Lovers and Other Monsters Read online

  I slept in the house instead of the tent. The only souvenir I had of Lyana was a book she left about sex. It described everything in detail. It said that when he puts it in you the first time he can hurt because he breaks the tissue and makes you bleed. But after that, it’s pure pleasure, especially if you’re in love. Men and women fit nicely into each other, like wearing a glove. Men get hard and usually come once, but women shiver and shake like an earthquake. Their pleasure can go on and on like a waterfall. I thought men must be like water pistols. The book said men have to keep touching women in one spot to make them excited. Their fingers and tongues get tired so that’s why women buy electrical things called vibrators. They showed a picture of a vibrator in the book. It was just like the one beside Mom’s bed.

  I put my fingers between my legs. It seemed much too small for those big things men had. I felt funny touching myself. Lyana played with herself every night but I was afraid to even look down there.

  Suddenly I heard the car door slam. It was very late and Mom and Dad were coming home from a party. They were fighting, something they never did during the day. I crept into the bathroom so I could hear better.

  “I told you, I can’t take this drinking. You have to stop.”

  “Come on, we were at a nice party. Everyone drinks.”

  “But not like you, Ted. You called me a bitch in front of everyone. Not only does that humiliate me, it ruins your reputation. You’re president of a major company!”

  “Sometimes you act like a bitch.”

  I heard Mom scream again: “Don’t touch me.”

  “You’re my wife, aren’t you? Or did you forget that?”

  “I’m your wife in name, that’s all.”

  “Bitch, bitch, bitch,” I heard my father say over and over again. Suddenly the door slammed. Silence.

  I couldn’t sleep all night.

  The next morning Mom and Dad were busy and friendly and nice—as if nothing happened. I didn’t say a word. Dad and I spent the day painting the toolshed, washing the car, husking corn, and collecting firewood for the end of summer bonfire. I worked hard and fast to please him, but he wasn’t satisfied.

  “Chores never end. And the field always needs cutting.”

  “Why does grass grow so fast?”

  “Grass is like little girls.” Then he winked and pinched my bum.

  Later that day we were mowing the field. I was exhausted from lack of sleep and too much work. Dad said I could take a nap under a tree while he finished cutting the field. I lay on a nice soft spot, covered with moss. Dad covered me with his shirt and kissed me softly on the forehead.

  “Sleep tight, sweetheart. I love you.”

  “Are we best buddies again?”

  “We certainly are. And lately, you’ve been a very good girl.”

  I was so happy that he loved me again that I fell asleep peacefully, the smell of his breath fresh in my nostrils.

  I woke up to a light rain caressing my forehead. I looked straight into my father’s eyes. At first he scared me, like the monster, but his touch was soft and gentle.

  “It’s okay, darling, it’s just a light rain.”

  He kissed my cheeks, my eyes, my mouth; his lips mixing with the rain. Then I felt his hand on my breasts. I’d been stuffing myself to look bigger. He smiled as he pulled the Kleenex out of my bra. I was so embarrassed I wanted to die. He lifted up the bra and squeezed my nipples.

  “I can’t wait until they get bigger,” he said greedily.

  Then he put his hand in my underpants.

  “Have you started menstruating yet?”

  I shook my head. As his fingers moved into my hole (or down there), I felt as if I were in a dream, as if my body didn’t belong to me.

  He unbuttoned his shorts and pulled it out.

  “Big, eh?”

  It looked enormous, but I said nothing. He took my hand and wrapped my fingers around it. I kept thinking of water pistols and wondered when it would start shooting. I couldn’t move or talk. Then his fingers found that spot. I knew it was that spot because it made me tremble and shake.

  “Feels good, eh?”

  I felt guilty saying yes. I knew everything was wrong but I liked it. I was afraid because I liked it so much.

  “Now I’m going to open you, just like a flower.” He spread my lips apart and tried to push himself into me. I thought of the book—of men and women fitting like gloves. But he was enormous.

  “Goddam it, you’re much too small.”

  For the first time he seemed angry. He turned away. All I saw was his arm moving hard and fast, as if he were beating eggs. Finally he sighed and relaxed. He zipped up his shorts and fixed my clothes.

  “I wish you were a real woman.”

  I felt like I’d disappointed him. But I knew he’d done something bad. We both did something bad because I didn’t stop him, like Lyana did. He hugged and kissed me. I was so confused. It felt good but I felt bad. I liked being close to him, I hoped he’d try again but...

  “You can’t tell anyone about what happened today. It’s our secret,” he said, looking into my eyes. I saw the monster, and smelled Dad’s sweat mixed with crushed dandelions. Then I heard an angry roar of thunder—this might be a real storm after all. I was so scared about what would happen next, I passed out.

  When I woke up I was at the bonfire. Everyone was there, all my family and friends. Mom had cooked a delicious meal. We stuffed ourselves like pigs, played games, and watched fireworks. Dad and I lit the bonfire and we toasted marshmallows. It was a beautiful night with an orange moon. Everyone wanted me to lead the folk songs. Dad wanted to hear “Five Hundred Miles” as usual. I was in a good mood, I thought. I picked up the guitar and played a few chords.

  “If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I have gone, you can hear the whistle blow five hundred...”

  All of a sudden my voice got stuck in my throat. My fingers trembled as they tried to pluck the strings. I felt like I was being strangled. Dad interrupted quickly.

  “I guess she’s not in the right mood. It’s okay. Another time.”

  He put the guitar gently back in the case and gave me a marshmallow. No one noticed anything because I was a moody girl.

  But I never sang again.

  And I never read another horror story.

  I went on with life, trying to be a good girl and do well. Dad and I are still best buddies. But that summer he scared me more than any monster. He was my first lover. That’s our secret.

  Keeping it secret now is the scariest thing.

  Frederick Laing

  Gentleman on the Top Floor

  Frederick Laing has published more than a hundred short stories and some highly acclaimed novels. Of his Six Seconds a Year, author Budd Schulberg wrote, “I was impressed with Laing’s skill.... I shall not forget the climax and its frightening symbolism for many a year and many, many a book.” His The Giant’s House was listed among the years best by major reviewers. “Gentleman on the Top Floor” a gently class-conscious anecdote, is one of Laing’s earliest short stories.

  SHE PLACED a manicured finger on one of the buttons in the vestibule and pressed it four or five times.

  “I’m sure this is where he lives,” she insisted.

  She was rather tall, or perhaps the row of names was placed lower than it should have been. At any rate, she had to stoop to peer at them. But she stooped gracefully. She looked quite tall beside the dwarfed, hunchbacked old woman.

  The old woman shrugged. “The regular tenants, they’re all listed,” she said. She spoke with an accent. There was a hedge of soft black hairs on her upper lip.

  The young lady’s voice was crisp and precise. She slurred softly over her R’s. “It’s very important that I get hold of him,” she said. She tried a couple more buttons, but there was no answering click at the door.

  The old woman stood stolid and patient, a strange smile on her thick lips. There was a dull, dreamy and slightly harassed look in her eyes.
Her eyes were fine, beautiful almost. Strangely out of place above the ugly lips with their black moustache. “You could come back some other time maybe,” she suggested.

  “He’s leaving for Europe at five o’clock,” the young lady said in her crisp tone. She went back at the buttons again. It was plain that she was used to getting what she wanted. She was trying not to talk as though the old woman were a servant. “He must live on one of the higher floors,” she said. She pulled her finely curved lips into a slight smile, “I’ve heard him talk about walking up all the steps.”

  The little hunchback stood blinking off into space. “He lives with someone else maybe,” she muttered, almost to herself.

  “Of course... !” the lady said, raising her voice. She stopped, and bit her lip. “Your husband must know him,” she said. “He’s the superintendent, isn’t he?”

  “I am the superintendent,” the old woman said. “I got no husband,” she added. She smiled a little, and there was an odd similarity between her smile and the patronizing way the lady had smiled a moment before.

  “Listen,” the lady said. She stooped now as though she were talking to a child, “This gentleman is an artist. He carries canvases. Look. Big things about this wide. Pictures. He carries them up and down the stairs. You must have seen him.”

  The old woman smiled stupidly.

  “He’s dark,” the lady went on. She clasped and unclasped her hands, as she spoke. “He has a high, sloping forehead. He’s very... good-looking. Please listen,” she said. “I’ll tell you how he dresses. He wears a brown sport coat and grey trousers—baggy trousers that need pressing....” She took hold of the woman’s shoulder and looked as though she were going to shake her. She stamped her heel. “You must have seen him,” she said.

  “Maybe...” the woman said.

  The younger woman opened her purse, but a proud, hostile stare from the old one brought that action to a halt. She closed her purse, put it under her elbow, and began clasping and unclasping her hands again. A tear rimmed her eyes. It fell on her hand. She bit her lips, and the tears stopped.

  “Look,” she said, “After all, we’re both women. I know I shouldn’t tell you this, but... there’s a lady who... she’s going to have a child. His child.”

  “Doesn’t he want to marry her?” the old woman asked.

  The lady started. The question was so direct. “Yes,” she said, “He asked her to marry him. But she... well, she was afraid....”

  “Afraid?” the woman asked. The smile might have been sarcastic, or merely uncomprehending.

  “Of her friends... of what they might think,” the lady said. “They... well, she moves in a rather different society....”

  “Rich,” the old woman nodded.

  The lady appeared not to have heard. “She didn’t want to have this baby,” she said, “and they quarreled... had a fight. He stopped coming to see her. Then he called up today and said he was leaving at five o’clock. He said he was going to Paris to live with his brother. He doesn’t have a telephone. She... couldn’t call.”

  “So she changed her mind,” the old woman said.

  “Yes,” the lady said, “She changed her mind.... About both things.... The baby, too. Can’t you see—you must help me.”

  The woman pointed to a button, and the lady pressed it before the woman had time to speak.

  “It might be this one,” the old woman said, “I see often ladies come to visit him. Lovely, rich ladies like yourself.”

  The young lady swayed slightly, and clutched at the door knob. She held onto it as she looked around the ugly vestibule.

  “I know,” the little hunchback said. She nodded her head again; “But he is very beautiful, my son,” she said.

  There was an answering click at the door latch and the involuntary pressure of the lady’s body shoved it open. She hesitated. She looked at the outer door as though she would make a bolt for the street. Then she turned and, with lowered head, walked slowly up the long stairs.

  Maxim Gorky

  Twenty-Six Men and a Girl

  Don’t be fooled by the suggestive title of the following tale. “Twenty-Six Men and a Girl” is a bleak tale of grinding physical and spiritual poverty by the great Russian writer, Maxim Gorky (1868-1936), first president of the Union of Soviet Writers. In the West, he is best known as the playwright who wrote Enemies, Summerfolk and, especially, The Lower Depths.

  THERE WERE SIX-AND-TWENTY of us—six-and-twenty living machines in a damp, underground cellar, where from morning till night we kneaded dough and rolled it into kringels. Opposite the underground window of our cellar was a bricked area, green and mouldy with moisture. The window was protected from outside with a close iron grating, and the light of the sun could not pierce through the window panes, covered as they were with flour dust.

  Our employer had bars placed in front of the windows, so that we should not be able to give a bit of his bread to passing beggars, or to any of our fellows who were out of work and hungry. Our employer called us rogues, and gave us half-rotten tripe to eat for our mid-day meal, instead of meat. It was swelteringly close for us cooped up in that stone underground chamber, under the low, heavy, soot-blackened, cob-webby ceiling. Dreary and sickening was our life between its thick, dirty, mouldy walls.

  Unrefreshed, and with a feeling of not having had our sleep out, we used to get up at five o’clock in the morning; and before six, we were already seated, worn out and apathetic, at the table, rolling out the dough which our mates had already prepared while we slept. The whole day, from ten in the early morning until ten at night, some of us sat around that table, working up in our hands the yielding paste, rolling it to and fro so that it should not get stiff; while the others kneaded the swelling mass of dough. And the whole day the simmering water in the kettle, where kringles were being cooked, sang low and sadly; and the baker’s shovel scraped harshly over the oven floor, as he threw the slippery bits of dough out of the kettle on the heated bricks.

  From morning till evening wood was burning in the oven, and the red glow of the fire gleamed and flickered over the walls of the bake-shop, as if silently mocking us. The giant oven was like the misshapen head of a monster in a fairy tale; it thrust itself up and out of the floor, opened wide jaws, full of glowing fire, and blew hot breath upon us; it seemed to be ever watching out of its black air-holes our interminable work. Those two deep holes were like eyes—the cold, pitiless eyes of a monster. They watched us always with the same darkened glance, as if they were weary of seeing before them such eternal slaves, from whom they could expect nothing human, and therefore scorned them with the cold scorn of wisdom.

  In meal dust, in the mud which we brought in from the yard on our boots, in the hot, sticky atmosphere, day in, day out, we rolled the dough into kringels, which we moistened with our own sweat. And we hated our work with a glowing hatred; we never ate what had passed through our hands, and preferred black bread to kringels. Sitting opposite each other, at a long table—nine facing nine—we moved our hands and fingers mechanically during endlessly long hours, till we were so accustomed to our monotonous work that we ceased to pay any attention to it.

  We had all studied each other so constantly, that each of us knew every wrinkle of his mates’ faces. It was not long also before we had exhausted almost every topic of conversation; that is why we were most of the time silent, unless we were chaffing each other; but one cannot always find something about which to chaff another man, especially when that man is one’s own mate. Neither were we much given to finding fault with one another; how, indeed, could one of us poor devils be in a position to find fault with another, when we were all of us half dead and, as it were, turned to stone? For the heavy drudgery seemed to crush all feeling out of us. But silence is only terrible and fearful for those who have said everything and have nothing more to say to each other; for men, on the contrary, who have never begun to communicate with one another, it is easy and simple.

  Sometimes, too, we sang; and
this is how it happened that we began to sing; one of us would sigh deeply in the midst of our toil, like an overdriven horse, and then we would begin one of those songs whose gentle swaying melody seems always to ease the burden on the singer’s heart.

  At first one sang by himself, and we others sat in silence listening to his solitary song, which, under the heavy vaulted roof of the cellar, died gradually away, and became extinguished, like a little fire in the steppes, on a wet autumn night, when the gray heaven hangs like a heavy mass over the earth. Then another would join in with the singer, and now two soft, sad voices would break into song in our narrow, dull hole of a cellar. Suddenly others would join in, and the song would grow louder and swell upward till it would seem as if the damp, foul walls of our stone prison were widening out and opening. Then, all six-and-twenty of us would be singing; our loud, harmonious song would fill the whole cellar, our voices would travel outside and beyond, striking, as it were, against the walls in moaning sobs and sighs, moving our hearts with soft, tantalizing ache, tearing open old wounds, and awakening longings.

  The singers would sigh deeply and heavily; suddenly one would become silent and listen to the others singing, then let his voice flow once more in the common tide. Another would exclaim in a stifled voice, “Ah!” and shut his eyes, while the deep, full sound waves would show him, as it were, a road, in front of him—a sunlit, broad road in the distance, which he himself, in thought, wandered along.

  But the flame flickers once more in the huge oven, the baker scrapes incessantly with his shovel, the water simmers in the kettle, and the flicker of the fire on the wall dances as before in silent mockery. While in other men’s words we sing out our dumb grief, the weary burden of live men robbed of the sunlight, the burden of slaves.