Collected Short Fiction, page 1297
Brewster said, “The only thing I can suggest is a complete workup at the Oncology Center. Another GI series, a biopsy, maybe a spinal tap. And more: the whole works. As you can imagine, it won’t be a lot of fun for you, Joe. But we’ve got to find out the precise nature of that growth by your gallbladder. We’re talking medical history here.”
“I understand.”
“Can I set up an appointment for you for tomorrow?”
McDermott felt a thump within his skull that almost sent him to the floor. Invisible hands stroked his heart and squeezed ever so gently. An invisible finger tapped him warningly on the shoulder.
“Joe?” Brewster said. He sounded worried.
“Not tomorrow, all right? I’m just back from a vacation. Give me a day or two to get back into the swing of things, first.”
“Day after tomorrow, then? This is too important to be allowed to slide.”
Another thump. Another squeeze.
McDermott moistened his lips.
“I’ll call you and set up a date,” he said. “Is that okay, Dave? Is that okay?”
He went home, deep in humiliation and chagrin. What good was radiant health and a regenerated head of hair, if he was only the puppet of some creature from another planet no bigger than a flea? What good were two inches of extra height at his age, for Christ’s sake, if he couldn’t even make a doctor’s appointment without getting a knock on the head from inside?
He resolved to fight back. Somehow. He had to free himself of this thing.
It wouldn’t be easy, he knew. The Cherponexian—he had no doubt now that the Cherponexian was real and was really inside him—could read his every thought. It was listening in even now, McDermott suspected.
“That’s right, Joe. I am.”
“Fuck you.”
“You won’t admit that I’m the best thing that ever happened to you, will you?”
Chinga tu madre, McDermott said silently. If you have one.
There was no response. McDermott’s eyebrows rose. Maybe the alien wasn’t able to read his mind when he thought in Spanish. Could that be? He was pretty fluent in Spanish. Two years in Puerto Rico on the Webster-Santos account had done that for him.
It was worth a try, anyway.
He grabbed the phone and punched in Brewster’s number.
“It’s me, Joe. We have to talk fast. You’ve got to get hold of someone who understands Spanish and have him call me back. A nurse, a doctor, anybody. And tell that person to take whatever I tell him at face value, no matter how crazy it seems. It’s a matter of life and death.”
“What? What?”
“Just do it. Please.”
Brewster hung up. McDermott sat by the phone, waiting. He had it all worked out in his mind, in Spanish. Going over the phrases again and again, finding the words he needed. An alien creature from space has invaded me, he would say. Un extranjero.De espacio. The doctors think it’s a cancer in my abdomen, but it isn’t. It’s an honest-to-God alien, and no, I’m not making this up. Verdad. Absolutamente verdad. It has control of my mind, only it doesn’t know Spanish, which is why I’m able to tell you this. It’s modifying my body. I can hardly recognize myself any more. The thing’s got to be killed. Chemotherapy makes it sick. Send an ambulance for me. You’ll probably have to put me under restraint. A straitjacket, yeah. Take me to the Center and get me on double chemo, the strongest dose I can stand. Triple, even. Whatever it takes. Just get rid of—
The phone rang. McDermott reached for it.
The Cherponexian did something inside his arm and it jerked back around his neck and grabbed his throat as if the alien were trying to make him strangle himself one-handed.
“Hey!” McDermott cried.
“Y chinga tu madre tambien,” the Cherponexian said, cackling in his brain. “Verga estupida! Cabron!”
As it turned out, it wouldn’t have mattered much even if the alien had let McDermott pick up the phone, because that evening marked the start of the second phase of the invasion of Earth. McDermott’s Cherponexian, who had served as the advance scout, had finished learning all that it needed to know about the world it had landed on and had sent the go-ahead signal to its comrades hovering just beyond the ionosphere. That night billions of Cherponexian invaders fell like snow everywhere human life was to be found. By the time morning came, there was scarcely anyone on the planet who had not been infiltrated one way or another—by inhaling an invader, or ingesting one along with the morning toast, or simply by drinking one down in water from the tap—and the process of spreading minute Cherponexian tendrils through billions of human brains and nervous systems was under way everywhere.
With the help of the guidance the scout had been able to provide, the second-wave invaders were able to establish complete somatic control in a much shorter time than the nine weeks McDermott’s Cherponexian had needed. Within minutes they could locate essential neural centers and send messages to their new hosts. Within hours they had set up beachheads in ductless glands and medulla oblongatas. The whole conquest took about a day and a half.
When McDermott realized what was going on, he felt worse than ever. He had been the gateway, after all, through which the first of the invaders had entered Earth. He felt personally responsible. If only he had been able to strike back, somehow. If only—if only—
“Look,” the Cherponexian said, “why beat up on yourself like this? You’re completely blameless, you know. Our arrival was an inevitable event. We’re utterly invincible. Nothing you could have done would have stopped the invasion. Nothing.”
“I don’t get it,” said McDermott. “You come seventeen light years just to occupy the gallbladders of an alien species? What’s the point? What use can we possibly be to you?”
“Ah,” said the Cherponexian. “You will be of great use indeed. And we will be of great use to you. What has happened is for everyone’s mutual benefit. Trust me, my friend.”
And, in fact, after the initial period of transition everything went on pretty much as before, except that most sickness and hunger and other forms of distress disappeared, along with bald spots, cellulite, unwanted weight, scars and birthmarks, and overly troublesome neuroses. Doctors, lawyers, and politicians suddenly had very little to do, since the Cherponexians saw to it that everyone’s health was perfect and refused to allow any kind of dispute, whether between people or between nations. That created a certain amount of disruption until the members of the displaced professions could be retrained.
At the Kaisers’ Fourth of July picnic the following year, McDermott hit four home runs and handled the ball magnificently in the field. So, however, did almost everyone else. They were all in terrific shape, big and strong and bursting with vitality. After the game, when the whole crowd gathered at the charcoal grill for the hamburger ritual, Dave Brewster came over to him and said, “You’re looking good, kid.”
“You too, man. We’re all looking good, aren’t we? But tell me: How’s the doctor-biz?”
“What doctor-biz? Nobody gets sick these days, not even the sniffles. You know that. I’m studying classical ballet, matter of fact. A little late in life to start, but my Cherponexian has done a terrific job building up my tendons.”
“That’s just great, Dave,” McDermott said. There wasn’t much enthusiasm in his tone.
Brewster looked at him closely. “Hey, guy, what’s the matter? Don’t tell me you still feel guilty for—”
“Don’t you?” McDermott snapped. His neck growing warm with sudden annoyance. “You who couldn’t tell an alien space invader from cancer of the gallbladder? You’re at least as responsible for what happened as I am.”
“Hey, hey, hold on a second—” Brewster said, just as hotly.
But already McDermott felt his anger cooling. The Cherponexians took care of such things quickly.
“Yeah,” he said in a milder voice. “What the hell, getting conquered by space invaders isn’t so bad, really, is it?” He grinned. “And at least I don’t have to worry about losing my hair anymore. Do I, Dave?”
“Right,” Brewster said.
“Right,” said the Cherponexian.
1993
The Sri Lanka Position
the swami promised unimaginable sexual bliss—credit cards accepted, never in his life could fischbein have imagined this
FISCHBEIN, a corporate lawyer who specialized in defending companies accused of toxic pollution, was one of those formerly nerdy guys who had come to think of himself as a buccaneer on the highways and byways of life, a swaggering condottiere always searching for strange adventures and new experiences. While at the barbershop one Wednesday morning for his weekly clip, Fischbein saw an ad in the back pages of a magazine that promised the latter and maybe the former, and he was hooked right away:
THE SRI LANKA POSITION
Secrets of Ancient Indian
Erotic Wisdom Revealed!
Eighty-minute VHS cassette demonstrates unimaginable sexual bliss. Famed Hindu guru will show you how to attain the ultimate in earthly physical fulfillment! The eroto-metaphysical mysteries of the Orient expounded as never before! You will reach Himalayan heights in bodily joy or double your money back! Adults only.
The price was $79.95, major credit cards accepted. Fischbein, by nature and profession a skeptic, cocked an eye at the hyper-prose. But he understood the kind of artistic license that advertising people went in for. What the hell—the worst case was double your money back. Covertly he tore the ad out of the magazine and put it in his pocket while Giuseppe was plugging in the blow-drier.
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The smart buccaneer treads the path of caution. Fischbein decided to check out the video by himself before suggesting to the woman he was currently seeing that they take a whack at mastering its esoteric wisdom together.
He slipped the cassette into his VCR and heard the twanging of a sitar. Swirling psychedelic colors appeared. Out of them stepped a dark-skinned man, lean, almost gaunt, who might have been anywhere between 30 and 60. He was wearing a turban and a loincloth and nothing else. “I am Swami Shivaram Krishna,” he announced, staring straight into the camera. His voice was deep, musical, exquisitely phony, with that crisp, singsongy, not-quite-British intonation that Fischbein associated with people from that part of the world. “I have devoted my life to the study of the Kama Sutra, the Ananga Ranga, the Ratirahasya and the Sinara Pradipa—the great classics of Indian erotica—and to the Tantra Rajarata, the supreme work of the early Sri Lankan masters of the art of love. My purpose today is to impart to you of the West some of the cherished secrets of those ancient scholars of passion.”
For the next half hour Swami Shivaram Krishna explained interminably in his mincing guru English how the erotic arts could lead one to a higher spiritual level.
He expounded on the nature of the four classes of women—Padmini, Chitrini, Shankini, Hastini—and enumerated the days of the month when each was at her height of desire. He described the eight embraces—the Embrace of Touch, the Embrace of Penetration, the Embrace of Friction, die Clasp of the Serpent and so on—and the eight types of finger pressure: the Leaf of the Blue Lotus, the Leap of the Hare, the Peacock’s Claw. It was all very colorful and esoteric, but Fischbein, his eyes glazing, didn’t see what good any of it was going to be to him. He began to wonder if he’d have to call in the postal inspectors to make that double-your-money-back guarantee stand up.
Then, suddenly, almost jerkily—some rough editing there, but Fischbein forgave it—a naked and delectable young woman popped into view next to the swami. She was perhaps 20, slender and sleek, with glistening, dusky skin and jet-black hair that had an almost purple glint. Her arms and legs were long and thin, her breasts were full, her waist was improbably narrow, her hips flared in a truly extraordinary way, her eyes were large and glossy.
“There are 64 basic positions and 572 major variations,” the swami intoned. He had shed his loincloth but not his turban. “But mastery of these eight will suffice for die novice who would venture into die outer precincts of die realm of the senses.”
He proceeded to demonstrate. That used up die next half hour of the tape.
The swami plainly knew his stuff, and his sultry partner was supple and agile. But what was happening on the screen, elegantly executed though it was, was basically the good old in-and-out, accomplished in ways that Fischbein himself, aided by various young ladies from Brooklyn and Queens and one Italian knockout from Staten Island, had managed to get the hang of by the time he was old enough to vote. Eighty dollars seemed a lot to have paid for a video that showed a nifty chick of overseas extraction getting schtupped this way and that by a bony, turbaned gent of uncertain age. The twanging music began to nibble at Fischbein’s nerves. His attention wandered again. The swami’s lady was lovely to behold, but there was, after all, only limited sexual pleasure to be had from an arrangement of colored dots flashing across a cathode-ray tube.
Then Fischbein heard the swami saying, “You are ready for the supreme position, the summit of the erotic arts, what we of Sri Lanka call the Opening of the Gateway. For this you must clear your mind of all earthly distractions. Strive to ascend by means of kama and artha to the attainment of the moksha that the practice of dharma brings. Yield yourself to Shiva and Gauri, to Lakshmi and Vishnu; surrender yourself to Brahma the Mighty.”
As he spoke, the swami and his splendid companion were entangling themselves in the most intricate fashion, turning over and over, weaving themselves into a fantastic knot. It was hard to tell which legs were whose, or who was on top. To the baffled Fischbein it seemed that they both were. Was it possible for pelvises to twist quite so far? Could knees really bend in that direction? And how, he wondered, were they ever going to manage the essential act of insertion when they were wrapped around each other at an angle like that?
But they did. The camera swooped in mercilessly and made that absolutely clear. Lingam had met you, indeed. And then—the dazzling insectoid ballet of bizarre movement, the obvious rising arc of incredible excitement, the long, gasping moan of unendurable pleasure indefinitely prolonged—my God, my God, the look on her face!
Wait a minute, Fischbein thought. No way. That simply can’t be done.
He rolled the tape back half a minute and watched it again. And again. And again. And went farther back, to the first moments of their pretzeling coition.
“Now you are ready,” the swami said once more, “for the supreme position, the summit of the erotic arts.”
Fischbein put the VCR on frame-by-frame advance. He watched closely, frowning, trying to mimic the actions on the screen. Your left leg goes here and your right arm comes up there, your chin gets hooked under there, and then——
No. He ran the tape in reverse, frame by bewildering frame. Under there, schmuck! She puts her left thigh across your right elbow, with the tip of her foot angled into the crook of your—
Impossible. Incredible.
He ran die tape back yet again. And again and again and again.
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“You won’t believe this,” Fischbein said, “just watch.”
“Jesus, Barry. Not a porno tape!” “Not in the least. Just watch it, Gwen. Watch.”
“Is it all just a lecture?” she asked after a time.
“We can fast-forward this part of it, if you like.”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
The naked woman appeared. Swami Shivaram Krishna’s loincloth disappeared. “There are 64 basic positions,” the swami said, beginning to stroke the woman’s notable breasts, “and 572 major variations.”
“It is a porno tape,” Gwen said in disgust.
“It’s instructional TV. Channel 13 would be smart to show it during pledge week.”
“Things are that bad with us?” she asked. “You think we need to pick up some pointers from a Hindu swami?” “Wait,” he said. “Watch.”
“She has a very nice bosom, yes, for such a skinny woman.”
“That’s not the point. She isn’t skinny, anyway. Slim. He’s skinny.”
“But very impressively hung. Barry, why are we watching this?”
“Please. Wait.” He fast-forwarded through the position of Embracing as the Creeper Twines About the Tree and the position of the Bamboo Cleft.
“Now you are ready,” the swami said, “for the supreme position, the summit of the erotic arts.”
“Will you look at that?” Fischbein asked. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“Contortionists,” said Gwen with some disdain. “So what?”
“Look at her face.”
“All pulled out of shape, yes.”
“She’s having a good time, wouldn’t you say?”
“Maybe. Or maybe that’s a look of pain.”
“I don’t think so,” Fischbein said. This wasn’t working out well. He found himself beginning to have doubts about the whole Gwen relationship. They had known each other six months and were in the critical period. Negative aspects of Gwen were starting to emerge that he hadn’t noticed before—a certain closed-mindedness, a certain prosaic unwillingness to make ontological leaps. Bad signs, these: The buccaneer on the highways and byways of life, the swaggering condottiere, must take care not to saddle himself with an unimaginative, unadventurous woman.
“My God!” Gwen cried suddenly. She grasped Fischbein’s right wrist tensely. “Play that part again, Barry.”
Fischbein rewound and played the tape back left-handed.
“I don’t believe it,” Gwen muttered. “Fantastic! Absolutely fantastic! Barry, where did you get this thing?”
He shrugged. “My usual scholarly sources.” The tape was coming to an end. The swami offered his final, incomprehensible thoughts on the erotic path to enlightenment. “Really something, nezpah?”
“Incredible. Could ordinary human beings possibly do things like that, though?” Gwen said after a moment.
“What do you say we give it a shot?” Fischbein asked.
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They made charts first, laying it all out on Fischbein’s computer. Gwen was an art director for one of the big agencies; she knew all the tricks of the graphics software. He ran the video, frame by frame, and she blocked things out. It took hours, and by then it was past midnight, much too late to run any actual experiments. Fischbein was due at the office at half past eight to take depositions in an effluents-getting-into-the-town-marina thing.
