Free The Great Lover by Rhys Hughes, Michael Cisco Page B

already see?”
    The Great Lover lists to and fro on his feet, mouth slack, like a man on a meat hook.
    “ My prosthetic device would have to be equipped with a telepathy axon for the transmission of neutered vital force. Already, I have constructed two different prototypes, and yet I find I cannot make them work. Could you help me?”
    This last question is uttered with such tensely embarrassed flatness that it sounds like a statement. The Great Lover audibly inhales through his nostrils.
    “ I infer from your gestures” (Hulferde waved his hands about vaguely while describing his device) “that you fashioned it in the form of a receptacle?”
    “ That’s right.”
    “ That’s wrong,” my voice sounds muffled and sleepy, and the words seem to pass through me without being assembled by me, as though I’d memorized them under hypnosis. I feel a tingling sensation at the top of my neck, and an acidic trickle or rasp at the back of my throat.
    “ The sex drive is expressed in every nerve of the body,” I go on. “It is not restricted to a proprietary brain structure, nor is it a variety of thought. If you are to induce it to migrate, you must give it an environment recognizeable to it. You must construct your prosthetic in such a way that it corresponds in every particular to the dimensions of your own body. It needn’t be your double in every detail, but the volume and form must be identical. It must have your proportions exactly.”
    “— Yes, that sounds quite correct,” Hulferde says with thoughtful ardor. “I will assemble it as you say, but — while I am confident I can manage the task alone, it would take, I’m sure, far less time, with your guidance. I am at present working on a new variety of nerve gas, and my deadline is very tight.” Hulferde is getting excited; he is already designing a figure in his mind. “Will you help me build this device?”
    My head wavers; I have trouble coordinating my gestures. They are fragmented over the several parts of his body at different times and out of order.
    “ Yes, I’ll help you,” and that yes is squeezed out of me. Am I sleeping? “Where do you live?”
    Hulferde immediately steps forward extending his card. I take it in thumb and forefinger and crush it into his pocket, turning to go.
    “ I’ll be at your home in two days’ time,” the demon in me says.
    *
    That night, Hulferde dreams: “I am levitating over a city at night. Also a black carpet covered with flowers in pale colors. The lights and blossoms mingle on a dark field, then pour down in two opposed parabolas behind the face of the sewerman. I am seeing this face from an angle, just above and to the left of the left temple. The lips of the mask open and a dense brown fluid gushes out.”
    Ding-dong. Hulferde opens his front door and immediately locks eyes with the sewerman.
    “ Come in.”
    He doesn’t move. My home is a converted stone coach house with a deeply-recessed front alcove. The sewerman stands in dazzling sunlight, reflecting from the wet street behind him.
    “ I’ve come for our appointment,” he says.
    “ Yes. Well, come in,” I say, a little nervous. The sewerman doesn’t move. The sun reflecting from the wet street shines into my eyes, which are not adjusted, my having only just come from the gloom of the interior of the house, and so he is partially obscured by a sort of a blot.
    “ Why don’t you come in?” I ask.
    “ You must ask me three times.”
    “ Why?”
    He doesn’t answer me.
    “ Come in, then.”
    He enters. I notice no smell coming from him, despite his filthy appearance, and there are suds clinging to his clothes.
    “ Happy Valentine’s Day,” he groans.
    I hadn’t realized that.
    (Hulferde’s house is neatly organized, but dingy, with dust piled in the corners and a sort of rabbit-cage odor. Passing the open bathroom door, even from the hallway I could smell the towels. — GL)
    We spend the first day taking some rather embarrassing and