Part Fifty-One, Chapter Three - Ancient Chinese Secret

Unabridged version here, and don't say I didn't warn you.

This is not a fun chapter.  This is a chapter where the first-person narrator describes sex with what is optimistically a fifteen-year-old girl.

Gris is still all achy and hungover, especially after confusing some vodka for water and chugging too much before realizing.

Consequently, I have no slightest recollection of what had gone on that evening.  If there were two lesbians who had then become ex-lesbians, I could not tell you to this day. 

Are we supposed to be rooting for Gris?  Should we be worried at the prospect that two lesbians spent a night with him and left without switching teams?  Oh, and what did they look like?  How butch was the "husband," Hubbard?  How girlie was the "wife?"  What were their hair colors?  This is important.

The next day Gris takes an aspirin and checks on Crobe, who's mood-reading doodad declares "SATISFACTION" as he gives electroshock therapy to mental patients until they're wheeled to the morgue.  "Normal Earth psychiatric duties," Gris notes.  Krak's viewscreen is blank, so Gris puts her out of mind because that can only mean she's far away and out of range.  More on that later.  Heller's in physical training with the floating mansion's Sports Director, who praises him for being able to "run up to the top of the mainmast and down ten times without stopping," putting him in much better shape than most CIA agents.  The guy also points out the skies and water as proof that they're in the Gulf Stream, so Gris assumes the boat's in the Caribbean already, the logistics of which make his hangover worse.  More on that later, too.

Gris takes a nap instead of putting the pieces together, poor hungover guy.  Hours later, in what he thinks is a nightmare, he notices some music.  Well, "music."

Do it in the morning.

Do it in the night.

Do it to me, baby

And do it right.

Do it in the water.

Do it in the clouds.

Do it long and tenderly

And make me proud.

Do it, do it, do it!

And do it once again.

Write a day of ecstasy

With your lovely pen.

Do it, do it, do it!

Don't be shy!

Do it, do it, do it!

And gaze up at the sky.

For this must be heaven,

You can hear the angels cry,

"Do it, do it, do it!"

So open up your fly!

Thought psychology was cold and atheist, though.  And if it's trying to turn everyone gay, they should be more specific who we're supposed to be doing it to. 


As Gris notices the music, he also grows aware of... sensation, as well as something covering his eyes.  Yes, it's "TEENIE!" who decided to uphold her end of the "never see you again" bargain by putting a blindfold on Gris before mounting up.  Gris demands she get off him without making an effort to actually remove her, but she doesn't budge, instead talking about the training she's been getting from that Chinese hooker.  Things involving muscles, in places.

During this, Teenie mentions how proud her parents will be of her, explaining that they're serving life sentences for a failed assassination attempt on the president, and this time her sexual exploitation started at the hands of a judge.  Gris notices but does not call attention to her different story, instead telling her to get out, while again making no effort to make his wishes a reality.  Instead Teenie moves another muscle, and we get another "things exploding on shelves" Hubbard Sex Scene. 

It is, of course, satirizing how psychology is so unholy and sensual as to turn girls just out of their tweens into sexpots.  It's vital to the story.  Without it, we can't fully appreciate just how depraved psychology is.  The statutory rape is part of the satire.  Gotta have it.  Mission Earth wouldn't work without it.

Three exploding flower pots later, Miss Pinchy wakes Gris up and chides him for having "wet dreams" when there's a blonde and brunette lesbian waiting to be cured - and thanks for the hair colors, Hubbard, I'm trying to keep a spreadsheet of Gris' sexual conquests.  She gives Gris a hit of a bong, some gin, and an upper pill and sends him on his way.  Once again Gris has no memory of the night's events, but he wakes up at three in the morning screaming about the Fates being all around him, armed with drugs.  His wives give him a sleeping pill, but that doesn't mean he was wrong!

That very afternoon, I had missed my second opportunity to kill Teenie.  And the horror of it is, I didn't even realize it until much later--fatally MUCH later!

So Book Seven "later?"  Or more of a Book Nine "later?"  (editor's note from the future: Book Nine) Also is "kill Teenie" a real subplot or hyperbole about how much she annoys you?  And what are you gonna do, hire another hitman?  Maybe try to get Teenie in the papers so a jealous love interest kills her? 

And right then, had I had my wits about me, I might have seen another Fate face grinning at me ghoulishly.

I didn't even think of Freud and his unerring analysis of dreams.  Frankly, I will be candid, that omission was the only mistake I ever made in my professional career.  Oh, I could weep tears of blood as I recall it now.  One should never desert his Gods as I deserted Freud that night.  Even two minutes spent on dream analysis would have told me of horrors to come that even now I have difficulty facing.

It's Krak.  Krak turns out to be in the same city as Gris, taking care of Heller's problems in her own special way.  You can do the horned lizard thing if you want to, though if you're the type to bleed from the eyes, that's not the part of this chapter that should have caused it.


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Forward to Chapter Four