Message-ID: <7821eli$9804132330@qz.little-neck.ny.us> From: Andrew Roller Subject: Sexy Souls part 1 of 2 (NND) Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Reply-To: roller666@earthlink.net Path: qz!not-for-mail Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Approved: X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded X-Story-Submission: X-Original-Message-ID: <35302595.1859@earthlink.net> --------------------------------------------------------------- PROBLEMS? Please try viewing this with Netscape Navigator. --------------------------------------------------------------- Author’s Note: Normally, I write sex stories. The story you are opening now has the following history: First, I wrote “Punished for Pleasure”. Then I wrote “Enslaved to Eros”. Then, doubtless in a politically incorrect move, I wrote “Bikini Brigade”. It wasn’t a sex story, and neither is this one. This is my newest story. You can read the previous stories, listed above, to get a completely clear picture of what is going on in this story. (Particularly “Bikini Brigade”.) But you don’t have to. The story “Sexy Souls” is designed to ‘stand alone,’ but also to be a direct sequel to “Bikini Brigade”. At the moment, “Sexy Souls” is still a ‘wide-open’ story. I myself am not sure what is going to happen next. What trouble would you expect two ‘little girls’ to get into? And what is the purpose of the dwarf? Obviously he must have been brought to life for some reason. I pictured him originally as trying to find the girls, but the girls have found trouble quite well on their own, without him having to bring it to them. If you want to read an ancillary story, there’s also “Gold Diggers”. This takes place tangentially within what I’m calling “The Bambi Universe”. Bambi is the narrator of these stories. (Actually, “Gold Diggers” is a story within a story, published in a magazine in “The Bambi Universe”.) Also, if you want to see the chain letter Bambi was writing, read “a love wish”. It was originally written by someone else (presumably a girl) under the title: Eileen.txt I liked that letter so much that I began writing this story, “Sexy Souls”. THANKS to whoever sent it to me! See the bottom of this document for information on where you can read all these posts and stories I’ve mentioned. Please e-mail me if you have any suggestions as to the following: a. Why has the dwarf been brought to life? b. What trouble will the girls get into? c. Except for the stated plot, are there any other main plots, or sub plots? Soon I will hopefully have the above questions worked out for myself, but this is your chance to influence this story. I’ll try to use your idea(s) if I can, that is, if they fit within the context of the story. (That’s not really up to me, by the way, it’s a ‘natural thing,’ the ideas will either seem to fit or not, so don’t be offended if your idea isn’t used. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good idea.) send e-mail to: roller666@earthlink.net _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Andrew Roller Presents NAUGHTY NAKED DREAMGIRLS in SEXY SOULS _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Chapter One I was sitting at my computer when Katie came dashing into my bedroom. She had eyes as big as saucers. Her blonde hair was tangled from running down the street. “You’ll never b’lieve what I saw!” Katie blurted to me. “Hmmm?” I asked. I glanced at her, then stared again at my computer screen. I was writing a chain letter. “Roses are REd and violets are bLue, “If you don’t send this letter bad things will happen to U,” I typed. “I saw a man!” Katie yelled. “Good for you,” I answered. “He came up out of a manhole!” Katie told me. “Mmmm?” I asked. We didn’t have school today, and I was totally into what I was doing. Why couldn’t Katie go tell somebody else about her man and his hole? “Katie, I am your best friend,” I told her. “But that doesn’t mean you should just let yourself into my house whenever you feel like--” “And he had a tail!” Katie shouted. I forgot about my chain letter. “What do you mean he had a tail?” I asked Katie. “The next thing you know, you’ll tell me he had red suspenders too.” Katie thought a moment. “But he DID have red suspenders on!” Katie said. “Katie, April Fools was awhile ago,” I said. “No! I’m not just making this up,” Katie insisted. “I was walking home from school-- didn’t you have any school today?” Katie asked. She looked at what I was writing on my computer screen. “It was Staff Day, Katie,” I said. “Oh, too bad we didn’t have Staff Day at my school,” Katie said. “Anyways, I saw a man, and he looked like that guy you see on T.V. who sells used tires.” “Demon Dan’s Used Tire Emporium?” I asked. “That’s it!” Katie said. She pointed at me. “Except this guy wasn’t on T.V. He came up out of a manhole!” “So what am I supposed to do about it?” I asked Katie. We’d moved recently, letting me live a lot closer to Katie. Now I wondered if it was such a great idea. It sounded like she lived in a strange neighborhood. “Let’s go look at the manhole!” Katie said. I thought for a moment. When you’re 13, and your best friend is 12, going to look at a manhole doesn’t sound so ridiculous. “Okay,” I said. I got up from my computer and together we went outside. The man walked along the street. He passed under a maple tree. It was big and old and gnarled, and stood in front of a church. The church was old. It had been built over 100 years ago, entirely from stone. Along its walls, in decorative relief, were carved pictures. There were scenes from Heaven, and from Hell. Angels of stone escorted the saved to the former place. Devils took the damned to the latter. There were also, perched along the walls of the church, statues of stone. Some were saints. Others were less noble, gargoyles with pig’s faces and dog’s paws, sporting bat’s wings. The man stopped under one of these gargoyles and looked up at it. “Barnabas, come down from that church,” the man with the sunglasses said. He was tall. The sun glinted off the dark glasses he wore, glowing red as it sank low over the rooftops of the town. “Master,” a hoarse voice croaked from the bat-like figure of stone. The eyes of a stain rolled in his head. He watched as the gargoyle leapt down from his perch on the wall of the church. The saint tried to move, but he had not been called. Valiantly he held aloft, sharp and unmoving in the sunset, his cross, as he had for so many years now. Perhaps, he prayed, it would be enough. Then again, perhaps it would only be a vanity. On the ground below him the gargoyle, called forth to life by supernatural power, crouched obediently before the tall man with the sunglasses. “Master,” the gargoyle croaked again. It stood on its chalky-grey, suddenly limber hind legs of stone and looked with awed respect at the knees of the figure that had called it. Its eyes rose up to the man’s face. He looked down at the creature. “Yes, Barnabas, it is I,” the man said. “I am going to give you a human form. You won’t be particularly tall, but you will move without notice through the people of this earth, able to work my will.” “Oh, yes! Master!” the gargoyle said. Its hot breath flowed from its chest and it was surprised to find itself breathing. Above, the saint sculpted in stone found that the supernatural power was ebbing. It had liberated the gargoyle. As a side effect, being cast along the wall of the building, it had permitted the saint to move his eyes. But now he felt his eyes grow sluggish. Quickly he lifted his gaze. If he was slow, he would stare down at the sidewalk for a very long time. He gazed at the sun-drenched roofs of the houses that stretched for miles around the church. He tried lifting his eyes higher, but found he could not. He felt the life-force that had flitted within his eyes die. He stared, the sun stared back at him, and the movement he had been capable of died away. Down below him, on the street, a small man dressed in only a shirt stood before a tall man with sunglasses. “There, it is done,” the tall man said with a wave of his hand. “Master, I have no pants,” the small dwarf-like figure said. He was flesh-colored now, and his dog-paws were hands and feet. His wings were gone. His pig’s ears and snout were gone. But he still wore the medieval shirt he’d worn as a gargoyle, perched on the side of the church. “Ah, yes. That I cannot fix,” the man with the sunglasses said. He reached down and picked up the dwarf. He couldn’t help but look at the small man’s penis as he hefted him aloft. “Master, couldn’t you make me bigger?” the dwarf croaked. “It is beyond my power,” the man with the sunglasses said. “He fights me every step of the way, you know.” The man with the sunglasses glanced skyward. “Ah, yes, Master,” the dwarf agreed. The man with the sunglasses perched the dwarf on a bough of the old maple tree. “Wait here,” the man with the sunglasses said. “I shall return with a pair of pants for you. I have to go to a clothier’s and buy them. Then I’ll give you some money to rent a flat. You can begin to work my will here, among these people.” “Yes, master!” the dwarf said gleefully. The man with the sunglasses walked away. The dwarf climbed to a higher branch in the tree, and hid among its leaves. A pigeon landed on the cross of the saint carved in stone on the wall of the church. The saint could do nothing. He could not even move his eyes, anymore. He held aloft his stone cross as the pigeon went to the bathroom on it. It was evening. I sat with Katie in the library. “Here, this is what he looked like,” Katie said. She pointed at a figure in a book. We’d been to the manhole but, like most manholes, it had just stared up at us from the street. We’d tried lifting it. But it had been too heavy. “That’s Satan, Katie,” I said. Together we stared at a tall, dapper man. He had a pointed chin and sharp ears. Horns stuck out of his head, small and sharp. He had goat’s legs and he held a pitchfork. I heard someone talking behind us, beyond the wall of bookshelves that separated our table from the next. I didn’t pay attention. Instead I stared at the book Katie was holding, mesmerized. “That’s who I saw come up out of the manhole,” Katie told me in a low, serious voice. “Really?” I asked. “Weally,” Katie said. She sounded scared. “You really think you saw the Devil today, don’t you?” I asked her. “Yes, but it wasn’t the guy who sells used tires on T.V.,” Katie assured me. “Anyways, he’s fat. This guy was very skinny, and tall.” “Did he look like a goat?” I asked her, staring at the picture. “No,” Katie said. “He had nice clothes on. Very nice clothes. Business clothes, well-tailored.” “And I want you to find someone for me,” the voice, soft and insinuating in tone, said behind us, on the other side of the books. “Yes?” I heard a small voice croak in reply. “She has a name,” the voice said. “Let me see. I have it written here.” “I wish people wouldn’t talk in the library,” I whispered to Katie. “It’s rude.” “Especially when we’re trying to do research on Satan,” Katie agreed. “Here it is,” the voice said. “Here’s her name. Pepperdine. Katie Pepperdine.” Katie gaped at me. I gaped at her. “That’s me!” Katie said. “My--” I paused. It seemed unwise to say anything. Even by way of exclamation. Slowly I turned my head. I gazed through a hole in the wall of books behind us. I saw a man, a tall-looking man, wearing sunglasses, even though we were indoors and it was nighttime. Katie found my hand under the table and gripped it. Her palm felt sweaty. Together, almost still as stones, we stared behind us at the figure who could be seen on the other side of the books. “Find Katie Pepperdine,” the small, hoarse voice croaked. I couldn’t see who it was. But I could see the man with the sunglasses. They reflected the neon glow of the library’s overhead lights. The man looked tall, though he was sitting down at the moment. He nodded, smiled. He was sitting with somebody, but neither Katie or I could see him. Slowly I rose from my seat. I pulled Katie with me. We moved away from the table we’d been sitting at. We left the book open. We didn’t dare risk making a noise by closing it. It was big, and heavy. We stole to the front of the library. Holding our breath, we went out the front doors as fast as we could. “C’mon, Katie!” I said, clutching at her hand. We ran as fast as we could down the street. We sat in my bedroom. Katie was afraid to go home. “What do you do when Satan wants you?” Katie said to me. Her eyes were even bigger than when she’d first dashed into my bedroom that afternoon. “You, um, say ‘no,’” I answered. “Like, ‘say no to drugs.’” “I wonder if that will work?” Katie asked me. “I don’t think I’d want to stand around and try it,” I replied. “Me neither,” Katie agreed. “This reminds me of when we were in Candyland,” I told Katie. “Yes,” Katie said. “That seems so long ago now. Oh, I wish I knew what to do! We are the Bikini Brigade, but we aren’t in Candyland anymore.” “I know,” I agreed. “We don’t have our flying lollipops or our magical guns that shoot marshmallow goop. And Pauline Praline isn’t with us anymore, either,” Katie said. “Why would Satan want you?” I asked Katie. “I dunno,” Katie said. “Did you steal any more Gummi Bears from the 7/11?” I asked her. “No,” Katie said in a hushed voice. “I got a free game off the video game at Lazer Land, though,” Katie said. “By kicking the machine.” “I don’t think that would make Satan come after you, do you?” I asked. “I hope not, or Molly McCoy is going to have Satan coming after her too,” Katie told me. “She’s the one who taught me to kick the machine.” “It’s sort of silly to call the police,” I said. “I don’t think 911 would understand about a man coming up through a man hole, and having a tail, and being Satan,” Katie said. “Let’s go to a priest!” I said. “I’ll bet there’s one in that big Catholic Church near the 7/11.” “Yes! He’s supposed to know all about Satan!” Katie agreed. “Let’s go right now!” I told her. “My fellow Christians,” the priest intoned, sitting in his office, reading from a typewritten sheet of paper. There was a knock at the door. He looked up. “Yes? Who is it, at this hour?” he asked. “It’s me! Katie Pepperdine,” Katie said. The door to the priest’s office stood open, but we felt we should knock anyway. “Come in, my child,” the priest said. We stepped into his office. The church was dark and quiet. I felt it was luck that we had managed to get in the front door. Or something. Perhaps our prayer that we said on the way over here, to Jesus? “Oh, I was just about to lock up and leave. How lucky it is that I caught you,” the priest said. We didn’t know him, but he nodded solicitously to us, as if we were old friends. “How may I help you, my children?” he asked, seeing that there were two of us. “I saw Satan today!” Katie blurted. The priest gazed at her. “Satan is an attempt by man to personify evil, little girl,” the priest said. He smiled at Katie, then at me. “Is there anything else I can help you children with?” he asked. “Satan’s after me!” Katie said in a loud voice. Then we both looked quickly around, at the priest’s open door, at the darkness of the unlit interior of the church beyond. We moved closer to the priest. His big desk separated us from him but we stood as close to the front of his desk as we could. “He’s chasing me,” Katie said, her voice soft. The priest laughed. “Satan is, I’m afraid, chasing all of us,” the priest said. “‘For instance, little girl, have you done your homework tonight?” the priest asked. “No,” Katie said. “You see? Here you are, visiting with me, and I do appreciate it, but you have homework that needs to be done. That’s Satan at work, my child, inducing you to be lazy.” He lifted up his paper. “Look at me. I have to attend a Convocation of Priests in the morning and should have written my speech a long time ago. But I delayed. Now I’ve got to cram and try to get it all finished tonight. Indolence, my child! That’s the enemy of modern man. He has too many modern conveniences, and it induces him to want to do less and less. Why, I remember when I was in World War Two, on Guadalcanal. We fought from sunup to sundown, with not a complaint from any of us. Have you ever been to Guadalcanal, my child?” the priest asked. “No,” Katie said. It was late when we got out of the priest’s office. The moon was riding high and cold in the clouds above us. I crossed my arms over my blouse. We hadn’t worn our jackets and I regretted it now. “I’m chilly,” Katie whispered to me. “Me too,” I said. “I know all about the Canal but I still don’t know what to do about Satan,” Katie told me. “Me neither,” I said. “You’ve got to dig up Mr. O’Flannery,” a voice said from some bushes. “Yeep!” Katie cried. She jumped down off the sidewalk. I turned. There was a man standing close beside a bush, with a tall stone pillar at his back. A rusted gate hung off the pillar. A shadow from a nearby tree drowned the man in darkness. The light of the moon shone on myself and Katie. “Who are you?” I said in a frightened voice to the man. “That hardly matters,” the man said. He was shabbily dressed. He lifted a paperbag to his mouth and, gripping it tightly, he drank from it. I let my eyes dart to the rusted gate, and realized, with a shiver that we were next to the old church’s graveyard. The man was standing with a shovel. He leaned its handle toward me. He seemed to want me to take it from him. Katie crept up to where I was standing on the sidewalk. I realized that we were alone, behind the church, with this homeless bum. I wondered what we should do. “Go into the graveyard,” the man standing by the gate said. “Dig up Mr. O’Flannery and take him down to the river. Toss him in. But whatever you do, don’t answer him if he speaks to you. Because, if you do, instead of sending Satan back to Hell, you’ll send yourself there instead.” “You’re a homeless bum,” Katie said in a frank, high-pitched voice. “I’m dead,” the man answered. An adult would have had the good sense to faint, or something, but Katie and I just stood and stared. The man peered out from the shadows at us but, with one hand on his bottle of liquor, his other hand offering us the handle of the shovel, he seemed strangely helpful, or at least too absorbed with his liquor to do us any harm. He took another drink. He shivered, sighed. He took another. “God, that’s good,” he remarked. “You’re a wino, too,” Katie told the man. She took my hand and held it tightly. Together we stared at him. “I’m a wino and a slosh and a dead gravedigger,” the man said. “Murdered on the job, no less, by Andrew Cunnanan. Perhaps you read about it in the papers?” the man asked. “No,” Katie said. “I only read the comics in the papers.” “Well,” the man said. He took another drink from his paper bag. “That’s my problem, what happened to me. Perhaps it was a good thing. It got me a ticket to Purgatory, instead of to Hell, where I was probably headed, knowing the life I’d led. Now I’ve been sent back. I get a free bottle of liquor out of the deal,” the man said. He lifted the bag and showed it to us. “You get this shovel,” the man said. He offered us the handle again, leaning it out toward us. “Take it. Go into the graveyard and find the grave marked O’Flannery. 1898-1968. Dig the old boy up. I’ll help if you like. Or I can just enjoy my liquor. It’s up to you. He’s six feet down, but I’m no slouch if it comes to digging.” He swore. “Damn, I was hoping not to offer my services. That’s what happens when you’re on a mission from God. You wind up offering to do things you’d never normally do. Like helping people. Though you are rather pretty, miss.” He looked at me. “You too.” “Thanks,” I said. “We’re not really interested in your proposal, though,” I told him. “Do you always try to get dates with girls by offering to help them dig up corpses?” Katie asked the man. “Really, I’m not trying to bother you,” the man said. “Satan’s not after me. He’s after you.” I felt Katie squeeze my hand very tightly. It was warm in the cold night air. I shivered. I think I felt her shiver too. “Oh, why do I have to dig up a corpse?” Katie blurted. She said it with a kind of sob, and when I looked at her, I saw tears in her eyes. “Because Persephone has divorced Satan,” the man said. “Huh?” I asked. “Who?” Katie asked. “We really should get digging, but I suppose a quick explanation is in order,” the man said. Then, belying his statement, he paused and took a long draught from his paper bag. When he finally put his hand back down, he smacked his lips. “You see,” he said. “Persephone and Satan had a spat. I have no idea what about. But the upshot of it is, she’s ‘divorced’ Satan. She can’t really divorce him, of course, she’s his wife for eternity. But try telling that to Satan. So he’s come up to earth to find a new wife. Namely, you.” “Me?” Katie said. “But I’m only 12!” The man smiled. “Yes, and he’s Satan,” the man replied. “He shouldn’t like little girls like me,” Katie said. “Oh, look who’s talking, I said. You like Nick, don’t you? And he likes you. How old is he?” “He’s 27,” Katie said. “See?” I told her. “But Satan is like, one million!” Katie said. “Yep,” the man with the paper bag said. He took another long swig from his bottle. “I have to go back to purgatory when the bottle’s empty,” the man said. “So hurry up and make up your minds.” “How-- how can we send Satan back to Hell?” Katie blurted. “Without me.” “I told you. By digging up Mr. O’Flannery,” the man said. “Dig him up and take him down to the river and throw him in.” “Why?” I asked. “Yes. We don’t want to be carrying around a corpse,” Katie said. “I don’t even carry a purse, because it might get in the way if I want to play!” “Me neither,” I said. “In order to send Satan back to Hell, you must do an act of extreme piety,” the man said. “Mr. O’Flannery wanted to be cremated at his death, and thrown in the river. It’s not expected that you would go to the trouble of burning him up, of course. You are just two girls. If you throw him in the river, as was his wish, the fish will take care of the rest.” “But why me?” Katie said. “Because your third cousin, Geoffrey Johnson, killed Mr. O’Flannery, back in 1968,” the grave digger replied. “But I wasn’t even born in 1968!” Katie said. “Me neither!” I said. “I know that,” the man said. He glanced into his paper bag. “Look, this bottle is getting awfully low. I vanish the minute its empty. Do you want me to dig down through six feet of earth for you, and help you carry Mr. O’Flannery down to the river, and throw him in, or do you want to do it yourself?” “Oook! I dunno,” Katie said. She put a finger to her mouth. “All I know is, I’ve never heard of anybody named Johnson.” “Neither has your mother,” the man agreed. “Nonetheless, he is one of your relations, and he killed Mr. O’Flannery. You might say that this has put a curse on your family. It wasn’t really important to you, of course. You haven’t been having any bad luck lately, have you?” the man asked. “No, except that Satan’s after me,” Katie said. “That’s entirely a different matter,” the man said. “The point is, your family has a curse on it, so that dictates what the act of extreme piety is that you must perform to allow God to be convinced of your holiness and to send Satan back to Hell.” “So if I do something really holy, God will, like, do a favor for me?” Katie asked. “Yes,” the man said. “He’ll send Satan back to Hell.” “Will he give me a million dollars?” Katie asked. “No,” the man said. “Go play the Monopoly game at McDonalds if you want a million dollars. What God will do for you, for your extreme act of piety, is he’ll send Satan back to Hell. Period. That’s it. That’s the deal. And I’ll help you, taking the curse off your family in the process, by digging up Mr. O’Flannery and helping you carry him down to the river so he can be buried as he wished. “Why didn’t his relatives bury him in the river like they were supposed to?” Katie asked. “Because he died suddenly, and only he, Mr. O’Flannery, knew that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes spread in the river.” The man took a small, slow sip from his paper bag. He had to tilt the bag up high and I could see that it was almost empty. “Don’t dwink any more of that!” Katie yelled, her eyes wide. The man took the paper bag from his lips. “That’s what happens when you don’t make a Will,” the man said. “Which is why just throwing him in the river will be good enough for God.” “Give me that bag,” Katie said. “It’s mine,” the man said. Katie reached out and took it from him. “You can have it back later,” Katie said. She pointed toward the rusty gate. “Get in there and start digging.” “Katie,” I said. “How do we even know this guy’s telling the truth?” “He can get digging, whether he’s telling the truth or not,” Katie said. She kept her finger pointed at the gate. “A woman who takes command. I like that,” the man said. He lifted his shovel and, with a quick glance at the bag Katie was holding, headed over to the gate. It was already hanging open. He pushed on it and it squeaked and eased inward, into the grave yard. “Why does Satan want to marry Katie?” I asked the man. He lifted his free hand, as if to take another drink, then remembered that Katie was holding the bag with his bottle in it. “Because Katie is going to play Mary in the Christmas play at this church next Christmas,” the man said. “I am?!” Katie asked. “My mom and me don’t even go to church. Except sometimes on Easter, and Christmas,” Katie said. “Exactly,” the man said. “And next Christmas, that priest who was so little help to you girls tonight, will say to himself, ‘Who should play Mary in our Christmas play?’ And then he’ll say, ‘How about that little girl who came by to see me one night? What was her name? That girl, who so sweetly listened while I told her all about Guadalcanal, and who was so worried about Satan! She must be a very moral little girl-- the perfect girl to play Mary!’ And then he’ll look out into the congregation, and there you’ll be, sitting with your mother, because it will be one of those Sundays that your mother happened to take you to church.” “How do you know all this?” Katie asked, hurrying along behind the man as he led us into the grave yard. “A half-angel like me, doing time in purgatory, can see a little bit into the future,” the man said. “And they told it to me on the way down,” he added. “So, why would Satan care who plays Mary?” I asked. The man turned. We were standing amidst creepy looking old graves. The moon, high overhead before, had begun to sink into the western sky. “Mary? The mother of God?” the man said. “Who do you think he’d want for his wife?” “A stripper!” Katie said. “What good is corrupting a stripper?” the man asked. He looked down at Katie and smiled. “No, Katie. Satan enjoys strippers, but he would never marry one. Its a pure, wholesome little girl like you he wants, a girl who a priest already has in the back of his mind to play Mary, the Mother of God, in the Christmas play!” “Yikes!” Katie said. “This is beginning to make sense,” I said, standing with a man who was admittedly dead, in a grave yard, who was asking us if we needed help unburying a corpse. I looked at the man. I looked at Katie. I turned my gaze to the man again and said, “So Persephone gets mad at Satan and tells him she’s divorcing him. And Satan, mad at Persephone, says he’s going to get himself a new wife. So he picks Katie, because she’s supposedly this very pure, wholesome little girl, who’s going to play Mary in the Christmas play.” “Supposedly?” Katie said. “Supposedly?” “Katie, I know you,” I said. “Anyway, Katie, by doing an act of extreme piety, can send Satan back to Hell. For her family, since one of her relatives killed somebody, the act of extreme piety is to help the person who was killed. By throwing him in the river, since that was what he wished for as his final resting place?” “Exactly,” the man said. “God, I sure am glad Satan didn’t pick a 6-year-old for his wife. We’d be standing around here all night!” “Yes, well, I’m 12,” Katie said. “And you need to get digging.” “Could I have just one little drink please?” the man asked, eyeing the bag Katie was holding. “NO!” Katie said. “Get digging. Dig up that dude-- what’s his name?” “Mr. O’Flannery,” the man said. “You’re doing an act of extreme piety, Katie. Try to be respectful of the dead. That includes me, since I’m dead too.” “You’re a fruitcake,” Katie said. Then she looked at the big shovel the man was holding and added, “But handy with a shovel. Find that O dude and dig him up!” “Katie,” I said. I tugged on her arm. It was soft and cold. We were both inadequately dressed, in just our blouses and jeans, given the chill in the air. “Let’s just go home, Katie,” I said. “I must do an act of extreme piety,” Katie told me. “Katie!” I yelled. I felt quite nervous, standing here, even if it was sort of all making sense, in a strange way. This grave yard seemed the perfect place to get kidnapped by Satan or, frankly, anyone else who came along. “I’m Mary in the Christmas play,” Katie told me. “Try to show some respect when you’re addressing me.” We found the grave. We watched as the dead man with the shovel began digging. It was rather odd, I thought, watching a dead man dig up another dead man. But that’s the sort of life you have when Katie is your best friend. Meanwhile, when she wasn’t supervising the man, telling him how to dig and that he should dig faster, she was admiring the back of the church. Already she could see herself inside it, standing proudly in front of the altar, playing Mary in the Christmas play, holding a real baby that was the baby Jesus. About an hour after he started, the man struck wood. “What’s that?” Katie asked, leaning over the big hole the man had dug in the ground and peering down into it. “It’s a coffin,” the man said. He wiped his brow. “A coffin?!” Katie cried. “Yes,” the man said. “We’re digging up a corpse.” “What if Count Dracula’s in that coffin?” Katie asked, pointing down into the hole. “I already told you. It’s Mr. O’Flannery that’s in this coffin,” the gravedigger, standing down in the hole, replied. He began prying at the lid. “Don’t open it!” Katie shrieked. “I have to. I’m not carrying the whole damn box down to the river,” the man said. “Anyway, the box is quite deteriorated. I’m sure the maggots have already gotten in there and eaten what they want by now. “Maggots?!” Katie shouted. “Good God!” I cried. A horrible odor came up from the hole as the man pried back the lid. “Hmmm,” the man said. “There’s a few things crawling around in here.” “EEEEEEEEEEEEK!” Katie screamed. She went running out of the grave yard. The only person who yelled louder and ran faster was me. “I told you-- it’s an act of extreme piety!” the grave digger called after us. “They aren’t meant to be easy.” “Dear God, please send Satan back to Hell, and get rid of that damn corpse,” Katie, on her knees outside the grave yard, was praying when the grave digger walked out and found us. I was kneeling in the grass beside Katie. “Katie,” the man said. “God knows you haven’t been praying to Him on a regular basis. Doing it now, when you’re in a pinch, isn’t going to make a very big impression.” “Well, He’s supposed to answer my prayers!” Katie said. She looked up at the grave digger. Her eyes were wide, and reflected the moon. “God isn’t a vending machine, Katie,” the grave digger replied. “You don’t just stick a prayer in and get what you want. Now, things might be different if you’d been praying regularly. But since you don’t say grace at dinner, and don’t say your prayers at night when you go to sleep, you don’t have any credit built up. Frankly, I think you’re getting a pretty good deal here, with God laying everything out that you’ve got to do, and sending me down to help you.” I stood up. I looked at the man. He reached for the bag that Katie had placed in the grass. I caught his arm. It felt very cold. It had no pulse at all. I looked into his eyes and realized he wasn’t breathing. Somehow, I managed to say, “Look. Let’s get that fucking body and take it down to the river and toss him in. Okay? Then you can have your bag, and we will insist that you finish your liquor and get the Hell out of here,” I told him. Katie was staring at me with big eyes. “Don’t say that word,” Katie said. “What word?” I asked her. “Where Satan lives,” Katie said. “I don’t want to go there.” “Where am I?” a voice cried. The grave digger spun around. “It’s the corpse!” the grave digger cried. “C’mon!” He hurried back into the grave yard but turned at the gate and said to us, “Remember. Whatever you do, don’t answer the corpse if he speaks to you.” “Okay!” Katie said. We walked up to the hole. It was six feet deep now. There was a big pile of fresh earth beside it. I smelled dirt, wetness, and something else. Flesh. But it was a very foul smell and I found myself standing near the grave’s edge, with my fingers clamped tightly over my nose. The grave digger turned and looked at me. He looked at Katie. “Whatefer’s down there stinks weally bad!” Katie told the grave digger bluntly, holding her nose tight with both hands. “That would be Mr. O’Flannery,” the grave digger said. “Well, DO something about it,” Katie insisted, still holding her nose. The grave digger sighed. “You’re lucky I’m a half-angel, or I’d stink too,” he told her. Then he lifted his eyes to heaven. He raised his arms. “Dear God, as we transport this dearly departed soul down to his wished-for resting place, the Sticks River, I ask that you cause your little helpers to be able to do their assigned task, without smelling his sinful bodily odor.” “Dammit! This is my best suit. And it’s all dirty!” a voice said from deep within the hole. Slowly I took my hands off my nose. Somehow, the awful smell had abated. Katie’s hands popped of her face and she drew in a tentative breath. “It don’t smell so bad now,” Katie said. “Good,” the grave digger said. “I can’t breathe, so I wouldn’t know. Now let’s get Mr. O’Flannery down to the river, shall we? It will be dawn in a few hours. This sort of task can’t be done under the light of the sun. And I will be whisked back to purgatory, regardless of whether or not I’ve finished my liquor.” He looked wistfully at the paper bag I was holding. Then he turned. He climbed down into the grave. “Ouch!” an unfamiliar voice cried as the grave digger disappeared into the hole. I waited for our half-angel to say something in reply, but he said nothing. Then I remembered what he’d told us: “Don’t answer it if it speaks.” Katie walked up to the edge of the hole. A head popped up. Its eyes were open wide and it stared up at us. “Look at me! I’m late for the Conference on Stopping the War, and my suit’s all dirty!” the face exclaimed to us. Despite having wide-open eyes, the head seemed rather listless. The grave digger, standing down in the grave, pushed the body the head was attached to up out of the grave and let it fall in the grass near our feet. Then, as Katie and I stared at the corpse with the wildly moving eyes, the grave digger climbed up out of the hole in the earth. “I’m late. Late!” the body cried to us. “For a very important date.” “Shut up. You’re s’posed to be dead,” Katie said to the man lying in his best business suit in the grass. “AUCHGHGHGH!” the grave digger, half in the grave and half out of the grave, cried in a loud voice. He trembled. He shook. He raised his arms quickly to Heaven as he screamed, and then he tumbled back down into the grave. I felt a deep shudder pass through my body. I looked at Katie. She looked at me. We were still standing in the grave yard, and the corpse was still lying at our feet. Slowly, up out of the hole came the grave digger. “Do NOT answer the corpse if it speaks to you,” the grave digger shouted at Katie. “He is going to the land of the Dead, and unless you want to accompany him, you’ll say not another word!” Katie put her hands to her face. Tears sprang to her eyes. She looked down at the dead man lying at her feet. He looked up at her. Slowly, a maggot emerged from his mouth. “EEEEEEK!” Katie cried, through her hands. “I’m to address the Students Against the War,” the corpse implored Katie. The grave digger, standing now at the man’s head, the soft grass under his feet, the hole beside him, bent over. He seized the man’s shoulders, gently, and lifted him. “Stop the War,” the man murmured. Steeling myself, seeing what was required, I picked up one of the man’s feet. I motioned to Katie to pick up his other foot. Slowly, we carried the dead corpse out of the grave yard. We walked past the rusted, half-open gate. We crossed the street. We walked up another street, staying out of the lamp lights that shone on the side walk there. We passed in front of people’s homes. I wondered if they had any inkling that a man who had died in 1968 was being carried past. “Stop the War!” the man we were carrying hollared. I wanted to tell him to shut up, but couldn’t. His voice echoed up and down the empty street. The moon raced quickly down the western sky toward moonset, no more than an hour away. I looked to the east. Was it growing brighter there? I hoped not. I looked at the grave digger and wanted to ask him, “How long ‘til dawn? How long?!” but I dared not. I looked at Katie, holding the corpse’s other foot. Her big eyes looked back at me. There was a wiggle to the man’s feet, as if he was trying to break free of my grasp. I held on tightly. Katie almost dropped his foot when it wiggled, but somehow managed to keep her hands around it. I smelled the river. We were getting close to it now. Only another block or so remained. I walked faster, as did the others. The corpse lifted his head and looked intently at Katie. I shivered. “I remember you,” the corpse said to her. ‘Good God!’ I thought. How could this man remember Katie? He and she were never alive on the earth at the same time! She was born long after 1968, as was I. “You were in the 1967 Christmas play,” the man said to Katie. “Yes, I remember you. You did very well, young lady! But why is my suit so dirty? Did I fall down into that hole?” I looked at Katie. With my staring eyes, I implored her not to answer the corpse. She understood, said nothing. “Very well indeed!” the corpse said to Katie. “All of you, and your little friends, did very well. Hmmmm,” the corpse said. “I’m trying to remember what part it is, exactly, that you played. Was it one of the Wise Men? No, only boys could play Wise Men. Were you one of the shepherds, little girl? No, only a boy could be a shepherd. Ah, yes! I know. You girls, the ones who couldn’t be Mary, you played the various Angels, and the animals too.” I felt the corpse jerk. I darted my eyes at Katie. She had practically dropped the man’s foot, when he spoke of the animals. ‘Don’t pay any attention,’ I wanted to say to Katie, but I kept my lips tightly shut. I looked frantically at the grave digger. Couldn’t he shut up this damn corpse? Then, staring up at his tall, moving figure, I remembered that he was dead too, and said nothing. “Now, which animal did you play, little girl?” the corpse asked Katie. “Was it the cow?” He looked at Katie, expecting an answer. She didn’t say anything. We passed by a warehouse. I turned my head and saw the glint of the river, moving swiftly in the dark night. “Was it the camel?” the corpse asked Katie. “Oh, now I remember!” the corpse said triumphantly. He grinned at his power of recall. “Now I remember! I remember your blonde hair, yes. You played the ass!” “The ass?!” Katie shouted. There was a clap of thunder. I tried to hold on to the foot of the man I was carrying, but it slipped from my fingers. I felt a whirl of air all around me. And as the thunderclap ringing in my ears subsided, I found myself in a deep, dark place, with a cavernous roof over head and fires burning for miles into the distance. I stared into the blackness all around me, illuminated only by flames. I became aware that I was standing all alone, amidst some large rocks, except for a small, white figure, standing beside me. I turned. I found myself staring at Katie’s big eyes. I felt a shudder of fear run through me. I felt a deep sense of forboding. I looked for the corpse. He was nowhere to be seen. I looked for the grave digger. He was not here, and here was not where we’d been. It was not anyplace I’d ever been. Long, rock walls stretched for miles above us, to our right. To the left, I saw vast plains, stretching for rocky mile after rocky mile, finally lost amidst ever-richer fires. “Thanks, Katie,” I said. I looked again at her, standing small and big-eyed beside me. “No pwoblem,” Katie said in reply, in a hushed voice. 30 ----------------------- Dreamgirls! ----------------------- -Back issues (and stories): type http://www.dejanews.com/ into your browser’s “Location” window. Press your “return” key. Click on “Power Search” in the middle of the screen. Next, Type in: roller666@earthlink.net in the box that appears. Click on “find” (the button to the right of the box). -Other providers: Usenet Newsgroup: alt.sex.stories.moderated or by e-mail: file.request@backdrop.com or via the Web: http://www.netusa.net/files/Authors/eli/www/erotica/assm/ -When visiting Barnes and Noble, ask for: Jock Sturges’ Radiant Identities and David Hamilton’s The Age of Innocence. Support art! - JOIN the world’s greatest organization! Send $35.00 to The North American Man/Boy Love Association for a one-year membership. NAMBLA, P.O. Box 174, Midtown Station, New York, NY 10018. -Naughty Naked Dreamgirls (Library of Congress ISSN: 1070-1427) is copyright 1998 and a trademark of Andrew Roller. -END OF story EMISSION Need a book? http://www.amazon.com -- +--------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `------------+ | story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us | story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us |