Fiction

The Muse and Death
by Jim Gardner

I called Bob to find out whether he was having problems with his little finger the way I was having trouble with mine. He said he wasn't which kind of surprised me. So I asked him if he had any other physical problem from Constanze's party. He said he wasn't having any. I figured that he would have had some kind of problem since both of us had eaten her potato salad. In fact I had had two servings of it. Then I thought that I had also had one of those large lollipops that were at the same buffet table as the potato salad They were large cream colored circles with a red circle at the center. They were delicious, and since everyone was eating a lot of the food she had laid out, I thought it would not be out of order to freeload a little myself.

The naked Brazilian boy soprano that she had sing was really not all that good though she had thoughtfully provided a separate room if any of her guests wanted to play with him. He was a red head and some like that kind. She had put out cheese, shrimp cocktail and potato salad with the lollipops. The graduate student types who wanted some free protein went for the shrimp. They crowded around the table and really loaded up which was fine since she had lots on hand. The older guests went for the cheese. Those of us who were late or just did not want to fight the rush went for the potato salad. The naked soprano sang on.

Secretly I was flattered that when she saw me a tear would run down her face. Since she was a natural beauty of the highest order, she wore no makeup and hence her tear was natural, and freely it fell.

A few days after the party my finger started to ache. At first I paid no attention to it. Then it started to turn dark and itch. Since itching is a sign of healing I just let it run its course. After a while my finger started to turn black and finally came to look something like a large, elongated prune. It did not hurt much so I just disregarded it. One day I was toying with it, and the flesh just slid off so that I had just a bone where the finger had been. For a short time there was a disgusting odor of something rotting, but it went away in a few minutes. The finger was the little finger on my left hand. The change in the tissue started at the tip of the finger and went to the second knuckle. When it finally came off it left me with the bones of the finger intact and the part of the finger from the second knuckle like a little stump. In fact I could move the finger about just as though it were covered with flesh. This surprised me. I could not see how that could be so since the connecting tissue including muscles and tendons was gone, but it was true none the less that the bone worked just like the finger had. I could have played the piano if I had wanted to though I supposed the touch would have been different.

I naturally thought that Constanze's party must have had something to do with my problem. That was the only thing that I had done which was out of the ordinary.

So I called around to see if anyone else had had something strange happen to them. None had but one said that he appreciated my discussion of the deployment of Union artillery at the Battle of Stones River while the ladies were talking on and on about archery, novels and French cooking.

As for Constanze, that name was what she used when entertaining, she called herself Susan when at work. We usually just called her Susan to simplify things. Constanze for entertaining, Susan for working, and Sadie when she was taking care of her children. Every three of four months she went out to the street and collected three or four kids and took then in until she was ready to return them and get some new ones. She said that she liked to have children but she wanted to rotate them so that they were always fresh and interesting. Most of the families in the neighborhood knew of her penchant and allowed for it. The police would give her a call if some child went missing. Often the child was not really missing but just under her care.

At work Susan controlled one of the largest corporations in America. She rose from the mail room to the executive board room in a few months since she could enjoy it three or four times a day and was talented at what she did. Quickly she made photographs for blackmail, and learned enough about the company so that she could make all kinds of decisions which turned out to be sound and practical. She knew that the executives were more interested in playing golf, playing like big shots and cutting deals. So she indulged them and gave them something that few men ever had—really great sex. She achieved this from an invention she called Orgasmaid, which the CIA had found out about and had come and taken away all but the one she had for personal use. They feared that if the machine went into mass production too many persons would start having fun and stop working which would lead to the decline and fall of America. They told her that it was her patriotic duty to keep the device to herself which she did. But with that one unit and her native intelligence she ruled the corporation.

At play she liked to be called Constanze. And she required a lot of play because she needed it seven or eight times a day, but only got it three or four times at work. At first she had tried vibrators, but these had failed since they had no psychological element which was needed for Orgasmaid. She partied hard and long to get what she wanted.

There was a party every night with lots of different persons both male and female. Sometimes her parties were more like a high grade salon with the focus on intelligent and interesting conversation. After she had had it eight or nine times and was finally satisfied, a gong would sound and she would appear ready to receive guests and engage in conversation. The requirement at each party was that each guest brought a recent medical certificate which declared that person disease free. After a person entered and had presented an invitation and the health certificate, he would receive a small colored flag so that by seeking out persons with a flag of the same color they would find someone whom Constanze thought would be interesting and congenial to them. Naked children acted as waiters and brought trays of rare drinks to the guests. Her parties were always a success. Everyone who was anyone wanted to be seen at them. My knowledge of the deployment of artillery in the battles of the Civil War made me a sought-after guest. She often would come and sit at my table to hear what I had to say. It turned out she also had an interest in Civil War artillery.

Before I went to confront Constanze about my problem, I wanted to get all the information that I could. Doctors were no help. They were astonished that I could move the bony part of my finger. They took X-rays, and talked about publishing articles on my condition. But they could help me with nothing. This being the case, I decided to consult the master of the Jack of Diamonds to whom I brought all my deep problems. He tried to help me, but offered nothing substantial. He figured that what had happened to my finger was either really good or really bad, but did not know which. But he did have interesting things to say about Constanze. According to him she was a muse and hence both dangerous and fragile at the same time. She was a fallen muse, but a muse none the less. Instead of seeking art and love she wanted money and sex. He advised me to treat her right, but be cautious. All that was nice but he was no help when it came to the finger though he observed that the finger looked like a small pirate's hook which was used to attach to the stump of a lost hand. Of course a pirate's hook was larger but they looked about the same though out of scale. So what I thought. I was disappointed.

My social life at the same time had grown hugely. My condition gave me notoriety. I went to cocktail party after cocktail party where assistant professors of this or that in their tweed sports jackets with carefully kept shaggy beards talked about the postmodern significance of my condition while I made out with their wives. Soon reporters began to haunt my life. At first I was flattered. They paid well and seemed ready to believe anything. Then the National Inquirer put me on its front page with a story that I had been stung by a rare Tasmanian scorpion which caused the flesh to fall off my finger, and this was a sign of a possible invasion from outer space. Another tabloid asked an Indian Swami who said that my problem was that I had cut off some child's finger in a previous lifetime, and now my bad karma had caught up with me. So I tried past life regression therapy but all that happened was that I ended up in bed with the therapist. She confessed that everything that she did was fake and that past life regression was bull. Then as we embraced she started to sniff me. She screamed and rushed out of her office with just a handkerchief to hide her nakedness. I checked my odor but could find nothing unusual. After all I had clean habits. I took a shower every other week whether I needed one or not. I walked out to the street and asked a lady at one of the news stands to smell me. She said that it was illegal, and we could get in trouble if we were caught in public doing it, but that she would do it in private for a price. So I went home with the resolve that I must talk to Constanze about what was happening to me.

I went in the middle of the day to Constanze's place properly prepared with a medical certificate, a dictionary and a blown-up photo of myself as a child. In the hall way leading to her party room I met the three people who acted as bouncers at her parties. I offered them my credentials. They laughed and started to circle me. One was a hulking giant with his head shaved. He was a boxer with a large metal glove on each hand. He clapped these gloves together, which made sparks fly. The second was tall with muscular arms who carried a mace the ball of which was something alive. It was black and had spikes on it but it moved on its own. The third I identified as the most dangerous. She was petite and topless. She stood with each hand concealing one of her naked breasts. She said in a husky, sexy voice, "Come here and give me a little hug. Let me taste your kiss and feel your embrace." She let go of her breasts and brought out a red rose from behind her. She raised her arms in a gesture of welcome. "Come to me and feel the ardor of my love. Here I have brought you a red, red rose." In horror I saw that on her broad black belt were scorpions which made a strange kind of chittering noise. Death was her gift to those who came close to her.

The boxer said, "Hold. He bears a mark." They looked at my bone finger. Then they pulled back, and the boxer said, "You may pass."

I entered a high ceiling room which was flooded with light from great windows above. Some pigeons took flight high in the ceiling. Hundreds of naked children walked around on the floor. Some of the girls were just starting to "develop". I tried not to stare. I walked to the great wooden doors through which Constanze made her entrance at her parties. The doors opened and she stepped forward. The children applauded her. She was dressed in a black formal dress part of which had been cut away so that her left breast hung naked and free. In her right hand she held a long sheep herder's crook. Her face was not made up except that she wore intense blood red lipstick. She asked me if I was the one. I said, "If you mean the bone finger, then yes I am the one." She said, "It is a great honor for you to be here." At that a drop of milk fell from her exposed breast. She invited me. "Come. Taste your worth." I stepped up and embraced her. Then I drank from her breast. The children giggled then applauded. She said that the children were watching and that I should follow her through the doors where we could be a lone. I told her that I loved her, but that I wanted to know about my bone finger. She looked at me and sighed. I could hear the flutter of the wings of doves in the high vaults of the ceiling again. "Then I will tell you," she said. "Your bone finger represents to people your skeleton. It reminds them that we are skeletons on which flesh lives. But the bones of the skeleton also evoke a sense of death. And equally flesh seems life. With your bone finger you show death living in life, death on which life hangs. This scares some people, and shames others since they have then the sense that death lives in them, too. You are a spooky, spooky man." She stopped and looked around at the children. "This is your secret. Really it is not much of a secret. It is rather like a deformed person reminds people of the ugliness that they carry within themselves. Does that explain your condition? You are a sign of death and also of life. As such you are sacred in the way that all who deal with death are sacred. You are fortunate. It is a high calling." I nodded.

She took me by my arm and guided me into the inner room and closed the great doors behind us. We stood naked in each other's arms on a vast white bed. She said, "Drink more from me. Love me, and I will tell you all the secrets of this world and the next. Be my Caesar, and I will be your Cleopatra. Loose yourself in me, and I will protect you forever." She lay down on the endless white bed and motioned for me to join her. I asked her to close her eyes so that I could give her a wondrous gift. She did. I stabbed my bone finger into her throat and drew it in a straight line down the center of her body between her breasts, down her abdomen. Her blood gushed out. Her head was titled back and her mouth was wide open, though she uttered no sound. I stood up and moved away. On that immense white bed she had become a circle of red that slowly grew.

Immediately I found myself standing on a vast beach. My mouth was wide open. All was silent. But it was not the silence that comes from the absence of sound. It was the silence of the deaf. Where sound should be there was a kind of oil that even was part of the atmosphere. A black bird circled in the sky above me. Way out to sea a pillar of smoke rose from a burning hulk while a pirate ship slowly sailed away. My mouth was wide open. In all that silence, I was screaming with all the strength I had.