Programmed for Peril

persuasive mode. On his spread palm lay the six shiny snail-shaped devices he called “whiz-bangs”. Another of his inventions, they were placed at key body points where Chinese medicine said sexual energies flowed. All were commanded by a single small transmitter: a hair more current, a whole mane of stimulation! My sexual life as a Lionel train, Champ thought. Aphrodisia for our age. “Batteries not included,” Carson snickered into the white shell of Queen of My Heart’s ear. See her wanton, responsive smile!
    In time, with uneasy grin, she consented. Earlier, persuading her to venture onto new sensual territory took hours, even days sometimes. By the time this tape was made, though, she had learned to obey and allow. Was she not already fastened down with elasticized cords like car-top toggage? Carson placed the whiz-bangs on her skin, calling out in Chinese—he knew a dozen languages—the names of the nerve centers over which they adhered on tiny sucker feet.
    Carson stepped out of view to activate the whiz-bangs. Champ tensed expectantly. Having enjoyed the tape previously only sharpened his anticipation of the first flow of current into the white, submissive flesh. His own desire stirred Ted deep within like a worm. He imagined Carson’s fingers on the control unit. A flick of his index finger and… Queen of My Heart sighed and stirred within her bonds. Her jaw slackened, disclosing the pink treasure of her tongue. Carson reappeared naked, the red pelt high on hjs back burning like a cape of fire....
    Queens of My Heart past and present swam together before Champ, one naked and abandoned, another demure in safe sleep, the lash of wantoness coiled around the unsullied flower. The worm of his desire stirred further, stretched and showed the teeth of lust. He reached over! Atop the crate lay the six silvery snails. He placed them carefully where they ought to be on his own body, his touch gentle as a lover’s. He reached languidly toward the control unit. Let the current flow!
    See me! A model lover for the Third Millennium. Do not bother me with flesh, blood, or heart and their intricate demands. I am a Don Juan of electric current, transistor, acetate, silver salts, and chrome oxide. A Casanova for long-dead ladies clustered for the lens on the porches of summer cottages fallen now to anty ruin. I press my lips to faces on yellowing high school crush squeegees (“To the next president of GM”). To porn queens and staple-naveled nubile nakeds I offer seminal tribute. Neither their names nor my involvement are real. To images and illusions only do I give my seed. Shall I compare thee to a laser ray? I do not love you, Queen of My Heart! Your real flesh and soul are Carson’s. I love only what the tools of illusion and my own imagination have fabricated from the meager materials of your surface and shadow.
    Even such a limited adoration did not begin to bar his increasing arousal, flogged as it was by rewinds, repeats, freeze frames, and the rising stimulation of the whiz-bangs. Ultimately, behind closed lids he paraded with Queen of My Heart in acts bearing names spoken only in locker rooms and in spasms of passion. He shared with her positions attainable only by fakirs. He soared up, up, up in the balloon of his expert fantasies. Oh, Queen... Queen... Queen of My Heart!
    I will never dare to love you.
    After repeating his performance twice more he had hoped to sink back, sweaty and spent, into sleep.
    It wasn’t to be.
    Earthquake Anger again smoldered deep within, linked to his self-abusive passion as inviolably as smoke to black powder detonation. He tried to resist it. He was weary. But it reared up mightily, thrust a grunt through his dry lips. He thrashed on the bed, raised palms trying to drive off the first swells of rage. How could... she dare run away from Carson? Steal his child? He groaned loudly. He hadn’t the will to resist the dark wellings of primal emotion. He sat up, tore off the whiz-bangs, now as loathed as leeches. He flung himself to his feet, smeared and panting. His first howl echoed loudly in the small room. He whirled, fists balled. Even the rising waves of rage couldn’t submerge his admiration for Carson’s foresight.
    He had insisted Champ include his mended Siege Restraint in the move.
    He howled again. The sound even to his ear carried the timbre of a beast stalking the night forest. He flung himself into the heavy chair and busied himself with thick Velcro straps.