The House by Edward Lee Page B

disconsolate photographer in Blow Up.  "Oh, man," he thought. An interloper had strayed unseen onto his exterior set! Thank God the Sankyo had a heat-guard; he kept the frame frozen, then put a Leica 1x1 magnifier over the tiny, grainy face behind the hedge. A pretty face, for sure: oval and nearly cherubic, bright, inquisitive surf-green eyes. What Leonard couldn't figure, however, was the thing she was wearing on her head, not a hat, but a white cotton bonnet sort of thing, tied under the chin. Like something a pilgrim would wear.
    He blinked further, gritting his teeth as he focused, and that's when the Sankyo's heat-guard gave up the ghost. The frame darkened, then bubbled, then burned.
    And it was gone.
    "Yes, I must be seeing things," he tried to convince himself. It was easier to believe that, though deep in his heart he suspected it was fantasy. Who could this person be, and what was she doing?
    "No. I'm starving, I'm tired, and I've been held prisoner for months. It was nothing but hallucination..."
    Fine. But one thing still bothered him. The strange tie-down bonnet that the hallucination  wore on her head. Yes, it did indeed look like something a pilgrim woman would wear.
    Or perhaps an Epiphanite.

    ««—»»

    Sometimes "kinks" were required. These did not involve animals but instead an extreme manner of human participation. Sometimes the humans were Rocco's Mob pals, sometimes they were degenerates, or "stunt cocks," either paid or coerced to partake in the cinematic festivities. One night Rocco trooped in with all ten members of The Crew. "It's the Champagne Special tonight, kid. Get your camera." A Champagne Special, yes, but no bottles of Perrier-Jouet were in evidence. Instead, all members of the crew quite roughly fornicated with Sissy and Snowdrop and, at the proper moment, ejaculated into a champagne flute. After all of the boys had spent themselves—twice in some cases—there was a formidable  accumulation of sperm in that glass. "Down the hatch, bitch," Rocco instructed of poor Sissy, handing her the flute. Leonard zoomed in as Sissy swallowed the entire contents of the glass in one gulp. Then "shower" loops: men urinating on the gals, into their mouths, into the vaginas. The "piss enema" provided a favorite variant: some gentleman voiding a full bladder into one of the girl's rectal vaults, after which she—usually poor Sissy—was required to pose for Leonard's camera as she displaced the urine from her bowel in a spectacular gush. Tame, though, compared to the "scats," which required the girls to eat human and/or animal excrement...
    Leonard, gratefully, had only had to film one "nek" flick in his career as underground pornographer. When one of the more attractive prostitutes on Vinchetti's "circuit" had died—be it via overdose or strangulation for "holding out," turning "CI" (Confidential Informant) or, indeed, dropping "dime" (the running of one's mouth to authorities)—the corpus delectus  was expeditiously brought to the safehouse and several "stunts" would have sex with it. Rocco was always one of the stunts, donning the rubber Lyndon Johnson mask to conceal his identity. Pissing, shitting, and ejaculating on women was not technically illegal. Fucking a corpse, however, was, violating federal law and most state annotated codes as a first- or second-degree felony via some term such as gross sexual malfeasance or non-consensual congress. Leonard had filmed it all, though, like the obedient director he was, as Rocco and several other masked stunts had had a grand old time making whoopie with the dead woman. Afterwards, they left, ordering Leonard to bury her in the yard.
    Leonard had seen some "wet" flicks in the previous film-maker's inventory but thankfully he'd never had to shoot one himself. A "wet" flick was a film involving extreme sadism. "White" meant fake, and "wet" meant real. This was a grainy, poorly lit feature in which a skinny young woman was stripped and hung by lashed