The Teratologist by Edward Lee Page A

girl mouth give succor to his balls for a time more, while he just stared off. Across the room was another bed, where a Hasidic rabbi groaned, sodomizing some bent-up thing that appeared to be female. Her limbs seemed…bowed, and she panted like a dog as the rabbi plungered her rectum…
    Good God…
    Mounted on the ceiling, he could see, cameras focused down, catching every angle of the demented festivities taking place on the beds. What where they doing here?
    And who were they?
    Fadden couldn’t contemplate these reasonable questions for much longer. His lust was burning him down now. He forced his previously celibate cock down to her tonsils, sighed, then slid down and was in her vagina again—or one of the vaginas.
    He would fuck Carol four more times tonight, and then die of a massive myocardial infarction. A digital film of his sexual foray would hit the internet and major network news affiliations within twenty-four hours.
    His body would never be found.
     
     
    (V)
     
    Westmore woke at about three a.m. Sat bolt upright, sweating. This had been happening with some frequency of late—forty now, and no life but his work, and “downing” a few after work, or “Let’s go have a few beers.” A “few” would always be eight or ten. He knew he was at least a borderline drunk but never consciously admitted that. All photographers drank—all good ones, at any rate. That was his excuse. But the booze always screwed up his sleep.
    When he’d jerked awake, he’d been terrified: some creepy impression that someone else was in the room. In fact he even thought he’d seen a shape standing there in the particulate darkness, looking down at him in bed. He’d nearly cried out, snapping on the light.
    No one was there, of course, but did he hear a mutter just as he’d turned on the light? He thought he’d heard someone say, distinctly: “Shit. I hate light.”
    He felt imbecilic at once. It was those Johnny Walker Blues he’d slugged down earlier—strong stuff. I’m gonna quit drinking, he resolved, rubbing his eyes.
    The room looked like the presidential suite at the Four Seasons. Hot tub, home theater, inlaid paneled walls, four-poster bed. The plush Kashmiri carpet probably cost more than Westmore’s puissant condo. Like downstairs, two French doors faced east; they led to a balcony, overlooking the garden, and a sedate moon shone through the door’s multiple square panes. A cigarette on the balcony sounded great but when he tested the door’s knobs, they were locked. He touched the panes. Lexan.
    Stop being paranoid, he thought. Now, if the bedroom’s door was locked, he might have a right to be paranoid, but the door clicked open when he tried it. He felt weird and hung over. Hair of the dog was always the worst excuse, but the Johnny Blue was good scotch. He’d thrown his clothes over the teal récamier couch against a wall decorated by what appeared to be an original Rothko. The abstract painting reminded him of a long lost love—a girl he’d loved more than anything but never told—which only soured his mood further. Failure was everywhere he looked. Despair was everywhere, to the extent that he felt at home in it. He hurriedly pulled his clothes back on, grabbed his cigarettes, and left the room.
    Yeah, I’ll quit drinking some day… Just not today.
    The main upstairs hall stood morgue-silent and dark. From the railing, which stretched before the guest rooms, he looked across the atrium-like foyer and remembered more detail of the mansion’s layout. Another hallway could be seen just across the way, and he presumed there were more guest rooms there too—or perhaps Farringworth’s bedroom. Had it really been Farrington himself that they’d seen earlier in the same hallway, naked, weeping? Something about angels, Westmore remembered. Then all that whacked out talk about conceptions of perfection, and God. What a kook…
    He took the sweeping steps down quietly as he could. His headache stalked