knew of one room that had a vacancy.

The room was a lot creepier in the daylight than hidden in the moist shadows of night. The paint, a dull, putrid green, was peeling away from the walls, especially in the corners where water damage had left brown stains on the cinderblock the paint was separating from. The carpet was once charcoal grey, but now was pockmarked with circles of brown and black stains. Portions of it were frayed and pulled up. Spiderwebs crisscrossed the corners, and something scuttled under the unsheeted bed when he stepped towards it. The mattress looked too dirty to sit on, let alone sleep on. Now he knew another reason she said to come after 9. It would be hard to get off knowing that you were likely taking rats, spiders, or any number of vermin along for the ride.

"h.e.l.lo. Anybody home?" he called into the silence that seemed to hang around him like a breath taken and held.

Something rustled nearby.

"I know I"m early, but I couldn"t wait."

She came out of the bathroom, her skeleton legs joining neat as knickers with golden skinned thighs and a blonde tuft of pubic hair. Her belly b.u.t.ton was exquisite, a hollow darkness on a flat planed bed of sensual muscle that promised both pleasure and mystery. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were as tan and supple as her belly, full, alert and capped by the lightest shade of pink areolas. He saw now that both her hands were incomplete, but each by only two fingers-which was puzzling because he knew he"d seen three skeletal tips on one last night. But white-boned calves, feet, and fingers were not a turnoff to him now. And she could have hidden these odd deformities if she"d wanted to, he thought. Her face was the real problem. A lipless mouth showed the white teeth within glittering savagely against a gash of wet crimson. He could see her cheekbone jutting through pink flesh on one side, while the other half of her face seemed nearly complete, and as coppery brown as the rest of her fleshed body. Her eyes were piercing sapphires, but on the visible cheekbone side the eye was lidless, and the white line of her skull seemed to poke through above it. The lightly kinked, wind-blown blonde hair that turned him on so much ringed her face and draped across her shoulders. She held her arms out in offering.

"Is this what you want?" she asked. Her voice was gentle as a girl"s, yet somehow throaty, wanton. But despite the velvet of her tone, without the cushion of lips, her words revealed themselves like daggers plied from carving meat.

"Yes," he said without hesitation. "But, what are you?"

She smiled with her eyes. Her ivory teeth ground cruelly.

"I"m your dream lover. Come to me, Tony. They designed me to be filled up by men. And it"s really been too long."

He started towards her. She moved past him to the bed and laid down. He could see dots of scarlet and curdled cream on the bones that were her legs, and on her feet, tiny red lines that looked like unsheathed capillaries. She wiggled her toes and they clinked together invitingly. She spread her legs and he saw the heaven he"d thirsted for all week long. She was his dream lover. She was the girl from the p.o.r.no vid. He could see it in the eyes now, in the perfect b.r.e.a.s.t.s, in the pinkness that glistened so invitingly. His crotch throbbed painfully while his head ached with fear and longing.

"c.u.m in me, Tony. Let me suck you down to make me whole."

His pants were so loose now they slid to the floor with no unbuckling. He realized briefly that however he"d written off his previous indiscretions with this woman, this was, unalterably, adultery. He knew somewhere in his head that Loni would be back Tuesday, and he should put himself back together by then. And he knew he wouldn"t. Couldn"t. And he didn"t care.

He straddled her unfinished body and bypa.s.sed foreplay. She was visibly ready, and her hands now raked at his back as they had all week on his chest. He felt as though he were being diced and licked at the same time. Her tongue snaked out of her lipless mouth and teased and moistened his eyes, nose and neck. She bit him hard on the shoulder and then caressed his lips with her tongue. Her eyes sucked him into another world, her v.a.g.i.n.a was a utopian tunnel. He was making love like he never had before, bucking and pumping like a male hound on a b.i.t.c.h. Then she rolled atop him, the bones of her toes scratching at his calves, sounding like nails on hollow wood as they met the bones beneath his muscle. Yet he didn"t howl; he could feel nothing but her forcefed ecstasy. And she drove him on, harder and harder, the trails in his flesh burned and froze in alternate coursings. He could see them glow with power released. And when at last he answered her plea and came, he knew with fatalistic certainty that it would never stop.

She laughed as he came and came and the skin on her cheek grew thick and tan and her lips went from baby pink flesh to full pouting s.e.x teases.

... And he came and felt her legs pressed upon his own growing, the red and white seeds of flesh drawing the essence of him to her, nursing, nourishing their growth.

... And he came and as her shinbones ceased clicking together he heard his own begin to clatter. He felt light, empty, but trapped in some sick, twisted compulsion as his hips smacked against hers of their own accord.

... And he came and she laughed and pressed her arms upon his chest. Her fingers were perfect and whole and she said in that husky girl voice, "take me again, stud," and laughed when he did and she bent to kiss him and his tongue was caught in a vacuum; his cheeks sagged, receded. She lifted his arm in pa.s.sion and he saw the white bones protruding from the unraveled skin of his fingers.

... And still he came and the night came and the morning too before she pushed his trembling bones away from her flesh.

She stood then, and stretched, a lithe cat of a woman. Running her fingers across supple, muscular skin, she drank in herself inch by inch in a shard of mirror across the room. Her body was whole, tan, California style-no lines. Her lips were shiny pink, an erotic complement to the nipples of her perfectly brown b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She flipped a strand of sand-blonde hair away from her face, ice-blue eyes flashing with abating l.u.s.t, sweat drying on her forehead, lips pursed in humorous consideration. Gazing back at the bed, she saw the eyeb.a.l.l.s in Tony"s meatless cranium staring back at her, still with a longing, and, she felt, appreciation of her new form. She"d best finish the job.

She sighed and bent over him, tongue lasciviously ready. When she rose the skull was sightless, the bones no longer vibrated on the floor. A long transparent tube of skin trailed between his femurs. She pulled it off with a rip and swallowed it. "Every last drop," she murmured and licked her lips.

She pulled on his jeans, cinching the belt to its furthest hole. It left her thighs baggy and ill-defined, but it would do for now. She fastened one b.u.t.ton of the short-sleeved blue cotton shirt, and tied the rest across her belly, leaving her midriff and much of her chest exposed. She pulled at the uncomfortable weight on her behind and came up with his wallet. Thumbing through $20s and $10s, her white canines flashed hungrily. Good. She didn"t relish hanging around this dump any longer. As she went to flip the wallet closed, a snapshot of a woman caught her eye. She was raven-haired, dark-eyed, with high cheekbones and an intense look of vibrance in her mouth. The woman was hot. Just looking at the photo made her mouth dry, and even after its recent use, her groin ached with desire. Probably his wife, she speculated, checking his license to find an address. She knew where this house was, she realized, as Tony"s cannibalized cells merged and shared their knowledge with her own. It had taken her too long to find a host after the Gentech engineer had abandoned her here to wither away. She laughed, thinking of his reward if she could track him down. s.e.x G.o.ddesses were hard to find-or make! And she intended to feed regularly to keep her full G.o.ddess form from now on. Maybe he could be one of her snacks.