Characters and Situations

A crisp walk through Lake Hollywood Park would have been refreshing—for anyone but Morty Gelber. Sunday night depression was rolling in. How he hated getting his sneakers wet in the grass. And how he loathed walking. 

But, he was meeting a woman. All the better to buoy his spirits before the Monday morning meetings with the studio chiefs. Judging from the pictures on Instagram, this mystery lady could be just the ticket. 

The name was Sarah. (With an H, the slut spelling.) Or, at least, that was the name she used on Instagram. 

There, Morty saw her sitting on a picnic table, with the glorious Hollywood sign hovering in the periphery. That must have been her, with the tight, long-sleeved, low-cut top. The soft hands turning in her lap. Nervous, cute. She could have been a Latina. But possibly a gypsy, with those Eastern European cheekbones and that bumped nose. Morty had visions of a Moldovan vampire right out of a sleazy seventies Lesbian Horror flick—or, a porno. 

Sunset cast the rising figure in a warm orange glow. The Rubenesque hips swiveled as she walked to meet him. Yes, she was just the ticket. 

Morty extended his hand and introduced himself. Though he knew, to these young women, he required no introduction. 

Sarah placed her small, dainty hand into Morty’s sweating paw. “Wow,” she said. “I’m so glad I could finally meet you.” 

“It’s always nice to meet a fan,” Morty said. “I get lots of mail and kind messages on Instagram. But there’s nothing like actually getting face to face with people.” 

Sarah’s was certainly a face Morty wanted to face. He so much enjoyed these encounters with fans and admirers. But he had to be careful these days. The Hollywood whisper wheel was always turning, and if it turned for you then Heaven help you—because no one else will. One bad meeting. One bad phone call. One inappropriate comment at a party. And it would all be over. 

But meeting women through the Internet was always risky. You never knew exactly who would appear on the other side. 

“Tell me about yourself,” Morty said, as they started walking through the gathering fog. 

“Well,” Sarah said. “What can I say? I’ve been a fan of your show since high school. I’d sneak down to the living room in my nightgown and make popcorn and scare myself to death. But it was so exciting. The violence and the sex. Hot explosive blood shooting on the camera lens. I read all the novels too.” 

“Really? That shows dedication.” 

Sarah bit her lip and giggled. “Well. The scene in book five, when the ripper uses the device on the nurse. The way you described it. That scene taught me how to…pleasure myself.” 

“You know, you’re not the first girl to tell me that. Yes. The novels are still dear to me. When the show got picked up, the studio changed everything around. Those suits like to poke their grubby fingers into everything.” 

Fingers. Morty visualized getting his fingers into other things as Sarah’s warm body butted up against his. “But I still have a great deal of…input.” 

How Morty despised the way the studio execs tried to excise him from the show. They even changed his credit from “Based on the novels by” to “Characters and situations by” Mortimer Gelber. Characters and situations. 

Morty had his pride. He also had his ego, but that was nothing unusual for Hollywood. He had used every trick in his Machiavellian playbook to secure the deals necessary to worm his way into the Hollywood elite. He became a player in spite of the best efforts of the studio hotshots to snub him. 

But “Characters and Situations” was an embarrassment, a total diminishing of his creative contribution. For was that not all of life? All the world was a stage to Morty Gelber, and all the men and women but characters and situations. 

The woman walking beside was a character in all caps and bold print. Morty looked over and saw himself in Sarah’s big adoring eyes. That was exactly where he wanted to be. 

“Even so,” said Sarah. “It’s a fascinating idea for a series. Is it your actual belief that Jack The Ripper was an extraterrestrial surgeon?” 

“Oh, yes, Sarah. It’s quite clear to see that, if you make a careful study of the evidence. In doing research for the novels, I took many trips to London to observe the very locations where the murders took place.” 

“That’s amazing,” Sarah said. 

“Yes. You take the first slaying, Mary Ann Nichols. Witnesses claim she was speaking to a man that evening. Likely a gentleman John, a suitor, a paying customer. She was a whore, you see. The man was wearing a deerstalker cap, like Sherlock Holmes. A sophisticated alien being would easily be able to disguise its true appearance with period-appropriate garb. We demonstrated this in the pilot episode. The test audiences ate it up.” 

Morty loved dazzling women with his perspicacity. His intellectual prowess was his chief asset, at least he thought so. 

“Tell me more,” Sarah said, her anxious breath pushing her chest out into the open night air. 

“Well, you take the so-called ‘botched’ slaying of Elizabeth Stride. It was a chilly September evening in London. A night just like this one.” 

Morty grabbed Sarah’s hand and tickled her wrist. She gasped and wrapped herself around his chubby arm. 

“Her throat was slashed,” Morty said. “The Metropolitan police bore down on the scene. The killer had to flee before he had a chance to operate. They found the woman’s body lying there. Still warm. They searched the ground. Not a track left behind. No trace of a killer. Now, you tell me, Sarah, how could the killer have so quickly withdrawn himself, unless he—or, it—was a creature with advanced alien technology?” 

“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “But it’s horrifying. If that were true, then it’s possible the Ripper is still out there somewhere.” 

Sarah’s slender arms fastened tightly to her evening interlocutor as he continued his titillating sermon. “You are correct, Sarah. Just think about it. How many bizarre slayings go unexplained to this day? Right here in L.A., even?” 

“Hundreds?” 

“Thousands.” 

Sarah listened in abject fascination as Morty recounted multiple Ripper-like slayings from Victorian times to today. This was the premise of his show. 

The original Ripper Case Files novels were more doorstopper than blockbuster. But the TV show made Morty famous. Now, he had fans all over the world. 

The Ripper show was an instant hit with the younger female demographic. You couldn’t go wrong, Morty knew, with sizzling subplots and serial slayings. 

Morty was also a student of hypnosis. And he knew just what to say when he got his female fans alone. They instantly fell under his spell. 

His life’s work did most of the job for him. For that was the nature of fandom. Those women wanted to live in the narrative universe that sprang like a Big Bang of Genius from Morty’s mind. 

In those golden days, Morty would prefer to have multiple partners at once. But he was getting older now, and one was quite enough. For he had known many a Mary, Sue, and Sarah. All different characters, in different situations. 

“Parts,” Morty said. 

“What do you mean?” 

Morty made a pontificating face. For he was wont to be philosophical in these matters. 

“The Victorian era in England was rife with controversy regarding vivisection. That was when surgeons would experiment on living animals. Cutting them open to see how the inner workings function.” 

Sarah made a disgusted, but simpering, face. 

“I think that was the Ripper’s motive,” Morty said. “No doubt about it. An intergalactic being would be just as curious about us as we would be of it. And what better way to learn than to experiment on living tissue. After all, kid: it’s what’s on the inside that counts.” 

Sarah jumped as Morty poked her ribs. 

She was like all the other fans who adored Morty from afar. She read his social media posts. She subscribed to his newsletter. 

Morty scanned through his social likes for women like Sarah. And when the time was right, he would send a masterfully orchestrated direct message. Conversation, and some mildly inappropriate innuendo, would ensue. Eventually, a date. 

“It’s beautiful out tonight,” Sarah said. 

They walked into a shady glen. Slivers of moonlight peeled through the trees, blanketed by fog. 

Sarah sat down on the root of a large oak tree. It was just big enough to form a seat for two. 

Morty could see a question forming on Sarah’s round, strawberry face. “Mortimer?” she said. 

“Call me Morty.” 

“Morty. What made you want to write about Jack The Ripper?” 

“I don’t know, Sarah. But I know I’m fascinated by characters. I wanted to know his mind. Or it. Whatever he was. But alas, I could only get so close. The door of history is shut to me.” 

“What was the most—I don’t know—gruesome part of the story? What really inspired you?” 

“The final ‘canonical’ victim. At 13 Millers Court. Mary Jane Kelly. She was the most mutilated of all the victims. Because she was in a locked room with the slayer all night. How did he, or it, get in there? Again, I suspect some sort of technological inducement. All we know is, he had plenty of time. There was no rush.” 

The air between their faces smelled of perfumed mist. Sarah drew closer. Morty could feel her breath tickle his nose. 

“What’s it like being famous?” Sarah asked. 

“I’m not famous,” Morty said, though he didn’t mean it. “I’m just like you or any other person walking down the street.” 

“No, you’re not. You’re special. You have ideas. You’re a writer. You just invent things out of your head. And they become the dreams of others. I don’t know. It’s something special.” 

“I admit. I have my moments.” 

Morty let a dramatic pause linger in the air between them. Sarah’s breasts pressed against his chest. 

“Do me now,” she whispered. 

Morty was taken aback at her insistence. This new generation was more forward than what he was used to. “Not here,” he said. 

“I want to. Right here. Please.” 

She lay him down between the roots of the tree, where the formation of years made a natural bed. Concealed on both sides, they could undress with abandon—and even some privacy. 

But Morty was not into rush jobs. He liked to take his time. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “Slow down. I want to enjoy this fully.” 

“Aren’t you enjoying it?” 

Sarah pulled off her shirt, unclipped her bra. 

“Sarah,” he said. “It’s OK. You can stop this.” 

“Why? Don’t you want to?” 

“Of course. But not like this. Not soaking wet in this cold natural setting.” 

Silence fell. Sarah breathed slowly. Her chest shook with apparent anticipation. 

“I’m opening to you,” she said. 

“I can see that.” 

“You said you wanted to get closer to me. This is your chance.” 

Morty was confused. His eyes searched Sarah’s face for some clue toward what she was getting at. 

“I’m opening the door of history to you.” 

Before Morty could blink, Sarah slammed a long needle into his jugular. A sensation like dipping into a hot bath overcame Morty’s entire body. 

“You’re as close as you’re ever going to get,” Sarah said. 

Morty watched as a blue mist surrounded them. He couldn’t move. 

A glowing white fire outlined the Sarah frame and dissolved it. The girl was gone. What appeared now was a floating, pulsing, jelly creature. The bloated bulk had no face but a grinning maw full of needle-sharp teeth. From its oily appendages, alien surgical implements sprouted through sheaths of fleshy tissue. 

It went to work on him. There was no rush. They had plenty of time. 

Bark for Reinhardt

Her wedding dress spread over his body like a puffy white cloud fallen to the bed as his tongue slid into her cunt and his hands held her by the waist. The taste of her juices, the perfume of her body and the gentle rocking of her thighs around his head; all intensified the hardness and strength of his cock, and he wanted to turn her onto the bed, push deeply into her body and flood her womb with his superman seed. He wanted her to become pregnant with his power and brutal beauty. How easy it had been to reach this point. Hans struggled in the binding ropes on the chair, forced to watch his cousin fuck his willing wife, and craving to crawl on the bed and suck the cum out of her cunt, and to feel Reinhardt’s cock, to see it, to lick it, to smell it, to submit to its glorious power. 

                                                                                      *****

Yes, Reinhardt remembered, when he was an exchange student in London, fucking whom he pleased, he used to think of sex as mere fun and games, nothing important. After his return to Germany, sex became a business: impersonal, professional, profitable. And now, it had become essential, the thing itself most worth living for. As long as he kept his body prime and seductive, he’d have no end of customers, and no end of pleasure. In his mirror, he saw a magnificent Ubermensch whom inferiors would properly adore and serve and pay. 

Seduction of his cousin and his wife had been unsurprisingly easy for him to achieve his desires. The first three visits to his cousin’s house after their wedding had been pleasant, included a tour of the University of Leipzig, and general discussions at lunch with Jane about nothing in particular. They became increasingly comfortable and familiar in his presence. In the university laboratory where Hans spent half his day among beakers, Bunsen burners, Petrie dishes, retorts, and cupboards of chemicals, he had attempted to demonstrate his latest bit of research, to which Reinhardt paid respectful attention, standing close to Hans, even at one point placing a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. Wearing a muscle-hugging black T-shirt and jeans fashionably torn at the knees, Reinhardt casually flexed and rubbed his biceps, noting that Hans glanced at them when he did so. Hans did not shirk the hand off his shoulder. In fact, he seemed to enjoy the sensation of Reinhardt gently rubbing his neck, and even admitted, that feels so good.

“Maybe I should give you a massage. You’re so tense, Hans.”

And he rubbed the neck and shoulders more firmly, allowing Hans to step back against his body.

“That feels so good.”

“I will make you feel better than this. I know what you need.”

Before Reinhardt could feel if Hans had a boner, which he was sure he did, a lab assistant walked in, so the two left. Hans liked his company whenever they happened to be alone, and now he eagerly wanted Reinhardt’s approval on what he was doing, and embraced him longer than necessary upon arrival and departure. 

On the fourth visit within five weeks, during dinner when he listened to Han’s gabble on about research work, he had kept his eyes on his cousin, who had trouble returning the gaze. Eye contact was crucially important. Reinhardt liked to fix his subject or prey with his steady, penetrating glare, his eyes often sparkling like sun on water, forcing the weaker one to look away, but also to return, half-mesmerized, sometimes frightened, but connecting and not wanting to be let go. Sooner or later, the prey’s eyes sparkled with a “please fuck me” look. When that happened, Reinhardt knew that he had subtly established the proper relationship between the Master and inferiors, male or female or whatever gender anyone was pleased to call itself, all potential slaves. 

Usually, he was paid to play the role of master, but now he wanted to experience the thrill owning and enslaving someone like his cousin Hans, and maybe his wife also, not only because it would shock his mother, if she ever knew, but also because he simply wanted to. He would put into practice his belief that a superior alpha male had the inalienable right to control, dominate and fuck, regardless of social morality. No money would change hands in this transaction. Fidgety under Reinhardt’s confident and friendly demeanour and steady gaze, Hans drank too much wine. More abstemious than most, Reinhardt nursed his single glass of Riesling, to maintain complete clarity and command.  

Jane interrupted to praise her husband, and then to ask Reinhardt if he ever regretted not pursuing his scientific studies.

“Your mother says she’s sorry that you dropped out of university given how exceptional you were in physics.”

‘Well, she only knew what I told her,” he replied.

“You mean you weren’t gifted?”

“Perhaps I was, perhaps I am, but not in the way my mother means.”

Then Hans reached over the table and touched Reinhardt’s hand and said:

“Not everyone wants to be an academic, darling. Look at him, Reinhardt could be a movie star. Already he’s had a few parts in movies. 

Reinhardt wondered if Hans had actually seen the porn flics he fucked in, aside from the bit parts in had in mainstream films. 

‘Have you ever seen a professor with muscles like Reinhardt’s?”

“You’re being silly, Hans.”

“No, seriously, I mean it. Reinhardt is gifted in his own way.”

Reinhardt wore a black T-shirt under a sports jacket, which he had removed before sitting down.

“No, really, I mean, it takes dedication and talent to create a body like Reinhardt’s. It deserves recognition and admiration.’

“You’re drunk, Hans.”

Reinhardt noticed how Jane kept her eyes on his body as Hans praised his cousin. And then he locked onto her eyes and saw the depths of her own desire for him. Yes, the please fuck me look. He knew that she’d fall before him like her husband, and soon his alpha cock would be deep inside emptying his seed into her receptive womb. From the moment he saw her emerged from the limousine at the church, her wedding dress billowing around her slender body, he wanted to fuck her and make her his bitch. And, of course, he’d also degrade and enslave her husband. His cock surged under the table.

In the kitchen, Reinhardt stood by the sink as Hans stacked the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Reinhardt stood close to him, and when Hans bent over his back side touched Reinhardt’s groin, which responded, and Hans didn’t move, so Reinhardt just pushed gently against his cousin’s buttocks. Hans stood up, turned around, his face beaming with a red flush, his mouth open as if to speak. Reinhardt knew there and then Hans had fallen for him, thunderstruck by envy mixed with lust. Hans ran his fingers along Reinhardt’s biceps.

He needed Reinhardt’s muscles and power; he needed to serve; he needed to absorb the strength and virility that he lacked; he needed to adore Reinhardt. But he had to show it first; it was imperative that Hans respond to the presence of his superior by explicitly acting upon his desire. Reinhardt simply raised an arm and flexed, and Hans instantly raised a hand to touch and let his fingers trace the shape and veins of his cousin’s ripped abdomen. Reinhardt gripped his cousin’s neck and pushed his face closer to the muscle. 

“Remember how you used to follow me around when we were kids? You always wanted to be with me. And do what I told you. Remember?”

“Yes, Reinhardt, I remember.”

“I think you still want it.”

“Want what, Reinhardt?”

“You want to do what I tell you, don’t you?’

Without waiting for an answer, Reinhardt pressed his cousin’s face against his pec and gripped his neck. Hans at first seemed to resist then relaxed against Reinhardt’s muscles and began moaning as if entering a private state of bliss. His wife was still in the dining room, waiting for them to return. So easy to lead his cousin into the bedroom and tie him to a chair and then fuck his wife in front of him. So easy once they gave into their deepest desires. And he, Reinhardt, was there to fulfill them.

Yes, Hans would worship him. He was an academic wimp secretly hankering after muscles and men of merciless power and would willingly lick the boots of his Master. Wasn’t there also a kind of primordial beauty in brutality, now rendered impotent and shameful by contemporary morality? That’s what Hans needed: to submit to power and violence. The bitch needed to renounce his pathetic humanity and crawl for his master. Reinhardt would reduce him to the level of dog and make the professor bark on command. The very thought of it made Reinhardt’s cock, still trapped in the jeans, harden to its fullest glory. His hands still gripping the professor’s neck, Reinhardt led Hans to the dining room where Jane slowly rose from her seat, her eyes shining with lust, as they approached, and accepted Reinhardt’s extended hand.