Love Ain't Nothing but Sex Misspelled by Harlan Ellison Read Free Book Online Page A

burned, blued, went gray and he started to bleed from a small cut. His eyes misted.
    "The uterus," I continued, slapping him back and forth across the bridge of the nose to revive him, "consists of three layers--a thin, outer, sheathlike coat, a thick muscular layer, and a membranous lining to the cavity which is located in the center of the organ." He came back from wherever he'd fled, and there was a fear of the Furies gibbering in his blue eyes. His tongue peeked out of his mouth, and I slammed him with the palm of my hand, and he bit the tip, screeching at me something I couldn't understand. I cuffed him in the right ear, then the left, and his head bobbled like the top scoop of an unsteady ice cream cone.
    "Simply stated, the function of the uterus is to receive the fertilized egg (which travels from the ovary through the Fallopian tubes), nourish and contain the egg as it develops through pregnancy and"--I hit him with everything I had, flush in the mouth--"expel the fully developed embryo. Four hundred dollars, Roger." The lower lip tore, teeth bit through the upper, and he went far away again.
    Softly, "Four hundred, Roger baby." I let him slip back down on his side. He lay there looking frightened.
    I went into the kitchen and drew myself a glass of cold water. He was a lousy housekeeper; I had to rinse my own glass.
    It had not been the most methodical of jobs, but then neither was I a schooled pistolero. It had been informed, however, by a classic frenzy and a degree of hatred/brutality I'd never known I contained. I sat there while he sponged off his face with the wet washcloth, and my knees were shaking. He looked as though someone had mistaken his face for ten pounds of dogmeat, and had tried to fry it. His left eye was swollen shut, with thick, red-blue puffy tissue that gleamed in the light. His mouth was raw and cut through by his teeth. He had smaller cuts and contusions all over, and frankly, it would be some time before the hatcheck girl at PJ's winked at him again. I handed him the phone. He looked at it, then at me. The eye was starting to drain blue into his cheek.
    He called his father and mouthed some sort of nonsense about needing four hundred dollars to get him out of a very tight spot. I think he knew just how tight that spot was. His old man must have said okay, because I saw Roger Gore visibly brighten at one point midway in the conversation. There was a great deal of "Okay, Dad, this is the last time; I'll be turning over a new leaf, you'll see; you won't be sorry, Dad, thanks a million," and he racked the receiver. I looked at the kid just as hard as I could, and I said:
    "It's a shame there's no law protecting girls like Jenny from their own stupidity. It's also a shame there's no law that punishes a guy for not being a gentleman. But anyhow, Roger friend, there are more serious pains than the ones I loaned you. I'm not telling you not to swear out an assault and battery on me. That'd be foolish, though; assault means to threaten battery, and since I didn't threaten you, I guess the best you could do would be battery, which might net me about five years in the slam, but there are more serious pains, Roger friend, and they are dispensed by much more unpleasant guys than me. I leave you with that thought.
    "We'll be taking Jenny down to TJ on Thursday. Get the money to her before then." I stood up and made to leave.
    He snarled at me from the floor. "Your Jenny is a tease and a bitch, man! She wanted it as much as I did, that Jenny of yours! So just who the hell you think you're helping? Your Jenny's a dummy and a tramp, and she hasn't got any honor to protect! So take your Jenny and shove--"
    I planted my foot with carefully calculated force in his groin. Gently I added, "She is neither your Jenny nor mine. She is her own Jenny, and whatever is wrong there, fellah, she is still a human being.
    "Which is a condition I doubt you possess."
    He was sucking air like a beached bass when I left.
    My