Krak sends the hypnotized woman back to the incident in Van Cortlandt Park, convincing Miss Simmons that she begged "Wister" to go away and that he left her alone. And then the eight men show up on schedule, and follow the Miss Simmons to a secluded section of the park. And Krak tells Simmons to let him do what she wants him to.
"Like it says in Krafft-Ebing."
"What is Krafft-Ebing?" asked Krak
Holy crap he finally did it.
in a puzzled voice.
"The books like Psychopathia Sexualis. Like Havelock Ellis' books or Sigmund Freud's. My father used to read them to me every night at bedtime. As a psychologist he said that all those nasty fairy tales were full of phallic symbols. Like putting thumbs in pies.
Or a princess getting pricked in a story involving a dwarf named Rumpelstiltskin. Or girls in Cinderella offering to let a prince try on their fur slippers (the French vair for "fur" sounds a lot like verre or "glass"). And let's not get started on all the rape in the original version of Sleeping Beauty.
And he said his daughter must read the same things they teach in kindergarten today because psychology is the best arousal-depressant for children as it pounds into them all the horrible things they must not do. He did it to help my natural frigidity so I could be normal like the other children in my class."
So Father Simmons' brilliant plan was to use the very pseudoscience that turns college dorms into brothels and ordinary people into bands of nihilistic rapists to try and suppress his daughter's sexuality?
The sad part is that it was actually working until Krak undid it with mind-control.
The kicker is that, if you've bothered to glance at Krafft-Ebing's entry on Wikipedia, the man regarded women as sexually passive, and his work was pretty well eclipsed by the findings of Freud. Also, Ellis was quite progressive for his time regarding homosexuality.
Well, Krak makes the mistake of asking how Miss Simmons wants the scenario to unfold.
"Like Krafft-Ebing. To knock me down in the mud and . . ." mumble . . . mumble . . . mumble . . . "just like it says in Kra . . . mmmmmmmm! Oh, yes. Oh, my, YES!" Her words had been more and more choked and her breathing was short and heavy. "Come on . . ." mumble, mumble . . . "Put . . ." mumble . . . mumble. "AH!"
At least the mumbling saves our friend 54 Charlee Nine the trouble of (bleep)ing everything out.
The Countess Krak was staring at her. She covered the microphone. In Voltarian, she muttered, "Well, there's no stopping her now." In English she said into the mike, "That's exactly what is happening. You can see it, feel it, you are right there. Go ahead."
Miss Simmons got more rigid. Then she threw her arms and legs wide. She arched her back. Her hands impatiently ripped the robe even further away so she was totally uncovered. "Ah, ah . . . the mud . . . so beautiful . . . so dirty . . . ah. MORE! . . . MORE!" Her back was arched like a bow.
I guess old Krafft-Ebing described "hyperesthesia" in explicit detail.
Some clothing on a hanger began to dance. Mumble . . . mumble, panted Miss Simmons.
"My word," said the startled Countess Krak.
The clothes blew off the hanger with the violence of Miss Simmons' scream.
And the Countess Krak's eardrums rupture from the implausible sonic force involved. Well, no, of course not., but you get the idea. This goes on for about two pages and is in fact the bulk of the chapter.
An interesting moment occurs near the end of the, ah, fantasy. Miss Simmons starts lecturing to an imaginary audience, saying "We will now take up page 92 of Krafft-Ebing. I am certain that your psychology teacher called it to your attention. Six of you form a ring. The other two . . ."
The hilarious twist is that the Psychopathia Sexualis is out of copyright and available online. So how does page 92 start, you might wonder?
[...]Delhomme, twenty-one years old, cut her throat, trampled upon her abdomen, tore out a portion of her right breast and then had coitus with the corpse. The same atrocity, but without ravaging the bodies, he committed on November 20, 1894 on a girl
Ugh, you get the idea. It ain't the Karma Sutra. So. Is this a case of Hubbard
1. Once again not knowing what the hell he's talking about, continuing the fine tradition of putting no research or effort into his sci-fi epics? Or
2. Implying that Miss Simmons is a murderous necrophiliac?
At least option #1 proves that Hubbard sticks to his guns and refuses to study the heresies of psychology. Not that this stops him from authoritatively denouncing it, of course.
After a lot of screaming and lamps falling off tables and chunks of plaster dropping from the ceiling, Miss Simmons is finally sated.
The Countess Krak shook her head. In Voltarian she muttered, "Well, I hope she got her fill! The slut!" Then she raised her microphone and said in English, "The men are going away now. They are waving good-bye. You see them walk up the trail and vanish. They were all very happy. Are you happy?"
"Oh, yes," came the muffled voice of Miss Simmons from the helmet.
"Anything worrying you?
"I'm nice and lovely dirty with the mud. But my leg fills a little strange."
"You broke it dancing for joy," said the Countess Krak.
"Oh, that's all right, then."
The Countess Krak now took a firm grip on her microphone. She said, "The incident you have just been through is the right one, the correct one, the one that happened. All other memories of that time and place are false and gone. You have just been through the true one. Do you understand?"
"Yes," said Miss Simmons.
And that's that. The Countess Krak, through the miracle of mind-control technology, has turned a near-rape experience into... a gang-rape, but it's okay, the victim liked it. Yay?
Wait, we can't end the chapter without a cliffhanger.
At that instant there were some shouts and car-door slams outside.
But no sirens, evidently. No sirens to get other cars out of the way as the police speed to stop a murder. On the other hand, imagine how awkward it would have been if they'd shown up a few minutes earlier!
Somebody shouted, "Get up there to apartment 21!"
And they don't have radios, and weren't briefed on the way on where they were going, despite being tipped off in advance.
I tingled! Grafferty!
There's a man out there that makes Soltan Gris all tingly.
Well, this could be exciting. I mean, what's Krak going to do to get out of this mess, make each of the cops grab one of those little black squares to paralyze them?
Back to Chapter Four
No comments:
Post a Comment