Part Forty-Three, Chapter Four - Thirty Pages In and I Already Want Out

In the last volume of Mission Earth it took 270 pages or so for the author to get to the rape scene.  But for Death Quest, Hubbard isn't wasting any time.

It's the next day, Pinch and Candy's long-awaited open house.  Gris gets dressed up for the occasion at Pinchy's request.  The former torture dungeon-apartment has been refitted into a charming salon, classical music is playing, and soon the guests arrive.

I thought I might be seeing people like the Security Chief or some fellow males from Octopus Oil. But the doorbell rang and rang and couple after couple came in, deluding me at first into believing I would see a fellow man by the slouch hats and men's topcoats. But nay, alas, they were all lesbian couples.

Gris is 100% straight, by the way.  He hates them disgusting homos.

Some of the "males" even wore tuxedos. They tried to greet me heartily with bass voices. They swatted me on the shoulder and called me "old man." But I certainly was not fooled. The bass voices broke into treble unexpectedly and the swats may very well have been intended to push me away from their "wives."

I really shouldn't have to explain this, because we live in the enlightened year of 2013, and if Hubbard is suggesting one thing it's usually safe to assume he's completely wrong, but just in case: this isn't how homosexuality works.  Being attracted to those of your own sex is not the same as wanting to dress up as the opposite sex.  Sexual orientation is not the same as gender.  Same-sex couples do not have to decide which of them is the "man" and the "woman."  Gays and lesbians can be otherwise "normal" people who just so happen to like other men/women.

Unless of course they do feel like crossdressing or assuming gender roles.  But it's not a rule all homosexuals have to follow, and it's not one exclusive to them either.

I guess we could give Hubbard the benefit of a doubt and put this down to Psychiatric Birth Control teaching its victims to behave this way.  On the other hand, Hubbard seems to enjoy writing scenes where the villain protagonist rapes lesbians straight, so (bleep) him.

Anyway.  The party lasts all of one brief paragraph before Pinchy sends Gris to the neighborhood drugstore to get some aspirin for her headache, explaining that the guests will all be sent home and she'll be in bed before he gets back.  He goes out for the aspirin, returns, and sure enough the house seems empty and the lights are out.  Candy and Pinch are apparently in bed asleep, so Gris crawls in between them.  Then someone touches him.

A hand slid over and touched my right thigh.  Some fingers lightly explored my stomach.
I was suddenly reminded that if I were ever to get that two thousand dollars, I had better become highly agreeable.

I rolled over to my right.

I started to do my duty.

Now, when's the last time we established just how stupid Soltan Gris really is?

I suddenly halted.

What was this?

Something odd.  How had Candy become a virgin again?

Well, this was no time to wonder about things like that.

I'd argue that this is in fact the best time to wonder about things like that.  

Candy's screams are markedly louder than usual, and she passes out once Gris completes his "duty."  He settles back down for sleep until he hears the sound of chattering teeth from the other side of him.  Could someone be frightened for some reason?

Oh, well, she was just funning.

I rolled and grabbed.

Indrawn breath like terror.

I'm still not sure whether Gris really is this clueless, or if all his narration is meant to be accompanied by a lusty wink.

What on Earth was Pinch up to?

What the Devils?  Since when had Pinch become a virgin again?

Oh well, just more women's tricks.  They're full of them.

A scream!

Then panting in rhythm.

Moans in rhythm.

WHOOSH!

The sheet flew up.

A shuddering cry!

Total limpness.  A dangling arm swung in the streetlight beam and then became still, hanging off the side of the bed.

I wondered what the Devils Miss Pinch was doing passing out.

THE LIGHTS CAME ON!

Surprise!  The room is rigged with microphones and infrared cameras, then Pinch and Candy lead a crowd of people in from the next room.  As Gris climbs off a peroxide blonde and a "lesbian 'husband" with blueish hair, Candy reveals that this was all an elaborate setup to get Gris to demonstrate what "real" sex is like.  But the other lesbians are merely congratulating her and Gris for staging a well-acted "show."

"(Bleep) you!" shouted Miss Pinch.  "That was no put-on.  That was the real thing!"

"Oh, pish, pish," said a lesbian wife.  "Anyone can simulate, Pinchy, and you know it.  The only innovation here is that Inkswitch is wearing a falsie."  And she yanked at the sheet.

"Movie blood," said a lesbian husband.

Wait, they're familiar with dildos but they still have their hymens intact?

"But a delightful fake all the same."

"God (bleep) it," howled Miss Pinch, "if it's a fake, then how do you account for the volunteer couple being OUT COLD?"

Despite the best efforts of dildonic engineering, apparently only an all-natural length of man-meat is capable of pounding women into unconsciousness.

"Do you mind if I touch your dildo, old man?" said a lesbian husband, elbowing through and reaching out.

I climbed halfway up a phallic-symbol chair.

Wait, Gris just performed his "duty" twice without a break, and he apparently isn't proving his non-falsieness in the most obvious way possible.  He may need to visit a hospital.

Pinch manages to wake Spike and Lover-girl, the two volunteers, who give a glowing endorsement of heterosexual sex in the missionary position.  But the remaining lesbians are unconvinced and accuse the pair of being in on Pinchy's scam, so she challenges them to draw straws and throw the "winner" at Gris to prove that this isn't being staged.  Algernon, a "husband" in a top hat, gets the short straw, and is forcibly stripped, fed a birth control pill (which only provides effective protection after seven days of consistent use, so this is largely a pointless gesture), and thrown on the bed for Gris to "perform" with.  Poor Algernon is terrified, "trying to shrink," and held down by her "friends" for Gris to - well, this is pretty much rape.  Performance rape, to prove the dominance of male-female sex and specifically the dominance of the male over the female during sex.

Gris hesitates because Algernon is one of those stomach-turning homosexuals, but admits that "while the bosom was not extraordinary, they were a woman's breasts.  The hips, though a shade narrow, were a woman's hips."  He gets Pinchy to splash some scented water on Gris' latest victim because Algernon reeks of cigar smoke.  Then the healing (through rape) begins.

Blah blah "Hey!  Look at that!  He likes it!" blah blah blah WOOSH! blah blah "She's just out cold!" blah blah "She's having another one all by herself!" blah blah blah "She did it again!"

The crowd is so impressed that one of them climaxes just from watching Gris (bleep) the gay right out of another woman. Though now convinced that Psychiatric Birth Control is a load of crap - "After a bang like that I'll never go back to biting and scratching and calling it sex.  No SIR!" - the problem is that psychology has nonetheless turned all the men at Octopus Oil gay... except for the elevator boys, who Miss Peace has a "monopoly" on... and except for the married men, who are so "slugged up on drugs they're impotent."  But other than that, every man within the company is gay, and looking for men elsewhere would get them fired, because... uh, plot.

You can guess the solution - Miss Pinch offers to whore out Gris to the other girls during the daytime, so long as he still has energy to take care of her and Candy each night.  She of course threatens to emasculate Gris if he fails her, thereby bringing the payoff for the Aphrodite reference and Gris' concerns last chapter.

But, for his good work (raping a woman to prove a point) that night, between Pinchy and the crowd's tips, Gris raked in twelve thousand dollars, presented by Pinchy in a wastebasket.

I went into the shower singing.

TWELVE G's!

I could pay my bill to Razza.

I could buy a hit man.

COUNTESS KRAK, YOU'RE DEAD!

I'm beginning to suspect that a worrying amount of Mission Earth exists so the author can write scenes where his villainous viewpoint character deflowers lesbians and cures them of their condition through rape. 


Back to Part Forty-Three, Chapter Three

Forward to Part Forty-Four, Chapter One