Grimoire Diabolique

No, a great cause, an absolutely big time wonderful cause. Within a week, Rudy was something he never recalled being: debt-free. Exit the ’76 clunker Malibu, enter his and hers Mustang GT’s. The 52” Sony TV was nice too, and so was the Adcom stereo and the $50,000-worth of new furniture.

And the new house. A spacious, skylighted A-frame off Bay Ridge Drive. It was the nicest house in the area that had a basement.

VI

Gormok remained surprisingly content, considering what Rudy’s greed had divorced him of. He jabbered and drank beer through a convalescent straw during the day, propped up behind pillows in bed, while Rudy cashed in at the track. Not once had Gormok’s divinations failed, and soon Rudy’s biggest problem was what to do with all the money. Beth, of course, had her ups and downs—the freedom to buy anything she ever wanted was a bit spoiled by the constant sexual service she was required to perform upon the libidinous torso in the basement. Eventually, she began to complain…

“That thing downstairs made me give it head today!” she spat at Rudy. “Did you hear me! I had to give head to a torso!”

Just like a woman, Rudy frowned in thought. You give ’em a good thing and they STILL bellyache. “Honey, he’s not a thing. He’s not an it. You’re talking about Gormok—he’s our man.”

Beth gaped. “Our man! Then you go down there and fuck him! See how you like it! You go down there and blow our man!”

Rudy thanked the fates Gormok wasn’t gay. “Stop being selfish,” he told her. “Don’t we have everything we want?”

“Yeah, Rudy, we do, and that’s my point. We have enough now, so I shouldn’t have to do it anymore.”

Rudy looked up reprovingly. “Beth, there’s never enough.”

“Oh, so that’s it, huh?” Beth, who rarely wore anything other than panties these days (due to the mounting frequency of Gormok’s need), stomped exasperated around the kitchen table. “You think you’re going to spend the rest of your life cleaning out the goddamn racetrack while good old Beth fucks and sucks a dismembered Babylonian alomancer!”

“Don’t be vulgar, honey. It’s not like you.”

Beth’s little breasts jiggled as she belted out a bitter chortle. “You make me fuck a torso and tell me not to be vulgar! I’m sick of it! You hear me! I’m sick of fucking that disgusting, ridiculous, grinning…trunk!”

Rudy brought a finger to his lips. “Keep your voice down. He might hear you. You’ll hurt his feelings.”

“God,” she lapsed, paling. “He takes forever sometimes, and—” she gulped “—he’s—he’s—he’s just so…huge.”

Then quit complaining, Rudy felt inclined to say.

Women always want the big dick—well, baby, now you got it. At the table, he weeded out the ones, fives, and tens, into the garbage.

“Beth, oh Bethieeeeeeeeee!” called out the familiar nasal warble from downstairs. “Wither thee, my sweet beatific vision? My lovely, lovely Beth of the light-brown hair?”

“Oh, no,” Beth croaked.

“Leave me in turmoil no longer, oh, my wondrous angel, so lovely of countenance and sweet of loins. Come! I beg thee! Come assuage my beckoning fancy.”

Rudy cocked a brow. “Assuage my beckoning fancy?”

Beth glared at him. “That means he horny again, Rudy.” Her eyes rolled back in despair. “I don’t believe this. All I ever wanted was a nice normal average life, and what do I get instead? A torso with a boner.”

“Dearest Beth, please! Partake of my desire! My loins cry out for thee!”

Beth’s disdainful glare focused. “And you, you fucker. You haven’t made love to me in months.”

Rudy shrugged. It was not an easy thing for a man to rise to the occasion when he knew his squeeze was doing the bop with a naked torso. Hey, she’s got her gig, I’ve got mine, he thought. His bevy of call girls at the track wore him out. Some of those girls could suck the paint off a battleship. Not much lead left in the old pencil after when they were done. “It’s all the stress, honey,” he lied through his teeth. “All this betting everyday—it takes a lot out of a guy. And now the IRS is all over me.”

“Wondrous Beth!” the torso whined on, “my passion throbs for thee! Oh, let thy lovely loins be wed again to mine! Let your angel’s lips give succor to my manly love, and drink of my warm and copious seed!”

“You better get down there,” Rudy advised, “unless you want me to lose everything on the next race.”

Beth stared at him, her shoulders slumping.

“I hate you,” she said.

««—»»

One thing Rudy had added to the new house, unbeknownst to Beth, of course, was the hidden video camera in the basement. Rudy, after all, was a successful man now, and successful men didn’t watch their girlfriends tuck torsos through mere cracks in basement doors. No, they watched with state-of-the-art video equipment. And Rudy had a lot to watch…