Reverend Tool's Bobbie Banquet

7/10/1999 - Appetizer

"Dear Boddhisatva. Troutwaxer, I have admired your work ever since reading "Normal Playtime." With this in mind, I have invited you and a friend or disciple to join myself and several other members of the church hierarchy for a meal you will not soon forget. For dinner you may expect a full nine courses, which will include several dishes prepared from the remains of the messiah, who met his unfortunate end at my hands yesterday morning just after the bars opened."

Great mother Connie, I thought, not another one. The invitation was hand drawn calligraphy on very expensive paper, packed with an RSVP card in a nice envelope. The RSVP card was supposed to go back to Dallas by the same courier who had brought the invitation, and it would arrive back at its point of origin after a round trip of no more than ten hours. I had opened it expecting to find a communiqué from Stang, but I was already inclined to toss it in the round file.

Once or twice a month stuff like this arrives at the Mega Fist Temple Hell Ashram; dull boring tripe from yet another college sophomore who's killed "Bob" for the first time and thinks I (and/or Stang or Meyer or Legume or Onan) might care. I hear the major players in the Church Hierarchy have been getting this kind of dinner invitation every day for years, but I've only gotten a dozen or so in the six months since "Normal Playtime" was published on the web. At least this one was classier than the usual Xeroxed "I killed "Bob" so lets get 'fropped up and fry the messiah" stuff I usually get. And I must admit I did enjoy hearing the occasional compliment regarding "Normal Playtime." In some ways I would have liked to go... I'd been eating nutritious but unappetizing food from our commissary for far too long and the idea of a night out did have some appeal, but I just had too damn much to do and was beginning to get the faintest glimmer of the idea that if I wanted to move upward in the ranks of the Church attending even a high class bobbie banquet just wasn't the way to go.

If that punk were here, I thought, just a little angrily, I'd be watching out the window while one of the guards conked him with a rifle butt and a couple of face bats carried the corpse of our lord and savior up into the hills. The next morning I'd halve his ration (cockroaches and spiders) and make him lick twice as much dirt from my boots. We used to have a big celebration when someone killed "Bob" but the kids these days - well never mind. Lets just say you've got to eat a lot of dog chow before you can bite the hand that feeds you.

At least I could share my unhappy feelings. "Spew!!!" I bellowed, "What is this crap? If I've told you once I've told you a million times. Keep this garbage out of my mail!!"

My secretary, Underpriestess Smurf Spew, wandered in from her cubicle. "Did you read the whole thing?"

"No, I didn't read the whole thing!!" I snarled back, "It's another bobbie banquet and I'm too busy to go and how am I gonna get to whatever jerkwater town and this self important boob probably didn't give me more than two hours warning and-"

"Just read the WHOLE thing." She snapped. I was pleased. This was the first time she had dared to interrupt me. Maybe I would allow her to stop shaving her eyebrows.

The invitation continued, "I have the further great honor to announce that the meal will be jointly hosted by myself and the magnificent, stunningly beautiful, exquisitely demented Irreverend Friday Jones."

"I have taken the liberty of providing two first class plane tickets, which you will find enclosed..."

"Spew," I bellowed, "Pack our bags and procure some antacids. We're going to Disneyland!!"

"Disneyland?" she asked, with just the hint of a smile, "I thought it was in Dallas."

I got up from the desk and stood in the doorway of her cubicle. "The Grassy Knoll is Matterhorn enough for me."

7/11/99 - Soup

The flight was remarkably pleasant. On time and no turbulence. "Almost too good," Spew commented.

"Don't be silly," I chided. "It is merely one of the nice interludes which indicate that the conspiracy is servicing the pain machines. You'll start to hurt again soon enough. Meanwhile, please don't spoil my day with your imaginings." I work hard to instill a meaningful paranoia in my students.

When we arrived I realized that our unknown host was admirably well informed about my tastes. Spew and I were picked up at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport by sixteen kowtowing, topknotted Chinese in full Mandarin garb who hoisted our sedan chairs to their shoulders with remarkable grace. I'm sure they were merely well trained actors, but I was pleased by the gesture. (The Troutwaxing schism originated in Mongolia. Many of us trace their lineage back to Genghis Khan. Someday I will conquer China again, this time in "Bob's" name. All Han will feel the imprint of his well polished wing-tip.) In retrospect it was obvious that my host knew my tastes much too well, and that I would, in the future, have to be much more careful about appeals to my vanity, or even about having any vanity at all, but I shouldn't get ahead of myself...

As the flight had arrived several hours before dinner we made a minor detour to walk JFK's 1963 parade route. Our well instructed bearers did not attempt to provide unnecessary commentary on the details of the assassination, instead they quietly pointed out that our sedan chairs were equipped for excremeditation and simply stopped for several minutes at each important point. As we started again after our stop at the Book Depository Spew turned to me and said, "Oh my God!! They killed Kennedy!!" I carefully did not laugh at the joke; merely smiled and noted that my student's sense of humor had at long last gotten over-ripe.

If this continues, I told myself, I will indeed give her permission to stop shaving her eyebrows. She's developing quite nicely.

We soon arrived at the mansion occupied by "the first born son of the anonymous Fort Worth billionaire" (who I'll henceforth refer to as Reverend Tool). One of the Chinese actors knocked on the door, which was covered with brass plaques. One plaque read, "No Solicitors," another said, "No Salesmen." I read the rest, and they all contained some variation on the same message. Spew and I looked at each other. Were we in the right place? A normal slave locked in a dream helmet opened the door and let us in. Putting one's normal slaves in dream helmets was a powerful statement of wealth. Due to the psycho-insulative materials used in their construction, dream helmets are only available off planet. There were probably less than a hundred of them on the entire earth. The normal was heavily scarified, and I at once noticed a spelling error. The name "G'Broagfran" had been incorrectly carved onto his chest. He was missing an "a."

G'brogfran

"What's playing?" I asked.

"I'm a CEO." The normal replied in a dead voice. "I'm buying France. Robert will take you to your rooms."

Another slave, this one with G'broagfran's name spelled correctly, carried our bags to the lift and let us off at the third floor. We had connecting rooms overlooking a nearby park. "After you have refreshed yourselves, you might wish to join Rev. Stang, Princess Doe and the others, who are in the parlor awaiting Ms. Jones. Rev. Floozie was feeling unwell, so she did not make the trip. G. Gordon Gordon is on a mission, and Pastor Naked has declined to join us."

The lights on the dream helmet flashed pink. The normal turned to Spew and tried to shake her hand; "Ah Ms. Prime Minister, comment allez vous?" Spew kicked him in the balls and grabbed the dream helmet when he bent over to grab himself. Using the dream helmet's strap as a handle she took two steps and hurled him out the third story window in a cloud of shattering glass. I rushed to the window and we gazed down at the normal, who had landed on his head and broken his neck instantly. Blood was pouring out the cracks in the crumpled dream helmet.

"I'm sorry if I disturbed your harmonious slack, my master," Spew bowed deeply in apology, "But the normal touched me."

"Spew, you need not apologize for the death of a normal. In touching you it insulted me, for I am your teacher. In fact, you have impressed me by acting correctly several times in the last twenty four hours. As a reward for this evolved behavior you may refrain from shaving your eyebrows in the future." Spew turned bright red with embarrassment at my praise, then bowed deeply several times as she backed to the bed and began unpacking my bags.

Soon another normal slave showed up with instructions to bring us downstairs. Spew looked at him, then at me. "Isn't there another "a" in G'broagfran?"

G'brogfran.

7/11/99 - Salad

"Spew, for the next several hours, please feel free to act more or less informally. There will be other disciples there, and you may interact with them as equals. In addition, you will see me with my own peers for the first time. You may even see me drink or consume 'frop. These sorts of things happen at parties." Many years ago the previous Boddhisatva Troutwaxer and I had rescued Spew from the clutches of some Moonies. She had never heard of "Bob," and like so many of us, wandered onto the wrong path while looking for something different than the conspiracy main dish. She had not socialized, formally or otherwise, and had been under the harshest discipline for many, many years. Also, I love to patronize my students. It feeds the hate. "Do you have the flowers?"

"Of course Master, the flowers for Ms. Jones were packed most carefully."

"Then let us go down."

There was just the slightest edge in her voice. Perhaps she was jealous of my feelings toward Ms. Jones? I would have to explore this later - not for sexual gain, I thought, Spew and I can never have that, but simply as another piece of my campaign to increase her level of hate for all things. (This lack of bile was her one remaining weakness - and she hadn't tried to kill me yet.) I would give her instruction on honoring the master's choices. Perhaps I would even make her pray to Ms. Jones. As you may have noticed, I teach by taxing the student.

I must confess as well that I didn't make my nervousness at the situation known to Spew. While my predecessor had known several members of the Subgenius Hierarchy quite well and been on friendly terms with them all, this would be my first exposure to most of them. I dearly wished to make a good impression, and hoped I could pull off whatever feats of humor and stamina were required to gain their good opinion.

I inspected myself in the elevator mirror. I am a big boned man of medium height, with blue eyes, curly brown hair and a beard. My fingernails look like those worn by oriental villains in bad movies; almost an inch long and covered with red lacquer. I wore bright red Mongolian horseman's jodhpurs tucked into black English riding boots. My shirt, a custom tailored formal in black deer hide was set off by a white Nepalese vest with the house sigil of the Khan embroidered over my left breast. My overlong tuxedo coat was of red leather.

Beside me stood Underpriestess Smurf Spew, a diminutive, completely shaved, almost emaciated oriental female of less than average height with weathered brown skin and almond eyes. She wore the black pajamas that were her only possession. They were relatively new and had recently been laundered. I had also allowed her to bathe before we left the Ashram.

We soon found ourselves in the parlor, for some reason having been taken by a back route and showed through the pantry. Pope Meyer, who along with G. Gordon Gordon had once visited the Hell Ashram as a guest lecturer, greeted me curtly and introduced me to the others. I was soon engrossed in a conversation about accubeating with Dr. Legume. Who better to fill me in on the latest advances in that art than the man whose bat is covered in blood spatters that spell "Bob". It was not long before he was actively teaching me, and even using me to teach others. It felt a little strange to hold his bat and have my stance and grip corrected, just as if he were a golf pro and I his student, but I knew that my pupils at the Hell Ashram would benefit greatly, if somewhat painfully, from what he was teaching me. Spew went over to sit at a bay window with (or perhaps I should say near) Dr. Howll's friend, Shrine Maiden Mi Sing Lynx, a lanky, well muscled oriential woman with mad eyes. During the entire course of the evening her only words were the enigmatic phrase, "I enjoy the company of sea urchins." which she repeated every once in awhile if there was a lengthy pause in the general conversation.

"You should have been here an hour ago." Princess Doe told me. "The stone ground crackers with Brie and Pate D'obbs were delicious."

"And the deep fried "Bob" rinds," put in Dr. Howll, "how they tingled the palette."

This was in many ways the best part of the evening. I've spent more than a year now running the Hell Ashram alone, playing the part of the wild Mongolian slackmaster twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and had spent the many years before honing my skills in secret places far away from society, first as a student and then as a lesser teacher. I will not waste your time with all the details of the conversations and interactions, suffice to say that after all the years spent on my own it was very nice to drop the hell teacher's mask for awhile, drink shroomy beer, smoke some 'frop, and unwind with a friendly group of yeti spawn who were my equals, maybe even in some cases my betters. I decided that I really would have to get out more.

Around 4:30, a gong sounded. Two scarified normals in dream helmets appeared and threw open the main parlor doors. We had been led in through the back way because someone in the central hallway was preparing to make an entrance.

I must confess that I wish to fictionalize here, find a way to give someone who does not know her the sense of elation that I felt upon first seeing the utterly divine Ms. Jones walk into the room. She, and she alone, was my reason for leaving the Mega Fist Temple Hell Ashram of Connie-Ma and "Bob-Amon" for the first time in years, and I must profess to you that she was a delight to look upon. Her dress was a latex rubber fantasy, an evening gown of liquidly glistening midnight that draped itself over the most lovely set of curves it has ever been my pleasure to set eyes upon. The gown was more than just a pervert's dream, for it was also had elements of a sweet wholesome marriage gown - the shiny black rubber was bordered everywhere by white lace - soft, almost bridal puffs of lace at the shoulders and wrists, heavier lace holding together the pieces of bodice, clouds of fragile lace laying over the skirts. She wore stiletto heels and a lace and leather wimple. There was even a black latex evening bag.

I found her garb quite stimulating; it reminded me of every nun I had ever ravished... After a few admiring seconds that felt like years I reached down for the flowers and laid them in her arms.

"Ms. Jones, a pleasure to meet you," I said, "Please accept my humble offering of these flowers as a hostess gift. I almost hesitate to give them to you, for I see that there is no blossom on this planet that can compare with your incredible beauty."

I feared at the time that I had gone overboard, both with the speech and the flowers. The dozen red roses, it is true, set off her dress quite nicely... but the black dahlias, the blooming nightshade, the digitalis, these lovely, but poisonous blossoms - she looked at them and gasped - but in pleasure or horror I'm not sure. Had she seen in these evil flowers an ongoing part of "Bob's" holy joke, which I was inviting her to share with me, or had she simply seen them as indications that I was some kind of obsessed stalking pervert who wanted to possess and ravage her? Best (or perhaps worst) of all, did she believe both these things to be true?

Dr. Howll stepped in to save me from whatever her response might have been; "Boddhisatva, you have put us to shame. How are we to hold our heads up as gentlemen after seeing such an offering made to our hostess?"

"What makes you think he's a gentleman?" asked Reverend Belt, a wicked gleam in her eye. Everyone laughed and comfort was restored. The sole problem with the afternoon was so minor I hesitate to mention it, though it must be mentioned (with, I hope, at least some offense to my late host.) At one point we were served rumaki; water chestnuts wrapped in bacon a la "Bob." They were, I will tell you, delicious, save for one chestnut which was rotten. As there was no potted plant in the room, I ate it rather than offend my host. Later I learned that Friday had also gotten a rotten chestnut and done the same. As you will soon learn, therein lies the crux of this tale.

As for the flowers, they were "distributed." Somehow the digitalis vines got wrapped around Spew's neck, and the deadly nightshade was worn as a boutonniere by Dr. Stang. Dr. Legume (obviously a romantic at heart) wrapped the black dahlias in paper towels to take home for Rev. Susie, and eleven roses were taken away and added to the centerpiece for the dining room table. Ms. Jones wrapped the last rose tightly, crushing its thorns in the silver chain between two nipple clamps and clipping it to her lovely dress. I was in heaven. This slackful time went on until we were called into the dining room, but all was not as it seemed. If I had once looked behind me, I might have noticed a pair of angry eyes boring into my back. It did not matter. I would have been much too late.

7/11/99 - Fish

"Bob's" still rampant, well oiled tool was the centerpiece of the dining room table. His glans had been propped open with part of a toothpick. One of his eyes (courtesy of some trickery with monofilament) hung in mid air a couple inches above the head of his manliness as if recently ejected by his mighty love machine. The other eye floated in a crystal bowl filled with the heads of eleven red roses.

The little handwritten menu on my appetizer plate read:

Four normal slaves, all naked to the waist and still wearing dream helmets stood in the corners of the room. I was seated near the middle of the table. Spew sat to my left, Pope Meyer to my right. At the head of the table wearing a tuxedo shirt and blue smoking jacket sat Rev. Tool, committing the ultimate sacrilege as he puffed great clouds of 'frop out of a very nice meerschaum pipe. Was the pipe actually the same one our lord and master used? Upon reflection I didn't think so, but the immediate reaction of those who saw it was to gasp as one. Were he still here today, I would have a great many beefs with Rev. Tool, but the scene he set was beautiful and stunningly tasteless.

"Thank you!! Thank you all for coming." Our host greeted us with a nervous amiability. He was about the right age to be a college sophomore, and he had the unfortunate luck to look a little like Prince Charles, but given my gratitude at his invitation into Ms. Jones' wondrous presence, I controlled my urges to accuse him of callow behavior, homeliness or any spiritual lack. (Though I must once again tell you that we would have handled the killing of "Bob" by a callow youth very differently at the Hell Ashram.) Controlling my urges toward him became much more difficult once he had gone around the table to personally "greet" each of his guests. The young man was a simpering weasel:

"Dr. Legume, a pleasure I'm sure. By Dobbs, it really does say "Bob" in blood spatters. I'll bet there's more man in that bat than in my entire body."

"Dr. Howll, do you know that when I was sixteen I spent almost five thousand dollars on a directional antenna just so I could hear your show live?"

He even simpered to my disciple:

"Underpriestess Smurf Spew!! A pleasure!! My friend G. Gordon Gordon visited the Hell Ashram last month. He told me that you have all of Connie's bad qualities and none of her good ones. That's quite a compliment!!"

I did my best to find something to be nice about, but gave up late in the fish course. What was it Miss Manners once said? Ah yes! "If you can't find something nice to say about someone, say something nice about their possessions. They'll never notice the difference."

"Those are a lovely set of normal slaves." I complimented Rev. Tool, " Where did you ever find them?"

"The four of them are a matched set," he replied, "I got them cheap - well, relatively cheap - because G'broagfran's name was misspelled. Not bad, huh?"

"Not bad at all," Howll piped in from across the table, "I too am a thrifty soul at heart. Tell me, my friend, how did you bag our glorious repast?"

"Um..., you mean, "How did I kill "Bob?"""

"Yes! Yes boy! Speak up!!"

"Well, rumor had it that he had begun taking his morning hangover cure in one of the bars near school. The place is rumored to be full of thugs and criminals, and I heard he liked the ambiance. I paid a large fee to keep a helicopter on standby in case I actually got him. Not to help with the hunt mind you, but just so I could bring him home in a hurry and serve him fresh.

"I went to a store with a large clientele of actors and homosexuals and bought a pair of black leather pants and a silk shirt and vest. Then I bought some high heeled cowboy boots and a bunch of expensive, but quite tasteless rings."

"So you made yourself out to be a lower class pimp?" Pope Meyer asked, "In the hopes of attracting "Bob's" attention?"

"That's a tired old ploy," said Rev. Belt, "He's probably seen that one a hundred times."

"As I learned." Rev Tool told us, "Fortunately, I had also armed myself with a sharp oak stake. When "Bob" saw me walking into the bar he excused himself and headed for the exit. I walked past him as if unaware of his presence. I figured he would try to hide in the alley beside the bar so I headed out the emergency exit. I turned the corner and there he was in front of me. He was still so drunk from the night before that he got distracted by this homeless guy. He was stopped with his back turned to me so I staked him right there. I put a couple bills into the homeless fellows hand and we piled some trash on top of Dobbs and that was it. I drove my car up and we tossed "Bob's" body in the trunk. Then I went to the airport and had the chopper fly us home."

"He called me from the chopper," Friday said, "And he was so excited. Its amazing what money can do. I made it from my office in Boston to Texas inside of three hours. He already had the bung-hole tied off and was draining the blood from the corpse."

Rev. Quake, Dr. Legume's disciple, asked, "What do you mean by "had the bung-hole tied off?"

"When you butcher a body," Rev. Tool told us, "You have to keep the feces from staining the meat. So you make an incision around the anus and tie off the bottom of the rectal cavity just above the sphincter. That way when you remove the intestines the meat stays clean."

Friday said, "Once we'd drained the blood from the body we opened up the abdomen. We made a lateral incision and began by extracting the messiah's intestines. Then we tied off the esophagus just above the stomach and we pretty much had everything in a big bowl. We also removed the liver and immediately began cooking it to use for that paté we served just after lunch."

Rev. Tool was warming to the subject; "We then had to clean the intestines and stomach. We separated the stomach from the intestines and cleaned and washed it. As you all know, the stomach creates some very powerful acids, so it has to be cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, then soaked in a light solution of some base but nontoxic compound, such as baking soda, then that taste has to be washed off. We then flushed the feces from the large and small intestines. That involved cutting the intestines in ten foot lengths, then squeezing the fecal matter out of the guts and attaching one end to a faucet. When the water had run clear for awhile we were ready to make sausage. At that time I opened the chest with an electric bone saw and we took out the heart, lungs, and the other internal organs and ground them up."

"You shouldn't have done that." Princess Doe objected. "The raw, still beating heart of freshly killed God was yours by right."

"True, but as I knew I would be making sausage to serve a dozen people, both as part of the baked beans and for breakfast the next day, I didn't want to be selfish." Rev Tool told her. "But if I had to do it all over again I'd devour the heart myself and skip the sausage. It's way too much work."

"I was exhausted." Friday gasped. "We had an electric grinder, but we still had ten pounds of oozy, gloppy ground meat that had to be dealt with. You stir and stir and stir until the pancreatic tissue is well mixed with stuff from the spleen, and the lungs are mixed with the heart tissue so that the sausage is all of the same consistency and texture. Then you have to stuff all this goop down into the intestines and tie them off into sausage length pieces. It takes forever. Even with four normal slaves helping it took hours. Then we still had to cut up fatty tissue around the hips for bacon. It seems "Bob" has love handles." We all laughed.

Stang tried to keep a straight face as befits the Sacred Scribe, but failed miserably, biting his lip while giggling through his nose. Finally he shook his head. "We've been telling him for years he wouldn't get killed as often if he kept in better shape."

Friday plowed on. "Getting the fingers and toes off was easy. We just used the bone saw. Then we flayed off enough skin for the deep fried "Bob" rinds. After that we rested for a couple of hours and then Rev. Tool had a masseuse come to put us back together." said Friday. "We spent yesterday evening cutting up the legs, back and shoulders for steaks. Each of you will leave tomorrow with a cooler full of Slackmaster meat."

A relaxed pause ensued, during which we enjoyed the succulent taste of God's flesh. Suddenly, a worried look crossed Princess Doe's lovely face.

"I just realized you skipped something," she said. "You did do the right thing with the brain, didn't you?" Stang and Legume exchanged significant glances. I must confess I felt faint at the thought of "Bob's" abandoned lobes lurking around the place.

"Not to worry," Friday said. "It's been taken care of."

"Do we get to eat our savior's brains tonight?" asked Rev. Quake, "That would be cool!!" Legume looked disgusted. He had implied strongly while we were in the parlor that Rev. Quake was a thoroughly impressive warrior but not the most intellectual of disciples. The rest of us had made an unspoken agreement to lean on the young buck just a little.

"Not cool at all." said Reverend Stang, "Haven't you read The Subgenius' Guide to Food Preparation? Its easily available from the sacred Post Office Box."

"Many a virile and warlike young Bobbie," said Pope Meyer, giving Rev. Quake a hard look, "Has killed "Bob" and thought what you just thought. `How great!!! I killed the messiah. I'm gonna eat his brain!!' Unfortunately for such uneducated types, the brain, hind brain, spine and the cerebro-spinal fluid of our Master is unbelievably dangerous. It should only be dealt with in the approved manner."

"Our Lord's "tooning" cells," said Dr. Howll, "are solely generated in the pineal gland, but they circulate throughout the entire cerebro-spinal fluid matrix. This means that as long as the smallest smidgen of nerve tissue remains, "Bob" can regenerate his entire body within 24 hours merely from the organic compounds present in ordinary air. Actually putting those cells into a living body shortens the time considerably, as described by the so called "Drummond Equations" which one can find in his brilliant monograph, "A Few Experiments With Messianic Glial Tissue," available at better book sellers everywhere."

"There are many sad cases," Princess Doe said, gazing at Rev. Quake with a deep expression of concern, "of bobbies who have consumed the master's badly prepared flesh only to learn too late that they have been "cocooning" the butterfly that is "Bob." When the chrysalis opens, the husk is left to die. Usually, not even the soul survives. Sadly enough, you can actually kill "Bob" and not make it to Subgenius Hell." The look in Rev. Quake's eyes said he'd soon be catching up on his reading.

"I told Rev. Tool to keep the stake in "Bob's" heart until I arrived and had him pack the head in ice. I brought the recommended class 4, lead lined containment box, and the usual bags of quick drying cement. After "Bob" had been bled we removed the eyes and hung him up with a meat-hook through each ankle and placed the containment vessel below the skull. We drilled a small hole and let the cerebro-spinal fluid drain into the containment vessel. We then used the bone saw to cut through the skull just above the orbits of the eye sockets. We salvaged the top of the skull and then we took the recommended prolonged bath in dilute acid."

"I put a couple extra gallons of muriatic acid in the pool," said Rev. Tool, "and made sure that it was at the appropriate concentration. Then we took a little swim."

"Geez! "A little swim?" he says!!" Friday let out a long breath, "More like an hour. As the manual says; "Remain in the dilute acid bath for no less than one hour, keep your eyes open regardless of the pain, and surface only to breathe. Drink frequently, swish, and expel. If you have open wounds, cauterize immediately." At least I wasn't on my period." Spew caught the implications and giggled. I gave her a harsh look and made scissoring motions near my eyebrows. Friday went on. "Let me tell you, it wasn't much fun. After completing the fluid drainage we lowered the carcass and cut into God's pelvis a couple of inches below the tail bone so as not to accidentally cut into the spinal passage. Then we cut the entire spine away from the ribs and dissected it free up to the base of the skull. At that point we dissected through the entire neck. The brain, skull, head and spine fell down into the lead box and then we used a much heavier acid solution to wash the floor and table clean. After that we took another bath in the pool and finished up our butchery. So "Bob's" brain has been dealt with correctly."

"It was quite wonderful of Friday." Tool said, "She was kind enough to go to a lot of extra work so I could have this little momento mori." He clapped his hands and one of the normal slaves appeared carrying a velvet pillow upon which rested a freshly made skull goblet with a base of white gold and a decorative rim of precious gems. "Just think, I only have to kill him eleven more times and I'll have table service for everyone!!" I bit my lip and held back a sigh.

"Why the lead lined box?" asked Rev. Quake, "Why not just let "Bob" reform on his own?"

"Because," said Pope Meyer, "The brain and spinal cord are not dead. They're really just stunned. Imagine sitting down to dinner and being attacked by "Bob's" brain and spine. Remembering that you were only able to kill "Bob" because you caught him by surprise and he hadn't activated his powers. Now he's aroused, he's in a great deal of pain, and he's really, really angry at you." The normal slaves were by now clearing the fish course (which had been divine) and putting out place settings for the face raping bat, which I awaited with pleased anticipation.

"Imagine the Borg Queen from Star Trek," said Princess Doe, "only much, much, much worse. You can't imagine how many of these meals end in horrible catastrophe. That's why we encourage you to order the entire catalog of all existing church material. It really can save your life."

Rev. Tool's face twisted up into an expression which was simultaneously happy and a little scared. "Actually, I did do something else with the brain." he confessed. "Something bad." All eyes whipped around to stare at him in horror. He giggled for a second or two, then got it under control. "Would anyone like to use the vomitorium?" he asked.

7/11/99 - A Sorbet In Two Flavors (To Clear the Palette)

Before I continue, let me get this out of the way; The food was absolutely succulent, delicious beyond words. You should keep in mind throughout your reading that we ate with the enthusiasm of starving rats and had food orgasms over every last crumb we put in our mouths. Even as the situation unraveled into the pandemonium of mystery, catharsis, death threats, vengeance killings, and supernatural forces there would be these little pauses where even those of us who had been hideously damned by the horrible revelation above would happen upon some scrumptious morsel and fall into throes of ecstasy.

I feel true pity for those Subgenii who believe that slack can only be attained through sex and violence. Sing the occasional ode to excellently prepared food, and know true joy. After all, the fast food you all eat so much of is made according to the anti-"Bob's" secret recipe by the conspiracy's robot death food giants. The average "drive through" burger is much more frightening to me than the average "drive by" shooting. I dearly hope that whoever ran Rev. Tool's kitchen somehow survived the night.

Also, should you ever kill "Bob" and decide to serve him to your friends, keep the messiah's nose CAREFULLY HIDDEN in the kitchen. A bat wielding maniac who's seen the wrong Woody Allen films should not be allowed anywhere near "the leader's nose." YES DR. LEGUME. I'M TALKING ABOUT YOU!!

7/11/99 - Fowl

I dropped my fork. It clanged across the hardwood floor, one single sound defining glacial silence. Dr. Legume groped for his bat. "What do you mean," Friday said tightly, "That you did something "bad" with "Bob's" brain?"

Princess Doe looked really scared. She was almost in tears. "Um... You; You didn't um.. have sexual relations with it, did you?"

Reverend Tool's face twisted up in a smirking worm of a smile. "Well," he began a bit hesitantly, "Most of you have nothing to worry about. I can guarantee that. All but the tiniest fractions of "Bob's" brains were dealt with in the approved manner, and most of you have not eaten anything you need worry about. However," and now he grinned almost messianically, "two of you are going to die this evening."

"Oh." Pope Meyer sounded relieved. "So its just politics."

"Tool, you weren't supposed to tell," objected an unexpected voice to my left, "But as long as the secret is out let me say this. It's not politics, it's vengeance. The two people I hate more than any others will explode and become "Bob" a few hours from now."

Underpriestess Smurf Spew turned to me. "Would you like to know who those people are... Master?" she fairly spat the last word, then she did spit - right in my face! I dabbed at the saliva with Spew's napkin, my brain racing furiously. I drew in a quick breath, but managed to stop myself before I actually gasped in fear. I must be truthful here, though I would rather speak well of myself, and say that I have never, for all my incarnations, faced death without a great deal of nervousness, maybe even just a little stark terror. I tried to tried to remind myself that even though I had been poisoned with "Bob's" brain, and would not survive, I must act like a man who exists solely in harmonious slack. Act! Like a drowning man, I seized hold of this explanation that might fool my fear and applied it liberally. That's it! I told myself, the nervousness is just stage fright, and I am going to act now, improvising the part of a man who is not afraid of death!! Some part of me bought the lie, and this was good, for even in the throes of death, I had obligations under the Troutwaxing Boddhisatva's contract with "Bob" and if I panicked nothing could be save me from the messiah's wrath. You may object that he was dead, and that I was eating him even then, but don't be fooled. "Bob" is mighty, and his arm is long!!

Now, what could I do to act like I was ahead of the game? There was something that was obvious to me that no-one else had noticed, and it might just make me look good. I turned to Rev. Tool. "You injected a small piece of "Bob's" brain into the water chestnut I ate, didn't you. I just thought it was rotten."

"That's right. Twenty eight milligrams exactly. Smurf even had me take the potted plants out of the room so you wouldn't be able to drop it somewhere."

"You both know there's no antidote." Stang said it a little too calmly and rubbed one hand tiredly across his eyes. Couldn't he panic just a little on my behalf? Maybe not. Troutwaxing Boddhisatvas tend to come and go, for reasons that will be obvious as you read on.

Dr. Howll looked at his watch, then up at the ceiling. "We were served the rumaki just after Friday made her entrance - about 4:43. Boddhisatva, according to my calculations, you should detonate around midnight."

"Sounds about right to me." I too had been furiously working the Drummond equations. I tried for a certain nonchalance, and let me tell you, it was not easy. My reputation was on the line. I looked at Spew, "But why?"

"Because of her." Spew's index finger was pointed firmly at Friday Jones, who by now certainly had figured out just who the other victim of this double murder was going to be. To her infinite credit, she did not let the slightest smidgen of concern cross her features. Instead she smiled sweetly at Spew, who took this as leave to explain her actions.

"It was so nice at first, after I was rescued from the Moonies. The bowls of cockroaches, the beatings, serving the guards, that meant less than nothing to the joy of hearing Boddhisatva read the word of "Bob" over the loudspeakers every day and listening to Rev. Stang's tapes at night. I used to touch myself, alone in my cell, to the music of Buck Naked and the Jaybirds. When Boddhisatva would read the parts of the books that talked about "Bob's" relations with Connie or his other wives and concubines, I would get shivers."

"Then came the great joy." She turned away from Friday, and said to me in a voice like a lover confiding an old crush, "You bellowed out the window one morning, "Get me someone who can type!!" At the thought of serving you my bones turned to water and when the guard grabbed my lip and dragged me to your door it was all I could do not to sob with joy. You let me wear clothes again after all those months of crawling naked in the yard and licking at the dirt. I just about wept right there in front of you, but I was afraid you would send me back. You even let me have a name. It wasn't the name I started with, but at least it was a name." Now visibly upset, she paused a moment to try to collect herself, then the tears started. The crying was obviously not in her script. "I loved you so much." she said, then burst out in full blown sobbing.

Everyone at the table stared. It was one of those moments when people are deciding, while still in shock, what to do with someone who has done something terrible for that most beautiful of reasons. Finally, Princess Doe tentatively reached out a hand and patted Spew's shoulder. "It's okay honey," she said, "Let it out."

The sobs continued unabated for several minutes. While Spew sobbed, her face hidden against Princess Doe's lovely bosom, Friday Jones poured herself some more wine, gulped it down, then refilled her glass. I caught her eye, mouthed the word "Steady." and put my finger to my lips. I wanted no interference in what must happen next even from the woman I yearned for so badly.

You see, I had a script of my own. No one escapes the Mega Fist Temple Hell Ashram of Connie Ma and "Bob-Amon" until they have made a real attempt to kill their teacher - and this was my first time dealing with a graduate in my year and a half as High Master. The Troutwaxing Lore says to let them think they have succeeded - the explanations, the catharsis, the tears - they are all vital to later integration of the rogue yeti's psyche with "Bob's" will. Unfortunately, I was going to have to deal with my first graduate while dealing with my own impending death, and to be quite honest I wasn't sure I was up to the task. I've always tried to be on guard against the homicidal impulses of my students but Spew had managed to conceal what Troutwaxing Lore describes as the usual signs. It was apparent that I was not only to die, but to die at the hands of a quite brilliant pupil.

Finally the fit of sobbing was over. Spew looked around the table and then spoke from the Stygian depths of her hate. "I loved him so much," she said again. "I loved his feet, which I had the pleasure of adoring every day in lieu of "Bob's" feet, though I was not allowed to touch them. I loved his shins, his knees, his calves, his-" she wiped her eyes. "You get the point. I didn't button the top button of the black pajamas which are my only garment. I let him see my nude profile when I was dressing. I wiggled my butt when I abased myself. I brought him a little glass of his favorite cognac every night and looked at him with smoldering eyes and another button undone on the black pajamas. I said, 'Will there be anything else,' and then, in my lowest, sexiest voice breathed the word; 'Master?'"

"And you know what?" Tears started to flow again. "He never even blinked. As an advanced student, I was beginning to read the books in his library. Some of them said the master should maintain a distance from the pupil, but I knew that was contrary to all Subgenius teaching. Also, I sometimes watched him use the crawling, groveling students in the yard. He was horrible to them; perverse, gruesome and mean, sometimes abusing and torturing in ways terrible to behold... He could have done any of those things to me, even the things he wrote about in `Normal Playtime.'" At this admission her face, if possible got even redder. "I would have died to have his hands on me for any reason at all. He didn't even beat me himself. When others did something wrong he would beat them. Why didn't he beat me? Why did he have the guards beat me instead. Why? Why? Why? Once I asked him about it. He just looked at me like I was stupid and called the cruelest of all the guards over to slap me around until my face bled."

"I had just about given it all up." She turned the lasers of her hate on Ms. Jones again. "But then one day when he was reading Church News on the Subsite he went to the page about your Boston devival, and then he went to your home page. Next thing I knew he was printing out pictures of you and hanging them around the office. He used a picture of you as wall-paper on his computer. One day I came into his office and his hand was just resting on the screen. There was the silliest look on his face... sort of dreamy and sad... I hated him. I hated you."

Friday stopped gazing levelly at Spew and started gazing levelly at me. "Go on." She said it clinically, almost distractedly.

"His favorite picture shows you with your top off. You're standing on a giant American Flag wearing an afro wig, your skin is painted black, and shiny green paint is dripping off your breasts. He hung that one up on the wall above the foot of his bed. You know what that means, don't you." The men in the room looked down at the floor. As for the women, reactions varied. Friday looked unsure of herself. Princess Doe licked her lips; not so much sensuously as thoughtfully.

Then Reverend Belt leered, "Ah told you he wasn't a gentleman!!"

Everyone laughed but me.

At the sound of such mirth at her expense Friday's face twisted up and she shot me a look of such venom that I thought I would die at that very second. I buried my face in my hands. Dr. Legume patted my shoulder.

"At the very moment he put that picture up," Spew continued, "I decided to kill both of you."

"It wasn't even very hard. First, I made contact with Reverend Tool and told him that if he consented to help me with my plans I would arrange for him to take advanced training at the Mega Fist Temple Hell Ashram. The little turd didn't have any idea what that really meant - especially not what it will mean after I'm in charge - so he agreed to go along with me."

"You told him to invite me here, didn't you" Friday stated, "so that my presence would lure the Boddhisatva into coming."

"Very good. You didn't take very long to figure that one out. I'm impressed." Spew dipped her chin toward Ms. Jones. "Of course, Boddhisatva's not the only one who can use a computer. Once I'd looked at the double X-day pictures on the web and read what everyone had written about you I knew that dressing up in the evil clothes which I designed and Tool paid for, then hosting a very twisted banquet would be irresistible to you." Friday looked down at her latex and lace ensemble with an expression of some dismay, shook her hands as if there was something dirty on them (a gesture she would make several more times throughout the evening), then looked daggers at our host.

Reverend Tool was clearly panicked, his eyes flicked pleadingly back and forth from Spew to Ms. Jones and back again. "Darling-" he began.

"Shut up, Tool!" Spew and Friday simultaneously spat the words at him, then looked at each other with some puzzlement. Maybe if Spew hadn't been so quick to kill Friday they would have discovered something in common. Tool stared at them stupidly for a second or too, then closed his eyes and shook his head.

"Anyway," Spew continued, "I stole a packet of bat-sperm antidote pudding one night and climbed up on the roof. When the face bats came I "communed" with them and told them I would be theirs every night for a month if they would carry "Bob's" body to this very mansion next time one of our students killed him."

All eyes, some angry, some just sad, turned to Reverend Tool, now exposed the kind of deluded fool who would lie about killing "Bob." Spew's attitude made it clear that Tool was what G. Gordon Gordon had once described as "...the disposable conspirator. You wipe your hands clean on him and then..." Belt shook her head, Dr. Howll turned his thumb down, and Stang frowned. Legume stood up, bat in hand. Tool blanched, but had balls enough to hold his ground.

"No." I said, slapping my hand on the table. "I claim the right to deal with him." Dr. Howll looked at Stang and both nodded fractionally.

"That's fine." said Legume, lining his bat up for a head-shot. "I'll just stand here and keep him from running away."

"I should note, however, that I am giving my privilege of disposal over to our lovely Ms. Friday Jones in lieu of the things which circumstances have rendered it impossible for me to give her." I sketched a little bow toward our hostess. She looked at me with hard eyes. Had they softened at all since her last angry glance? Maybe a little.

"So," I said to Spew, "you flew "Bob's" body here, disposed of all but a few milligrams of the brain in an approved class four waste container, and fed Ms. Jones and I enough "Bob" brain to cause us both to explode at midnight."

"Yes, you'll be together forever, as you would have wanted." Friday gasped in horror. Spew smiled quite viciously, "And look at her - as Ms. Jones would not have wanted. I like that part. But by then neither of you will actually be anything but "Bob" so your togetherness will be as empty as the look in a normal's eyes. My vengeance will be complete." Jones relaxed marginally. Spew snarled at her, "Don't look so relieved bitch!! You won't even have molecules to call your own. In fact, even your soul will probably be absorbed into "Bob's" soul. Unfortunately, Master's soul" she spat the words, "probably won't die. The Troutwaxing Boddhisatvas have a deal with "Bob.""

Pope Meyer, his voice filled with a deep and heartfelt sarcasm said, "Great disciple, Troutwaxer. Really... amazing."

"Yes!!" I exulted. "Isn't she wonderful!!" I stood up, bowed, turned to the very surprised Smurf Spew and gave her a huge, wholly enthusiastic hug. "A hating, treacherous, deceptive, sharp tongued, poisoning, rogue child of the yeti who can recite every piece of Subgenius scripture from memory. The very best. Far, far better than all the candy ass little disciples you folks have brought to the party." Rev. Quake looked hurt. I hugged Spew again. "I am so proud of you Spew!! In fact, if you hadn't assassinated Friday too, this would be the happiest night of my life!!" Okay, so I was exaggerating a little. But if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance...

Howl stared at me, eyes bulging. Legume looked puzzled, so I explained. "She not only tried to kill me, which is the only way to graduate from the Mega Fist Temple Hell Ashram of Connie Ma and the Slant Eyed "Bob", but it would appear that she has succeeded. Not only has she succeeded, but she has done so gloriously, magnificently, humiliating me as a masturbating pervert in front of the woman I love at the formal dinner Spew herself arranged in the presence of a substantial portion of the Church Hierarchy. She even lured me here with the promise of an introduction to Friday Jones and then pulled the rug out from under that with the one-two-three punch of my private life, Fridays murder, and the revelation that even Ms. Jone's presence here was part of an evil plan to kill her own suitor. And through it all, she has lulled me with appeals to my vanity. Knowing how proud I was of "Normal Playtime" she even had Tool mention it in the invitation, and also had him at least imply in the invitation that I could consider myself a member of the Subgenius hierarchy, which, of course, comes nowhere near being accurate. Then, just to keep my ego propped up, she had Tool spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to get me here on a sedan chair carried by fake Chinese slaves and then dropped me into a room filled with 'frop, beer and a dazzling bunch of Subgenius VIPs, brought here no doubt, only by the cachet Friday Jones lent the event." I paused a moment, raised one eyebrow and stared down at Rev. Tool. "I'm guessing, after meeting this young man, that most of you would not have come just for Rev Tool's sake." There followed vigorous agreement. "Needless to say, after having my ego so well built up I wasn't watching my back. What slackmaster could ask his pupil for a better performance at her graduation exercise?"

The Troutwaxing Lore says "...praise the murderous pupil to the skies and promise her the moon before pulling the rug out from under her. Do this even if you are sure that you are already dead, for the very best poison sometimes rots in the jar, and the most accurate crossbow sometimes misfires." The praise and promises I could handle. But I didn't have a clue about the whole rug thing. Maybe that would come later. I went on. "At midnight, at the very second of my death, all the power and glory of the Troutwaxing Boddhisatvas, of which I am 665th of the line, will be transferred to Spew. She will take full and active possession of the Hell Ashram, the guards, the students, the bank accounts, and the fanatical followers from all over the globe. Even the Eurasian cache of alien relics and three caves full of Genghis Khan's loot will be hers!"

"In other words," said Dr. Howll, "any warrior courageous enough to escape from the infinite and agonizing variety of the Mongolian Torture Garden need fear none of the conspiracy's slings and arrows."

"Exactly! This is how we ensure that the lineage of Mongolian Subgenii is made stronger over the years. No-one can truly ascend until they have killed their guru. Troutwaxer is dead. All hail the new, improved, infinitely more powerful Troutwaxer."

"Indeed," said Stang, "Maybe I'll finally have a worthy opponent." Legume's jaw clenched and his face turned red.

"Quite possibly. Despite my best efforts, Spew is a rampant Holocaustal." Stang and Legume both stared at her in horror. Meanwhile, Spew was staring at me with eyes so wide she resembled a fish. She sputtered for almost a minute, then got out the question. "You mean it was all right to kill you?"

"It is the moment every Troutwaxing Boddhisatva dreams of. Your initiation is complete." I turned to one of the normal slaves who stood at the corners of the room. "Bring forth the next course and refill the wine cups. We have many toasts to make."

"Wait," said Stang, "There is one last thing that needs to be done so that we may fully enjoy the rest of our meal." He reached into his wallet and withdrew thirty dollars, then crossed the room to where Rev. Tool quivered in abject misery. "I regret," he said, stuffing the money down Rev. Tool's pants, "that The Subgenius Foundation cannot provide you with a seat on the pleasure saucers. Mi Sing," Stang gestured to Dr. Howll'sss friend, "slap this piece of rat-turd on the head with your sap and lock him in the hall closet so we can enjoy the rest of our meal. Legume, why don't you give her an hand." Stang put a hand on Legume's shoulder and leaned close. "Get my thirty dollars back."

Legume reached down and grabbed Tool's neck in one beefy hand, holding our host's head rock steady. "I enjoy the company of sea urchins," Mi Sing said calmly, then got up, walked gracefully to the head of the table and made a quick, almost caressing motion against Tool's head with what looked like an old black sock. Tool went down fast. Spew smiled as if enjoying a private joke while Mi Sing and Legume dragged Tool away. Pope Meyer looked at my ex-disciple blandly, then looked away. Why was Spew smiling? I remembered something G. Gordon Gordon had once said; "First dispose of the blame, THEN dispose of the body." Spew has learned her lessons all too well, I thought. Later, I learned that Pope Meyer had drawn very different conclusions from Spew's smile than I had, conclusions that he would act on with dramatic effect. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Friday Jones, already beginning to die as "Bob's" brain transformed her body and consumed her soul, caught up in a whirl of emotions, sitting at a table and breaking bread with a woman she hated, was magnificent. She got up, walked around the table to Spew, and shook her hand, "Let me be the first to congratulate you," she said, "You're one of us now - for what its worth."

"You don't mind my killing you?"

"I hadn't intended to bring it up tonight because of the party" said Friday evenly, "but I was recently diagnosed with stage three cancer of the lymph nodes. I won't last out the year and had expected to die in terrible pain." Spew started to look a little down.

"I knew you were having some problems," said Pope Meyer," but cancer... poor dear."

"Not any longer," Friday replied, "Instead of dying in agony, I'll explode into the very cellular structure of "Bob" and be at one with him forever. It's supposed to be very pleasurable." Friday reached out to stop a normal slave. "Clear Spew's place and set her a new place at the head of the table. This is her night now."

I looked back over the last few minutes and decided that Friday was being much too nice to Spew. Had she already conceived some vengeful plan? There was a rumor that G. Gordon Gordon was once again selling his vastly expensive "insurance policies." Had Friday bought one of those? As Boddhisatva of the Troutwaxing Schism it was my obligation to warn my former pupil, but as a murder victim, my very unworthy impulse was to "forget" my duties just this once. What to do? Maybe I'd sleep on it tonight and let her know in the morning...

Friday chatted with Spew for awhile and then came over to sit in the chair Spew had occupied, the chair next to me. With the complex of emotions she doubtless felt toward me, the anger at masturbation and murder, the self loathing about being so brutally used in my demise, perhaps this was even harder for her than making small talk with her murderess had been, but as a good hostess who must put her guests at their ease after disturbing events, she came to me and tried to talk it out.

"Cancer?" I asked.

"Cancer." Her back to Spew, Friday winked. Stang caught it, as did Dr. Howll, and neither of them changed expressions. There was no cancer! Friday had been feeding Spew a line, playing the good sport, probably to take away as much of the pleasure of Spew's murderous deeds as possible. However, the news brought me hurt - Friday's death would not even be a mercy anymore.

"Troutwaxer," Friday began, shaking her hands once again as if they were coverd with something slimy, "I'm not angry at you for feeling toward me, but to be honest, I must say that the other stuff makes me really pissed."

"I understand." I told her. "Its one thing to hear such confessions from a lover after the relationship has begun, still another to hear them from your suitor's refused other."

"Still," Friday told me, "You did come here with hopes and dreams, the desire to make a good impression. I'm sorry that those can't pan out for you..." Her face softened a little, "Okay. For us. I was so pleased at the roses, so impressed by your speech to me in the parlor... you look so handsome in that leather tuxedo. Then... you stupid son of a bitch. You brought a murderess to the party. A gossipy murderess!!"

I looked down at the parquet floor. Nice pattern. "I'm really sorry. My feelings for you have literally meant your death. This isn't what I wanted." I was close to tears.

"That doesn't help!! Geez, I meet a man who can apologize and then I'm killed by his secretary." She pumped clenched fists in front of her lovely bosom. "Not fair!!"

"I would have done something if I'd known. Heck, even if I'd known she planned to kills us, I wouldn't have expected her to talk about the picture at the foot of the bed."

"In itself, that's not a big deal. In fact, I find it very flattering. But having it come out in public like that and everyone laughing... I don't like being humiliated in public - and of course, she did use and kill me." Future past tense. Her face hardened once more. The stupidity of the whole situation welled up in my throat. I didn't know what to say... there was a buzzing in my ears. Suddenly, there arose in me a feeling of the starkest, unreasoning terror. Another normal slave walked by and I noted almost idly that "G'broagfran" was spelled correctly this time.

It was at that moment that I began to get just the faintest feeling that there was something else going on. Something about the normal slaves? I wasn't putting the pieces of that puzzle together yet, but suddenly I knew there was a puzzle to put together. It's time, I told myself, for the Boddhisatva to get away from the appeals to his vanity, the appeals to his dick, and the appeals to his stomach. Its time for me to go upstairs, get a little humility and get back on my game. Friday was still talking, "-so sorry," she continued, "I want to be sympathetic, and I want to be forgiving, but I really just can't be right now."

"I understand." Impulsively, I clasped her hands in mine. She did not pull away. "At the moment looking at what I might have had is more than I can bear." It was the first excuse I could come up with, all the better for having an element of truth. "Also, I imagine that seeing the source of your embarrassment is not a happy experience for you either. I will plead stomach pain, which everyone will understand given the circumstances. I imagine that there will be some kind of ritual just before midnight. Please have one of the servants bring me down at that time." I was desperate to get away from everyone just then, though not for the reasons stated.

As my teacher once said, "If you want to hear the Khan's voice, go somewhere quiet."

"Are you sure you won't stay? I don't mind - really I don't." I stayed downstairs long enough to toast Spew, eat another face bat drumstick, and hear Friday's plans for Reverend Tool, then grabbed my stomach and pleaded indigestion. Soon another normal slave came to take me upstairs. The name was spelled incorrectly. Good.

"G'brogfran"

7/11/99 - 1st Meat: Some Lovely Ribs

As soon as I reached our suite I threw off my tuxedo and took off my nice shirt. Took off the leather pants and the nice boots, took off the underwear, then looked at myself in the mirror. The sight of my naked body with its too big belly, limp pectoral muscles, and the penis that's a little smaller than I would have liked brought me down to earth in a hurry. As I stared at myself I prayed a little prayer that I had learned on a long ago ocean voyage:

Dear Dobbs, let me be humble.
I have flabby pectoral muscles.
My penis is too small
And my belly is too big.
Let me not think too highly of myself
Or I might just capsize this little raft.

I put on the early morning's used underwear and my grubby traveling T-shirt, then sat down on the bed and began mulling things over. It was true that I'd let myself be led around by the nose. It was true that the woman I loved was at the very least very angry with me, and probably hated my guts. It was true that I'd been off my game for at least the last forty-eight hours. But it was also true that until midnight I was the current Troutwaxing Boddhisatva, and that meant I had a certain power. There might be no antidote to the poison and my love and I might be doomed, but "Bob" dammit, I wasn't going down without one last mean, hellish and terrifying attempt to win Friday's love and make Spew pay.

Suddenly all the nights worries shot through me and my bravado was gone. What to do? The situation with Ms. Jones was terrible, and even if something might be salvaged what were a few short hours worth? And how could I convince her? Even if I tried, Spew would interfere at every step of the way. Was my ex-pupil so emotional about me that her behavior might backfire? Might she even trigger what she was trying to stop? I could only hope so.

Dear Blessed Anti-Virgin, I prayed, Great Mother Connie, I call you by all your names - Ishtar, Innana, Lakshmi, Connie Ma, Great Wet Cleft in the Universe Woman, please let me survive, let Smurf Spew be damned to hell, and let me lick Friday Jones to ten thousand orgasms. As usual, "Bob's" wife did not answer me, this time perhaps because I had just chewed up and swallowed parts of her husband. I tried to put the matter out of my head.

There was something else going on. Something really weird had happened down there as I was talking to Ms. Jones, I didn't think it simply the emotional effects of all the evening's stresses or anything like that. I didn't think it was the fear of death. Under the circumstances I don't mind dying, I thought quietly to myself, I can't say I welcome it, but having found the student every Troutwaxing Boddhisatva dreams of I think I can be a good, if rather nervous sport!! So why the feeling of stark terror? A palace awaits me in Subgenius hell, I reminded myself, which I have visited astrally many times. I might even reincarnate one day and kill Smurf Spew, reclaiming the title of Boddhisatva. I knew it would be a simple thing to do, the Troutwaxing Lore states clearly that I and others like me have done such things many times before. So why was I so frightened?

As I examined the fear, tried to be one with it, my mind started to fragment. There is something else going on, the suspicious part of my mind told me again.

If that is so, said the wise part of me, somewhere in all the things I have seen and done today, lie clues to why my state of mind is so... wrong.

The subgenius part of me got my body off the bed and sat it down on the throne of excremeditation.

A Zen mind counseled me to let my other minds drift.

A sad part of me flashed on Friday's face when Rev. Belt had - no don't think of that!! Think of... The slaves with the misspelled name of one of our gods. The long discussion on butchering "Bob," the buzzing in my ears which I had felt while having the very emotional conversation with Friday Jones just before going upstairs, the look on her face when Rev. Belt - no don't listen to that mind, just drift. Going back up the elevator - now how does that relate? What happened or didn't happen then. The door of the mansion, covered with "No Soliciting" plaques - this much money must draw salesmen like flies, I thought... The conversation about the slaves, the look on her face as Rev. Belt - no, don't let that distract you!! The conversation about the slaves, THE CONVERSATION ABOUT THE SLAVES!!!!! My many minds imploded into one mind that listened to memory.

"The four of them are a matched set," Rev. Tool had told me, "I got them cheap because G'broagfran's name was misspelled. Not bad, huh?"

"Not bad at all," Howll had replied, "I too am a thrifty soul at heart."

Four of them!! I'd seen four slaves serving dinner. But hadn't Spew killed-" Suddenly I understood everything. All the signs were literally there on the door of the mansion. Each of us was in terrible danger. Exploding and becoming "Bob," Friday Jones, taking vengeance on Spew, these were the least of my worries now. Something else was at hand, something truly horrifying, not just for Friday and me, but for Stang, Princess Doe, and all the rest. Now that I was in a quiet place I could feel it, as if the huge thunderstorm on the horizon was looking down at my friends and I with a deep and hostile suspicion... It was literally the worst thing, the one thing every Subgenius hopes they will never have to face, the thing we all fear more than NHGH, the Yacatisma, or even the hideous after effects of eating "Bob's" brain. My priorities were rapidly shifting away from vengeance and romance to merely having some part of my being survive the night. If we all died, and even half our souls survived, we would be very lucky indeed. I needed a plan, but realized that making one would be the worst thing I could possibly do. The only possible hope lay in last minute improvisation and the help of good friends.

My big worry at the time was that this thing I felt, this oncoming horror, would read my mind and learn that I knew all. I did what any good Subgenius would do under such circumstances; got off the throne of excremeditation and lay down on the bed for a nice nap. If I was fully in a slackful sleep, there could be no thoughts, and thus no chance of their being heard. I rolled over once just to make sure that the alarm was set for 11:40 and spent the next two and a half hours sleeping like a baby. Even the begging and shrieking of Reverend Tool as Friday Jones cleansed the universe of his foul presence did not disturb my slumber.

7/11/99 - 2nd Meat: God Tartare

At 11:45 a normal slave knocked at the door. I finished putting my dinner clothes back on and answered. "They're ready for you downstairs." he told me. The fear had returned and the buzzing in my head was back again.

"G'broagfran"

I risked a glance at the "normal's" dream helmet. It was covered with several crude welds, one of which had cracked. I made it a point to fill my head with romantic, loving thoughts of Friday Jones, which I knew would wholly occupy my consciousness. Once again, I was quite worried about telepathy. I followed the "normal" downstairs.

The parlor was now filled with ritual equipment; not the copies Stang sells through the scatalog, but the real things, some of which you'll never see on tape or in a photo. A video recorder lay on one of the tables and several microphones were scattered around the room. Friday and I signed releases so the church could sell cheesy videos of our deaths over the Internet.

"We have calculated it very carefully," Dr. Howll told Friday and I. "Judging from the weight of the residue on the knife and in the syringe, and the scale used by Spew and Tool, and subtracting the totals from the dosages Spew discussed, you will explode at exactly midnight by that time piece right there." He pointed at the rather nice clock on the mantle.

"And then," he went on to inform us, "Exactly one nano-second later, the molecules that once comprised you and Ms. Jones will implode and form "Bob."

Dr. Howll picked up the camera. No tripod. It was going to be one of those usual cinema verite Church things. I'd hoped for better. Chastity Belt was leading the servants to their places. I guess Stang felt the need for some spear carriers in the background. "G'Broagfran" was misspelled on each of their chests.

"Boddhisatva," Spew asked, "I have one last question for you."

"Ask any boon you like," I replied, "An excellent ex-student such as yourself deserves the answers she seeks."

"Why didn't you ever let me touch you?"

"Do you really want to know?"

She looked around at all the people nearby who would hear the answer and set her jaw. "Yes."

"When you came to the Ashram, it was obvious that you had the potential to be a brilliant pupil. You had only one flaw. You didn't hate enough. The guards would beat you and you would just look at them sadly. One of the other students would steal your food and you'd just eat more dirt. The previous Boddhisatva and I worried for months about how to instill you with enough venom that you could fulfill your true potential as a child of the Yeti. Then one day I saw how you looked at me and I knew just what to do... I brought you close and then I denied you. I watched over the intervening year as you became more angry, more aggressive, and knew it was just a matter of time until you would begin to hate me and everything around you. Your feelings for Ms. Jones were unexpected, but perhaps her presence was the final catalyst that ripened the mixture. And in my opinion, if you can hate Friday, even for a second, you can hate anything."

Spew clenched her small fists at her sides, "In other words, just more manipulative, mystic teacher B.S."

"Pretty much. But it worked."

"So how did you feel as you were doing this?" she asked me.

"It was sort of bittersweet." I answered, "Besides having an excellent and beautifully deranged mind, you also happen to have an extremely hot little body. I regretted the things we would never have."

"Oh." she started to turn away. She turned back around. "Did you love me."

I looked deep into her eyes as if I wished to ravish her right there "I love..." -no, I could give my would be murderess a little comfort, but not that much. "I love each and every one of my pupils." And followed up with a shit eating grin. Let her chew on the that.

"Bastard." A whisper. Spew hugged herself and walked away.

I walked over to Legume. "K'taden," I said, "at about five seconds after midnight things are going to get extremely weird."

"Weirder than exploding and becoming "Bob?"

"Much weirder. "I'm going to start talking to someone just about then. Please kill that person for me."

"But why?"

"You'll understand everything then. Stand behind Friday's right shoulder. Meanwhile think of other things."

"Troutwaxer, five seconds after midnight, you're gonna be DEAD and I'll do whatever the hell I want!!"

"Have it your way." The seed was planted. Now there was only waiting and the hope that it would blossom. Once again I filled my mind with romantic thoughts of Friday Jones. It was time to begin.

"We are gathered here tonight," Stang began, "to witness the ultimate Dobbsian sacrifice. Irreverend Friday Jones and Boddhisatva Troutwaxer are about to create "Bob" between them after..." Stang went on to tell the story. I stood in front of the camera and held hands with the gorgeous Ms. Jones.

"Just for the camera." She said it seriously enough, but her manner was welcoming and warm, as were her hands. Legume had positioned himself perfectly, just off of Friday's right shoulder and two steps from rear door to the parlor. But would he come through in the end?

"How do you feel?" Friday asked me. "I don't feel any different."

"It's not a gradual thing," I told her, though I didn't have any idea about how whatever we were expecting would feel. I could not risk her spilling the beans by action, words, or thought, (as I stated above, I was quite worried about telepathy just then.) and I didn't want to create false hope, so I didn't tell her what my excremeditations had revealed to me. The seconds ticked away toward immolation, but with any luck the fireworks would happen on my schedule, not at midnight as everyone else in the room had supposed.

"While you were upstairs I spent a long time talking to Spew." Friday told me. "I could like her a lot if she hadn't killed me."

I smiled proudly. "She's a very, very good student."

"She's a very bad sick little slut!!" Friday protested. She sighed. "I wish there was enough time to chastise her properly for all this."

"I wish you had the time too." I told her.

Somehow Friday and I swayed closer and closer as Stang and Pope Meyer droned on - first a brief interview with Spew about the customs of the Troutwaxing Boddhisatvas then more talk, playing news anchors, just filling up time. Soon it was 11:59 and the second hand was sweeping toward the midnight hour. All the eyes in the room were on Friday and me. Because we were still digesting the bad news about "Bob," Meyer prayed loudly to Connie. I watched the clock.

11:59.40: "I'm so sorry Friday, I didn't mean it to end this way." The hug tightens and we sway together.

11:59.50: "Hold me Troutwaxer." she says. I hear a car pull up to the front door and I know it means something, but what? I'm trying to concentrate on Friday nowbecause she's got to be scared, and I'm trying to track the rising power that is beginning to fill the house, but the car...

11:59.53: I tell Friday, "For as long as I live, I shall hold you."

11:59.58: "Oh Troutwaxer, I... I..." The car door opens and shuts again. Pope Meyer frowns and looks darkly at Spew. What's going on? Have I missed something?

12:00.00: "Oh Friday, I love you." I'm trying to figure out what's up between my ex-pupil and the Pope of All New York, so I'm distracted as I say this and it sounds a little wooden. I feel Friday stiffen. The power is rising and despite not being dead and the wooden "I love you" my love is holding me tighter -not happy, but scared. Suddenly I realize that she feels it too

12:00.07: I still have not exploded. Pope Meyer says, "Maybe we miscalculated? I hear Legume grunt. Spew has kicked him in the kidneys. Oh damn!!! She's behind Friday because Legume's behind Friday; I hadn't counted on that!

Princess Doe saves the day with a tackle that would have made Vince Lombardi proud, driving her shoulder into my knees so hard that I would later request arthoscopic surgery from Dobbsco's HMO. My arms are still wrapped around Friday, so I involuntarily pull her down and we hit the ground hard just as Legume's bat goes through the space where our heads had been. I trip quite clumsily over Friday's lovely legs as we try to get up and hope she won't think I've kicked her. I stagger to my feet two body lengths away from Ms. Jones, who lands on the floor at Spew's feet just as my disciple raises the baseball bat again. I'm too far away to help, but my love proves adept at defending herself. She grabs Spew's ankle and rolls, tumbling my ex-pupil over. Legume grabs his bat as they fall. Friday and Spew end up tangled in a heap at my feet as Legume raises the bat to crush my ex-student's skull. I hold up my hands to ward him off. "No!!" I scream, "Not her!!"

There is a split second of silence, then the unexpected and supremely spooky sound of groaning wood grates on our ears. The power is fully manifest now. Everyone can feel it and we are all shuddering masses of goose pimples. Something is really, really wrong. Stang wraps his arms around Princess Doe as all of us instinctually take a step back from the noise. There is a faint, sickly purple light oozing out from under the main doors to the parlor. The light brightens, then turns orange for a split second and the doors crash outward from their hinges, driven by a horrible wet wind that shoves us back even further into the room. The wind dies down, gurgling like corpse bubbles as it settles in the corners. There is only darkness. I hear a rattling sound, then a click as Dr. Howll, teeth chattering, turns on the little spotlight mounted atop his camera and aims at the place where the door was.

The harsh light reveals the fifth "normal" slave, the one with "G'broagfran" spelled correctly on his chest. He stands upright, arms raised as if summoning hellish power. Gradually, a black Armani suit, (the black a sure sign that He is in a major snit) a silk shirt, and a red power tie forms where servants rags had been. The welds on the dream helmet are bursting with little pings and a magenta light begins to shine through the cracks. What the light touches writhes like something alive, burning, melting, screaming. Every subgenius' nightmare is made flesh. "Oh no!!" shouts Friday, ""Bob" is angry!!"

From behind us we hear bad sounds; Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! The normal slaves have all turned inside out, not due to B'b's" will, but because their "normal" topology's instinctive reaction is to hide them within their own food tubes when near an angry Dobbs. The grotesque meat sacks are bleeding and oozing at our feet as their souls gibber in primal pink despair. "B'b draws back his head and whiffs up the normal souls like the theological cocaine they are. We hear their spirit screams falling forever into the hole in all sanity that is God. Any of us could be next, and each of us is frozen in lunatic terror. The red tie begins to glow and we can hear laughing demons and agonized voices screaming from within it. The tie is actually a gateway to hell!!

There is a sound like the buzzing of flies as small dots pour off the figure in the doorway and race about the room, shattering lamps and knickknacks, film equipment and religious paraphanalia. Our volcanically enraged Messiah and Slackmaster, J.R. "B'b" Dobbs, begins to speak and we only a few feet away. Only the psycho-insulating material of the dream helmet he's wearing keeps our bodies from exploding at the very sound of his voice. "I AM VERY ANGRY AT YOU, MY CHILDREN. MY HIDING PLACE HAS BEEN VIOLATED. NOW, ONCE AGAIN WILL I BE HUNTED FOR FOOD BY EVERY BOBBIE WHO OWNS A COPY OF THAT STUPID BOOK!! DON'T YOU CRETINS KNOW HOW TO FIND THE GODDAMN MARKET!?" The dream helmet is starting to sizzle around his head. I can feel the tentacled things that live inside the messiah's brain beginning to breathe my thoughts; in <> exist amid tentacled thing lung slime <> out. I'm guessing that the messiah is still weak because he's already been killed once today, but I cannot be sure. He's certainly stronger than any or even all of us.

The frozen moment of terror is broken as Rev. Howll' friend Mi Sing attacks God with a sharp piece of broken glass. I don't know whether it's a badly timed ritual assassination or whether she's simply trying to save us, but the result is the same. "B'b" snaps his fingers and Mi Sing is just frozen in mid leap. A huge fanged pit creature, skin bubbling with acid, fangs drooling some kind of green slime, crawls out of hell through what was once "B'b's" tie in a cloud of sulfurous gasses and explodes every nerve cell in Mi Sing's body at once. We all cover our faces and try to avoid the rain of charred human flesh. The demon removes the top of what's left of her head and eats what's left of the her brain. The body falls to the ground and Mi Sing's soul is just left there in mid air, trapped in a time loop and screaming as it endlessly relives the pain of its own death. The pit fiend grabs the screaming thing that once was a lovely woman and pulls it into hell. We hear chomping sounds followed by a huge belch.

Moving so that I'm backing away from "B'b" the whole time, with hands held open and wide away from my body, I cross the room so I'm opposite the servant's door to the parlor, hoping he will turn to follow me and turn his back to Legume. I speak in my oiliest, most groveling voice. "But "Bob," I ooze, not being able to pronounce the vowel-less name of his dark side, "I thought we had a deal." I've deliberately pitched my voice to sound just like the worst sort of gross little quisling because I know just how much that will piss him off. If he just focuses his wrath on me long enough, Legume might have a chance.

"WHAT KIND OF SISSY BOY HAVE WE HERE? AN ASS WAXING BODDHISATVA. THE LAST OF YOUR LINE." "B'b's" voice boils with contempt and the power of his off the cuff opinion overwhelms all the self esteem my merely mortal ego can muster. He's utterly right, I am unworthy. I don't even deserve to have molecules. I'm praying fervently that when he kills me he destroys my soul as well. The earth desperately needs to by cleansed of my utterly odious presence. I can't fight the feelings; when I try to tell myself that I'm a decent person the impulse is crushed almost before it can come into my conscious mind. "I WILL KILL YOU AND TAKE ALL YOUR PITIFUL POWERS AS MY OWN!!" He draws back one arm as if to unleash a thunderbolt. I'm cringing in the corner sobbing at the top of my lungs and praying for extinction.

Suddenly, Spew is standing between "B'b" and me. "No!!" she cries. "I want to kill him first!!" Despite himself, Dr. Howll laughs. Spew wants "B'b" to help her kill me and he thinks it's funny. Somewhere off in the distance I try hard not to see Legume slipping through the back door of the parlor. "B'b" may have caught my thought. He looks that direction for a split second then Reverend Belt's voice breaks through the chaos.

""Bobbie" baby," she says in a voice that would melt Antarctica, "wouldn't you rather have a bottle and a bird than kill the poor Boddhisatva?" One hand flicks open the top button of her skin tight, ceremonial blue jeans and unzips the fly, exposing her belly button. The other hand is holding a bottle of champagne. She pops the cork, lets the gusher of champagne flow over her bra-less ceremonial "Bob" T-shirt and begins gyrating wildly. "B'b's" eye's bulge like a toon's, popping out the dream helmet's view crystals in a shower of sparks. My brief view of his pupils shows them as screaming mouths, his eye's teeth are the needles from a syringe, blood crusted and dirty. The champagne bottle empties so quickly that it implodes. Several fist thick penis tentacle things rip through his pants and Howl like a pack of rabid werewolves as they str-e-tch across the room. One mighty phallus wraps twice around Chastity's throat and throws her down, two more start stretching her legs apart and I hear the fabric of her jeans starting to rip. Once "B'b's" attention is off me I begin to recover just a little - maybe I should simply be torn apart by distempered wolverines instead - anyway, I'm getting it back together. I'll never know whether she was trying to distract "B'b" from me or from Legume, but either way... Well, lets just say that while Friday Jones is my love, Chastity Belt is my heroine. She endured a great deal for us all that night.

I hear Chastity gasp but loose track of the action as the enraged messiah turns back to Spew and bellows. "I WILL NOT GRANT YOU THE PLEASURE OF YOUR MASTER'S DEATH. I WILL FEED ON YOUR BRAINS AS YOU WOULD HAVE FED OTHERS ON MINE." Purple lightning bolts flash from his hands as he reaches for Spew. With my last desperate volition I try to raise a mystical shield between the two of them and "B'b" just laughs, penetrating my energies like the cheap special effects they are. I'm reduced to flailing at the dream helmet with my fists. I connect with one of his long, squirming eyes and grab it. The dirty needle teeth in his rabid pupil rip and tear at the flesh of my wrist as I yank and pull. The other eye just laughs. Meanwhile, the lightning wreaths Spew's head and she screams, a high pitched, quavering wail that will haunt my dreams for many incarnations. "THEN THE REST OF YOU MUST PREPARE TO FEEL MY-" Suddenly there is a huge "CRACK!" of splintering wood and the messiah is spread eagle at my feet with a big dent in the back of his dream helmet. Legume has come through!!

12:00.45: Pope Meyer reaches down and unbuckles the straps on the dream helmet. Everyone gathers around to stare at our guru and Slackmaster, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs. Sleeping, or maybe comatose, he looks like a guy you'd buy a car from. His giant members have vanished and even unconscious (for he is still breathing,) the smallest hint of a manic smile once again graces his face. Legume, his face shocked and pale stares at his splintered bat in horror. Everything that makes a "Louisville Slugger" the most precious, magical thing an All American boy can pass down to his grandson has been spent in that one glorious swing, and the bat crumbles to dust as we speak. Chastity, released from the hideous sexual attentions of "Bob's" dark side is crying... no, at a second look, she's not crying, sperm is leaking from her eyes. I find myself heaving dryly at the sight while she vomits up a grotesque mixture of human flesh and several quarts of messianic cum. Dobbs' semen (I don't look too closely) is also spewing like a fire hose from her vagina and anus. I dearly hope that she'll be all right. Spew, who will later tell me that while "Bob's" hands were near her head for a few seconds the messiah had eaten her brain, killed her, damned her to normal hell, and then revived her so he could do it all over again, is laying in a gigantic puddle of her own sweat and drool while she holds her head and groans.

7/12/99 - Desert

"Don't get your luggage, don't get your stuff, just get out of here now." Pope Meyer grabbed Stang's arm with one hand, Smurf Spew's with the other, and left the building at a run. Just as he got to the front door it swung open and he body checked a man in a chauffeur's cap. Dr. Howll and Princess Doe dragged the unconscious "Bob" down the steps and threw him in the back of the limo. Howll put three C-notes into the chauffeur's hand and stuffed another into "Bob's" front pocket. "Get this guy to the nearest bar." he ordered. " Step on it!!" By now Friday had gotten Rev. Belt to her feet and helped her out the front door. We all stood around staring at each other and trying to figure out what to do next.

"Don't just stand there you fools!" Pope Meyer yelled, "Run!!" He continued trying to move away from the house while dragging Spew and Rev. Stang behind him. What the hell was he doing?

"He's finally lost his one remaining marble," said Dr. Howll, "I believe the strain has been too much." Stang, obviously getting over his shock at recent events, started trying to pull away. Meyer let go of Spew and used both hands to wrestle the wildly struggling Stang over his shoulder, then ran down the driveway at the best speed he could make. We all followed. I seem to recall having some vague idea that Meyer was trying to kidnap the Church's Sacred Scribe for some nefarious purpose. He paused only to get out of the limo's way, then continued out the gate and down the block.

Finally he stopped at the corner and put Stang down. Legume was the first to catch up and I was right behind him. "What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

"Each and every one of your students had it pounded into their little tiny brains when G. Gordon Gordon and I visited, didn't they?" Pope Meyer asked rhetorically, "He said 'Always have a contingency plan.' He said it again and again and again and your disciple Smurf Spew watched him for hours then spent the night with him in his Humvee, didn't she?"

"Contingency plan?" "Smurf Spew?" "G. Gordon Gordon?" "What are you talking about?" Stang and Legume and I were right up in Meyer's face, screaming at the top of our lungs. It was an ugly scene, which I must confess to having started, and despite all the apologies we've all made I still feel terrible about it.

Spew and Rev. Belt, though suffering from a bad case of hell shock and post assault trauma respectively, had trailed shakily behind us out of instinct or habit, both of them looking a little like upset toddlers trying to catch up with their parents. Now Spew shook her head and wiped off the tears, then looked blearily at Rev. Stang. She spoke softly, haltingly, like someone talking around a migraine. "He's talking about my contingency plan, of course. You see, I didn't know whether it would really work. All the stuff about "Bob's" brains sounded pretty good, but the Troutwaxing Boddhisatvas have been serving "Bob" since Genghis Khan first sacked the Forbidden City. I knew they had some kind of deal with "Bob," but I wasn't cleared to read the contract. I had Reverend Tool rig explosives all through the house, with the idea that we could, if necessary, detonate them a few minutes after the Boddhisatva and Irreverend Jones were extinguished. Originally we were going to shoot Jones and my ex-Master in the head and rush everyone else out to the limo if the "Bob" brains didn't work, but then that horse's ass Tool decided to break the news about killing them at the table, and he was locked in the closet with the timer before he could tell me where the guns were hidden, so I grabbed Dr. Legume's bat and did my best."

David Meyer smiled beatifically as the house blew up. Spew glared at Pope Meyer, then at me, then glared much harder at me. "But you've all been one step ahead of me all the way." She rubbed her eyes like she was about to cry.

Dr. Howll patted her shoulder. "Poor thing. Perhaps you would be happier if you think of it this way, which is much more true: It took the entire Church Hierarchy plus the Boddhisatva to stop your murderous plan. One on one you'd certainly be a match for any of us" Spew thought it over for a second and managed the pale ghost of a smile.

"It occurred to me to wonder," said Pope David, "why Smurf Spew smiled so broadly when Tool was dragged away. While all of you were busy watching Friday dispose of Tool, I looked behind the coats in the hall closet he'd been locked in and found the timer, set for 12:10 am. At first I just thought it ran the sprinklers, but when the Boddhisatva and Friday didn't blow, and the limo came, and Spew attacked Troutwaxer and Jones, I decided that the timer was there to blow up the house and hide the evidence showing that two dead bodies had been murdered just in case the "Bob" in question was a false "Bob" and the brain didn't work as advertised. Also I remembered that G. Gordon Gordon designed the security system for this house, so I thought it was wiser to run away than try to deactivate the system without a password. When "Bob" showed he took up all the time I'd expected to use showing you the timer and explaining my reasoning."

We spent the next few minutes patting Pope David on the back. Finally Dr. Howll pointed out to us that police and fire sirens had been getting louder by the second, and were doubtless headed to the mansion. We moved around the corner and down an alley.

"Rev. Stang," Quake wanted to know, "will "Bob" be mad at us?"

"He gets that way sometimes." Stang replied, "I wouldn't worry about it."

"As far as "Bob's" concerned," Dr. Howll opined, "All's well that ends well if it ends in a bar. And that's where we sent him."

"You have to remember that he's very easily distracted." Pope Meyer reassured the frightened disciple. "In this church you sometimes have to let sleeping gods lie."

"That's very good advice," said Friday. She turned to me and noticed the blood running down my fingers. "Oh dear, you're bleeding! At least I picked this up before I left the house." she said, opening up her evening bag and getting out a handkerchief. She wrapped the lacy thing around my wrist and tied it snugly. "I want to know why you and I aren't dead," she said. "What happened?"

"We didn't actually eat "Bob's" brains." I told her. "My student back at the Mega Fist Temple Hell Ashram did not kill "Bob," though I wasn't aware of this at the time. He must have killed one of "Bob's" secret service duplicates or maybe one of his CIA clones. "Bob" was actually hiding here at the mansion of the anonymous Fort Worth billionaire in the guise of one of Rev. Tool's normal slaves. As he said, he's gotten tired of his worshippers hunting him for food. And as he said, we all do know where the market is."

"Do you remember Spew, that we both commented on the misspelling of the word "G'broagfran?""

"Of course."

"Do you recall that at dinner, Reverend Tool told us that he'd gotten four normals as a cheap matched set exactly because of that misspelling. But on the chest of the one you threw out the window G'broagfran was spelled correctly. I didn't think anything of it at the time."

"Neither did I," Spew replied, "Who worries about what a normal looks like?"

"Exactly!!"

"I understand now," said my beautiful Friday Jones, "She killed one of them and there were still four around the place, so you knew that one of them was "Bob."

"No, not then," I told her, "At that time I had no impetus to put the pieces all together. Later, I was mainly concerned with our impending deaths and hadn't yet gotten that far. However, at dinner one of them had the name spelled correctly and-"

"That was the one I kicked in the balls and threw out the window." Spew said, remembering the moment with a certain relish, "So when he came to life again, you knew it was "Bob" and that you were not in fact going to die."

"Not to mention that the presence of four normals in the dining room should have made trickery obvious to anyone who knew that one of them had died." said a shaky and somewhat raspy voice. The mere fact that Rev. Belt could talk meant she was in better shape than I would have expected.

"That's the logic. However, my initial suspicions were not aroused until my Friday and I were talking and "Bob," still in the guise of that normal slave, walked by me. When he did, I heard a strange buzzing in my head and felt a terrible fear. At first I thought it was just due to the content of the conversation, which was emotionally quite heavy, and also due to my impending death, but later I realized that it felt just like being near The Presence. On the way down the stairs just before midnight I wondered why we hadn't been feeling him all day long. I looked at his dream helmet and noticed that it had been welded, probably right after Spew killed him. One of the welds had cracked, and the "Bob's" pstench was leaking out.".

"Not to mention the correct spelling of "G'broagfran," added Princess Doe, "Obviously "Bob" couldn't wear the misspelled name of one of his brother deities without causing a fuss. I'm surprised Rev. Tool never noticed."

"Too much 'frop." commented Pope Meyer. "Or maybe "Bob" got into his head."

"We've gotten off topic. Let's clear the rest of this up." said Friday. She gave me a puzzled look. "So you excused yourself from the table and spent the rest of the evening putting two and two together until you got five, at which point you came down, played out the charade, then you and Chastity distracted "Bob" until Legume KO'd him."

"That's right my darling." I said. I took both of Friday's lovely, warm hands in mine and gazed into her eyes. She gazed searchingly back into mine. I was about to pull her close for our first kiss when her eyes suddenly narrowed. "How long did you know?" she asked. Her hands, gently held by and holding mine, began to tighten.

"How long did I know what?"

Friday ripped her hands from mine and crossed her arms. "Mr.Troutwaxer." she said it slowly, carefully, emphasizing each and every word, "at exactly what time did you realize that you and I were not going to die?"

"Oh, maybe eleven o'clock," I lied, trying to sound casual. I'd actually had my realization at more like nine-thirty. "but I didn't want to create false hopes and I was really worried about "Bob's" telepathic-" Yeah, I know, it sounds pretty lame to me too.

"And you let me spend an hour thinking that I was going to die and join your selfish, dumb-ass, male molecules in yet another body of our- YOU GODDAMN STUPID, TESTOSTERONE IMPAIRED SON OF A BITCH. HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY BE SO INCONSIDERATE. YOU BUTT MOUTHED, PIGEON TOED, MANGY..." she went on like this for some time. I thought about what she'd done when Papa Joe Mama pissed her off. I hoped she wasn't that mad at me. I was about to get profoundly upset myself when-

Oh what a feeling!! Spew's fingers were playing with the short hairs on the back on my neck. She put her other hand on my shoulder. She had something to say, and she said it softly, sweetly, with her tongue in my ear. "Master", she breathed, and shivers radiated across my body with each movement of her mouth, "Let's go home."

Spew was no longer the student, she was now my equal; a mighty slackmistress. Perhaps I should forget about Ms. Jones and take what I had denied myself for all this last long year. "You know, you don't have to call me Master anymore."

"But sometimes I'd like to." More tongue, exquisite silvery ecstasy.

Friday meanwhile, had increased the volume. "ROTTON, OVERBEARING MONGOLIAN SON OF A DICKLESS NORMAL, HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY BE SO CRUEL AS TO TELL K'TADEN AND CHASTITY THAT I WAS NOT GOING TO DIE BEFORE YOU TOLD ME? DO YOU THINK-" Instead of trying to reply I watched the show; carefully considered her words, her rhythm, and her tone, gave proper attention to her delivery. She had a lovely speaking voice, and considerable talent for invective. These qualities are quite desirable in a yeti woman - at least in theory.

I also considered what Spew had to say. I carefully considered her tone of voice and gave proper attention to her quite pleasing way of presenting an argument. She had a seductive, low voice and a tongue that was warm and quite talented. To a male yeti these qualities are highly sought after.

It was time to choose and I didn't have the slightest clue about what to do. I had survived a Subgenius formal dinner, escaped being poisoned by the messiah's brain, solved the mystery of the fifth normal and helped keep the enraged manifestation of an angry "Bob" from killing my friends. Now I was paralyzed with indecision.

If I chose Friday, (assuming she still wanted me) Spew would spend the rest of her life trying to kill us. On the other hand, if I took off with Spew, what might the jilted Friday Jones do? I shuddered at the mere thought. Once back in her Boston headquarters with all the machinery of her power around her and nothing to do but hate me for brutally dumping her in front of Stang and the others? Her vengeance would be terrible beyond words!!

I'm sure my indecision lasted only a few seconds, but I would swear to you on Nenslo's grave that I stood there for what seemed like hours. Finally Stang came to my rescue. His hands made several mystic passes in front of my wallet and emerged with at least thirty dollars. "Take the path of least resistance!!" he hissed. Suddenly I felt the pinball machine of life go TILT! TILT! TILT! in my direction and without conscious thought I turned Spew's head to face the awesomely enraged Friday Jones. "Tell me Spew, have you ever thought about making it with a woman?" I asked her. I hadn't expected the question, but there it was tumbling out of my mouth. Thank you "Bob."

"Master, there are days," she said a bit distractedly, "when I think of nothing... else." At that second I felt all the deadly intent drain out of her (and go back to Legume where it belonged.)

"Well then, why don't you apologize to Ms. Jones."

Spew dropped to all fours and crawled to Friday's feet, where she knelt, knees spread and face uplifted. "Mistress Jones," she whimpered, "I've been a very bad girl."

Friday's voice cut off in mid rant. Her jaw dropped. Slowly, very slowly, she looked down and then SPLAT!! she fetched Spew a slap that rattled windows across the street.

Spew gasped. "Thank you Mistress Jones. I deserve another."

"YOU CUNT" Friday screamed, slapping her again, "YOU FILTHY PIECE OF SHIT!!" Another slap. "YOU MOTHERFUCKING TWAT!!" Slap! Smack! Slap! The gasps were quickly becoming sobs as the full strength of Friday's arm made itself known. "I AM SO PISSED AT YOU!! YOU'RE GONNA BE FUCKING AMAZED AT WHAT I THINK YOU DESERVE!!" Slap-ap-Whap-a-dap!!

I squatted down behind Spew and squeezed both breasts as hard as I could, driving my inch long lacquered fingernails into her soft flesh. Soon we had established a rhythm:

SLAP!! Sob.

"Thank you ma'am."

SQUEEEEEEEEEZE!!! Whimper.

"Thank you master."

Princess Doe pretended to let out a sniffle. "I just love a happy ending." Pope Meyer was whistling the chorus from "Me and Mrs. Jones."

SLAP!! Sob.

"Thank you ma'am."

"Tonto," said Legume, "I think our work here is done." and as they walked away I heard Dr. Howll begin to lecture the others.

"The mating ritual of the porcupine," he said, "Is one of natures most lovely and exotic dances. Usually taking place under a full moon, upon which the female porcupine ovulates. The male porcupine scoops the ovum off of the fool moon and does a little dance, something like this..."

SQUEEEEEEEEEZE!!! Whimper.

"Thank you master."

SLAP!! Sob.

"Thank you ma'am."

6/22/99 - After Dinner Mint

Half and hour later I was leaning against the alley wall in a state of post orgasmic bliss, having happily frottaged myself to orgasm against Spew's round buttocks. I don't think that punishing Spew ultimately had been a sexual experience for Friday, but she did not look unsatisfied as she finally let my ex-pupil slump to the ground. And the object of our attentions? She was lying unconscious on the asphalt, whimpering in her sleep.

Friday flexed her hands. "God these hurt." she told me.

"I'm not surprised," I replied, "you've been slapping her since about half past and its after one now." My hands hurt too, and the spot on my wrist where "B'b's" fanged eye had bitten me was starting to throb.

Friday rooted through her black latex handbag and came up with a microscopic cell phone. Soon we were in a taxi headed for the airport. "What time does your flight leave?" she asked. "I've really got to get going. Tool's Lear jet is waiting for me - I hope. But there are some airport hotels where you and Spew can stay until your departure time."

"Will you stay there with us?" I asked.

"I'd love to," she answered, "but I have to get back to Boston. The resistance against the Cambridge City Council must continue. And of course Reverend A- is waiting for me. "

I sighed. "You mention him on your web page, but I'd hoped he was old news."

"Sorry." We didn't say much for a few minutes, then she yawned and laid her head against my shoulder. I put my arm around her and she snuggled against me. I spent a long, long time gazing down at that exquisite face as the street lights passed and passed. I was about to caress her cheek when I felt the bump that meant we were pulling into the Hilton's driveway. The bell boy opened the taxi door.

"Goodbye Friday," I said taking her in my arms one last time, "I'll never forget you."

"Nor I you... Oh Troutwaxer," she cried, "we'll always have Dallas." The cabbie dragged Spew out of the front seat and we stumbled into the hotel. My last sight of the Irreverend Friday Jones was a flesh colored blur in the dark taxi window as she vanished into the hot Texas night.