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[Previous Guest Writer]   Mark McLaughlin   [Next Guest Writer]   [Chill Factor Index]

Simon writes:

Mark McLaughlin, not content with being an extremely talented writer, is an incredible performer, too. If anyone has been lucky enough to catch him perform one of his stories, complete with outrageous accents, then they'll know what I mean. And if Mark wanted to take a break from writing then I'm sure the world of TV comedy would welcome him with open arms. So, yes, his work is outrageous, is witty, is extremely funny, but then he has the knack of turning a seemingly comic story on its head so you find yourself reading something tragic yet profoundly moving all at the same time. A perfect example of this is Mark's "Bucktoothed Boy, Beloved By Millions", which can be found in his excellent collection Zom Bee Moo Vee (order from the publisher Fairwood Press (USA) or BBR Distribution (UK)). Mark's work has appeared in over 200 magazines, anthologies and websites and I, for one, hope there's a novel of his just around the corner. Oops, before I go, the boundlessly energetic Mark McLaughlin edits The Urbanite: Surreal & Lively and Bizarre, a magazine so good that it's most definitely wicked. Now, I'm proud to introduce one of the man's stories on my website. But beware, "Finesse" takes you to an exceedingly bizarre bazaar...

Her manager adjusted the lavender rose in the lapel of his lemon-yellow blazer. "Ernst told me they've got some new fishnets in every neon imaginable."

"Earth to Yoyo: neon is out, out, out." Zannika sighed hugely. "This place is full of whore clothes. Let's try somewhere else."

"In a minute. Ernst went to get us some Dust Bunnies." Yoyo glanced over a display of pins and selected a jade spider in a silver web. "We ought to buy some little thing. This is nice."

"I should dye my hair red. Flame red. I'm so tired of platinum-blonde. Aren't you?" The artist glanced in a three-way mirror and wrinkled her nose. "It's so severe. I'm surprised you haven't said anything by now."

Yoyo brushed the bangs of Zannika's pageboy cut with his fingertips. "Your hair is gorgeous. You're the only woman I know who could get away with brown hair. An earth tone, for Christ's sake."

"That was years ago. Back then I'd try anything once."

A pencil-thin boy carrying a silver tray entered the shop from a back room. On the tray were two small glasses filled with blue liqueur; the rim of each glass was coated with white powder. Yoyo and Zannika downed their drinks and licked the rims clean.

"Buy your little spider so we can go," the artist whispered in her manager's ear. "It's time for some serious shopping."

It was a vile, ripe, impossible day. Heatwaves writhed up from the sidewalk like translucent tentacles. The heat stifled most of the shoppers but curiously, vitalized the streetpeople. Bag-ladies and hard-eyed funboys held sway on such a day, second only to the likes of Zannika. She did not perspire or even glow. Her pale skin was always dry and cool.

Zannika was a graceful, elongated creature: her hands and arms and legs were long yet elegantly, perfectly curved. She loved to look at herself in the mirror. Sometimes she wondered what she would look like with a penis. Penises were usually lumpy, ghastly-yet-comic things. If, through some unlikely miracle, she should ever sprout a fleshy spout, she knew it would be the absolute best: a sculpted alabaster masterpiece.

Their next stop was The Long Look. Within the next half-hour, Zannika spent more than eight hundred dollars on gloves, hats, perfumes, and hair toys.

"Oh, Yoyo." She brushed her fingertips lazily over her manager's rump as he bent over a display of brooches. "I would ask what Mr. Soap Opera's got that I haven't, but I'm afraid I already know."

"That's the one thing I hate about being on the road with you. I can't keep an eye on Andros." Yoyo pouted. "I was on the phone with him and he kept going on about that cow Pauline. He says they're only friends, but I've been watching the show and he's always got his hands all over her. I know it's just acting, but still..."

"Andros is a common sort of man. That sort is notoriously indiscriminate. Why do you even put up with him?" Zannika poked her manager in the side with a pinky finger. "It's a miracle you can be so urbane with all those awful male hormones brewing inside of you."

Yoyo smiled. "It's the cross I must bear."

A young black-haired woman in a leather jacket came up to Zannika. "I know you! You're playing at The Black Box. I just love your show."

"That doesn't mean you know me." The artist crossed to the makeup counter and began to examine the mascaras, the lipsticks – anything so she wouldn't have to make eye contact with a fan.

The woman followed close behind. "I've been telling my friends, 'Go see Meat for Daddy. It's so unreal!'" The fan glanced at the lipsticks. "Try the deep purple."

At last Yoyo came to Zannika's rescue. "Ms. Taint does not feel comfortable talking with her fans," he said, taking the woman by the arm and turning her in another direction. "Her act is so very personal. You understand."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean any harm." The woman turned toward Zannika. "Really, I didn't."

"That's fine, dear," Yoyo said. "Ms. Taint understands. Deep down she loves all of her fans." He gently pushed her away. "Bye bye, now. And thank you."

"Why in the world am I carrying these?" Outside of The Long Look, Zannika handed her shopping bags to Yoyo. "A day of lugging these around and I'll turn into one of those awful muscle-women. Where now?"

Yoyo squinted down the street, past storefronts of faux marble and metal. "There. The Snake Pit." He pointed to a small boutique a block and a half away. The display case was filled with what appeared to be mannequins twined in telephone cord.

"It's not too Goth, is it?" Zannika's heels shot sparks as they hit the sidewalk. "I don't do retro." As they drew closer to the shop, she realized that the dummies were in fact wrapped in barbed wire.

Inside, the store was in fashionable disarray. Jewelry and scarves and boots were strewn on the steps of silver stepladders and hung from thin silver chains. Scattered on small tables were glowing spheres of blue glass. The walls were splashed with thick, shiny clots of black and red paint. The high ceiling seemed to be covered with dark lace or netting. No clerks or customers were in sight. Beside a bell on the counter stood a small engraved sign – WE LIVE TO SERVE.

Zannika tried on blue metal earrings shaped like fingers. "These are darling. I could wear them during my act. And look at this belt." She removed a long strip of shiny pinkness from a chain. "What do you think it's made of?"

An obese, perfumed shopboy appeared so quickly at her side that she gasped in surprise. "That belt," he breathed in a hollow tone, "is made from the sun-dried small intestine of a crocodile." His silver contacts rode his bulging orbs uneasily, occasionally flashing slivers of his dark brown irises. "Isn't it extraordinary?"

Yoyo picked up a small stone statue from one of the tables. "This little fellow. Is that a tail, or is a snake crawling up his ass?"

"A snake: but look closer. It's on the way out, not in." The shopboy grinned, revealing very small, very yellow teeth. "That figurine depicts the Egyptian god of insanity. He arrived this morning – isn't he delightful? The syllables of his name happen to create a riotously obscene phrase in English. Since I do not wish to offend, I shall call him 'He-Who-Devours-Wounded-Moths.' More than anything else, ancient Egypt is an attitude, don't you think?"

Zannika noticed the woman in the leather jacket talking with a group of young people outside of the display window. She watched them out of the corner of her eye, hoping they wouldn't enter the store. Thankfully, they moved on.

"I happened to overhear mention of an act." The shopboy lowered his eyes. "Are you performers?"

"Ms. Taint is." Yoyo took Zannika by the hand. "She is a performance artist. There's a show tonight at The Black Box. Her act is the most –"

She dug her nails into his palm. "We mustn't take up the nice young man's time. He must have a trillion things to do."

A phone shrilled at the counter and the shopboy went to answer it.

"You know I hate to talk about my act," the artist said. "Why, why, why did you even bring it up?"

"I just answered his question." Yoyo rubbed his sore hand. "Besides, he might tell some of the other store patrons. A little word of mouth goes a long way in this set."

"This set? The place is as empty as a tomb."

"You might try being just a hair friendlier with fans and fans-to-be," Yoyo said. "They're your livelihood. At least give them a little smile."

"I'd rather give them lobotomies." Zannika rubbed her temples. "I'm not feeling very well. I'm getting a headache."

"Dr. Yoyo has just the thing." He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small cigarette case, but before he could open it, the shopboy returned. He held a long grey pipe which appeared to be carved from some sort of animal bone.

"You are not feeling well? Beautiful people should feel beautiful." The boy cocked his head to one side. "Might I suggest a headache remedy dating back to the days of our little friend, the eater of moths?"

Zannika looked into the pipe's bowl. It appeared to be filled with dried flower petals and bits of crystal. The shopboy lit the mixture with a silver cigarette lighter and took a puff himself. "Very pleasant," he said. "Very soothing."

The artist began to suck at the pipe. The mixture was spicy – like clove cigarettes, except sharper. She detected a faint blue glow around the shopboy; perhaps the petals were mildly hallucinogenic. Yoyo had a green aura that clashed with his suit.

A soft, sweet humming filled her head. She held up her hand and marvelled at the coils of coral and deepest purple that swirled between her fingers. She felt so much better now. Perhaps someday she would come back to this shop and – What? Have sex with the shopboy? No, he was kind, but an awful eyesore. At any rate, he probably favored some oblique, antediluvian predilection. Get more of the pipe mixture? She could probably ask for a shopping-bagful. The Snake Pit, she discerned, was an obliging establishment.

"I think Ms. Taint has had enough, Minty," Yoyo said as he took the pipe from Zannika and returned it to the shopboy. "We still have a few more stops to make." The shopboy merged with the shadows of the boutique.

"How did you know his name?" Zannika said. "He didn't tell us. He wasn't wearing one of those tacky name tags."

"I've been here before. Do you think I would take you to a completely unfamiliar shop?" Yoyo shook his head. "I prepare for these outings. I want our time together to be perfect. Because you are perfect. No, I take that back: perfection does not allow for potential, and you have worlds and worlds of potential."

It seemed a mistake to return to the street, Zannika thought, and yet what could she do? She couldn't stay in The Snake Pit forever. She had to prepare for her show. The humming in her head, at first so comforting, was beginning to bother her, and the sharp red and orange auras of the pedestrians hurt her eyes.

She looked down at herself. Her entire body crawled with glowing coral and purple snakes. Pythons. People always told her she was special, but she never really believed them. She assumed (often rightly) that they merely wanted something. Now, here was visual proof that she was different. Others wore their auras like tacky raincoats. Hers was vibrantly alive.

She plucked at Yoyo's blazer, begging for him to walk slowly. He recommended a few more boutiques, but she was no longer in the mood for shopping. She felt a little better by the time they reached the hotel. "I'm going to take a nap," she said. "Would you be a dear and piece together some sort of outfit for the show? I wish I could do it myself but I'm dead to the world. Dead, dead, dead."

Zannika stumbled into the bedroom, slipped out of her dress and threw herself on the bed. Though her body came to rest on the sheets, her mind did not. That part of her floated down through the fabric and springs of the mattress. In the distance she heard Yoyo on the phone: "Meet you there, lover." Poor Andros, the cuckolded soap stud. Her mind sank through metal and concrete, floor after floor, faster and faster, down through stone, stone, stone. She felt squeezed by the stone, the way Daddy used to squeeze her.

She had erased Daddy's face from her memory. All she remembered of him was his horrible desire. He had been an awful man, and she was living her revenge – telling the whole world about wicked Daddy through her art. She lived to communicate her feelings: not to any one person, but to the masses. Yoyo was the only exception. His shallowness made him a treasured confidant.

At last she passed through the stone into a fiery river of magma. And in this fierce fluid state she felt strangely aroused. The earth's hot blood washed lasciviously over her presence, searing away all of her cares, all of her limitations, leaving only passion and insatiable hunger.

Aeons passed, liquid stone boiled and churned, roiled and burned, and still Zannika flowed with the heat, even after the creature in yellow roused her and covered her with a second skin of shining rags.

She allowed the creature in yellow to lead her through the foolishly angled structure until they emerged into a great space of towering slabs dotted with brightness and a great looming void beyond. Chattering creatures pushed at her as they hurried along. The creature in yellow pushed her into the open belly of a large beast of metal.

She wished to drink the hot living fluids of the creature in yellow, to drain him utterly dry, to reduce him and all the chattering creatures to dust. Inside the metal beast, the creature in yellow poured a clear liquid into her throat that helped to ease her thirst. The creature made her consume tiny roundnesses of white and pink.

Zannika turned her eyes toward the creature's face and suddenly found herself wondering if they were going to be late for The Black Box and if they had enough cash on hand for the taxi.

Yoyo put the flask of vodka and pill case back in Zannika's purse. "I hope you like that outfit. I thought a metallic look would be just the thing."

"I'm hungry," she said. "When can we eat?"

"Miss One-Meal-a-Day? Miss Salad-Bar-and-Mineral-Water? The club can scrounge up something for you." Yoyo patted her hand. "At least you're talking. Do you need another pill? We have a special audience tonight, you know."

"No, I don't know. Some little art league?" She looked out at the stars. How could fire look so cold? "I'm still hungry. The stars are confusing me. Are we there yet?"

At The Black Box, Yoyo went off to talk to the stage manager. In her dressing room, Zannika wolfed down a steak, two baked potatoes, and a slice of chocolate cake. She decided never to return to The Snake Pit. The mixture in the pipe had reduced her comprehension of the world to a primal state. True, the effect had worn off, but it still frightened her. She was an artist: communication was essential to her.

She was deafened by applause as she strolled onstage. The club was choked with swirling smoke. She picked up a remote control from on top of a large metal box in the center of the stage. With the press of a button, she activated the wall of televisions that served as the background for her performance.

Scenes from obscure, fetish-oriented porno movies sprang up on the screens. Zannika set down the remote control and opened the metal box.

"Meat for Daddy!" she cried, pulling out a raw chunk of beef brisket. She slapped it on the floor and against the wall of televisions. On one screen, a tall blonde with wrinkled lips sneered as she picked up a handful of clothespins.

"Daddy loves meat!" Zannika screamed. "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Feed me meat, Daddy! Show me that you care!"

The smoke coiling up from the audience had a spicy, familiar smell. Zannika pulled a raw chicken out of the box, selected a screen, and smeared the carcass against an especially exuberant close-up. She glanced out over the audience and blinked with surprise: she could detect auras of red and orange among the audience members. Offstage, she saw Yoyo laughing with a short, fat figure with a blue aura.

"Meat! Meat! Meat! Daddy's meat is so complete!" The artist reached again into the box and began to toss chunks of ground chuck against the screens. "Daddy likes cow meat! Pig meat! Woman meat!" As she screamed her litany, she suddenly realized that the audience was chanting along with her. "Red meat! White meat! Daddy wants all the meat!"

In the front row, the woman with the leather jacket stood on her seat, screaming, "I love you, Zannika!" Angered, the artist threw a heavy slab of meat in her face. The woman sank her teeth into the prize.

The glistening flesh on the screens also took on auras. Red, orange, magenta. Zannika suddenly began to feel hot. As hot as magma, as hot as the earth's core. And she was hungry again.

The black-haired woman removed her jacket, her tank top, her pants. Several other members of the audience also began to disrobe. Zannika felt drool streaming down her chin. She glanced back at the televisions and saw they had all been turned off.

Holding hands, Yoyo and the fat shopboy walked onto the stage. "Adore Her," they cried out in unison. Then her manager shouted, "She-Who-Hungers shall feast tonight. Worship Her, for She-Who-Hungers shall lead us into the Beyond. She-Who-Hungers desires all. Knows all. Reveals all."

"I'm not –" As the heat within her rose, Zannika found it difficult to speak. "Don't – don't –" Don't what? She stared at the audience. What were they doing to her?

This time, the heat did not stop with her mind. Her body turned feverish and began to expand. The metallic dress ripped and fell away as she billowed into an enormous, spongy mass, dripping with hot digestive acids. Purple and coral pythons of living power squirmed across her bulk.

Several members of her frenzied audience climbed on stage, and she writhed with pain and delight as they thrust themselves into her: first little parts, then limbs, then entire bodies. She engulfed them with tingling ecstasy. For a moment, she considered sparing Yoyo... Then a pang of ravenous need coursed through her. She thrust out a fat ribbon of tissue and wrapped it around her manager's throat. Another length of pink fiber shot forth to embrace the shopboy.

Why, she wondered, had they turned off her videos? Her act wasn't done yet! She stared sadly, longingly at the wall of televisions. Then she caught sight of a reflected image, segmented across all the dark, shiny rectangles of glass. An image of –

Herself.

She stared and stared, dumbfounded. She was now one big face ... but not just any face. Big black ovals for eyes and a wide, curved slash of a mouth, set in an expression of banal idiocy.

An enormous, luridly enflamed, have-a-nice-day Smiley Face.

People from the audience were still climbing onstage and thrusting themselves into her, allowing themselves to be instantly consumed. She wanted to tell the people about desire, about meat, and as always, about Daddy. But her mind refused to focus on the task. She could feel her red-hot appetite sizzling away her intellect.

Zannika tried desperately to cling to her power of speech. The struggle, however, was futile. Every time she opened her mouth to say something, a cluster of fans crawled inside.