The club drove at Prior's posterior, harder and harder. His buttocks were bruising, his poor little sphincter was hopelessly outclassed. Neither flesh nor cartilage could withstand the savagery of this assault. It was like giving birth to a baby, sidewise—except that he was no mother, this was no baby, and it wasn't going but coming. In more ways than one.

The icy stalagmites chilled his sides—but his body heat was melting them in return. Prior realized that he had a chance here to escape. He waited for another eeg-thrust, then sucked in his breath and shoved back against those translucent columns with both hands.

It worked! He squirted out of that stockade, a human watermelon seed goosed by an inhuman battering ram. He crashed into another stalagmite, bruising a shoulder—but he was loose! He had another chance to escape!

The eeg made a mouthless roar and lumbered after him. Prior dodged behind the icy column. One advantage he had now: he was more agile. Much more of his muscle was in his arms and legs, while the greatest mass of the eeg was in its terrific penis. The creature was inherently off-balance; it had to lean back just to stand up straight, and it couldn't accelerate rapidly around corners.

Poor as its eyes and ears seemed, the demon obviously had an excellent notion where Prior was. Did it use magic to follow him so accurately? In that case, why hadn't it bound him with an immobility spell, the way the other branch had?

Prior could guess the answer to that: it must take some intelligence to master the complexities of magic, and the eeg's brain was only big enough to master the simplicities of fornication. And pursuit.

Prior scrambled over a mound of solidly frozen cherries, then paused to watch from hiding. If he wanted to escape this diabolic creature, let alone overcome it, he'd better find out what powers it had beside fornication!

First he heard a sniff-sniff, snuff-snuff. Oh? Was its nose perforated after all? Prior knew what to do in that case!

Then the eeg came into view. Its penis was leaning toward the floor, cantilevered, the bulging glans almost touching the ice, and the elephantine slit at the end was sniffing out the trail.

So that was the secret! Versatile member, there!

But if it was smell that gave him away, he was doomed. He could avoid the eeg for a considerable time, but eventually he would have to rest or sleep. He was sure the eeg, being basically demonic, never had to do either. It would never even stop to defecate, with no anus. It would just keep going indefatigably. In time it would surely catch him, no matter where he went, now that he had challenged it by entering its lair.

Prior whipped around another slender stalagmite—no, this one was a stalactite, hanging from the ceiling—and stumbled as it snapped off in his hands.

He righted himself and looked at what he held. A spear!

He took the caked shirt he still carried and wrapped it about the basal end, both to protect his hand from the cold and to prevent the icy needle from melting. With this he might make his own hole in the eeg, and ram home there for victory! "Now come and get it," he snarled. "If you can come after you get it...."

The demon, too stupid to be cautious, approached. The penis lifted, centering on him as though it were a sword in its own right. And perhaps it was, or at least a bludgeon. Prior fenced with it.

"Touche!" he yelled, lunging.

The rapier scored—but slid off the penis. He lunged again—and was deflected again.

"Wouldn't you know it!" he griped. "Invulnerable meat!"

But he made ready for another attack. Maybe a swift stab in the balls—

The eeg-penis burbled. Fluid squirted from its slit, striking the stalactite-weapon. The ice melted instantly, and the spear broke in half.

"Oh, no!" Prior cried, dismayed. He needed a metal rapier, and there was nothing here but ice. He fled, wishing there was a river or something for him to lose his scent-trail in, or some cubbyhole the eeg couldn't reach.

Then he remembered the mound of cherries. He veered back to it and used the stub of his sword to pry loose a handful. He wheeled and pelted the demon with the red bullets.

Then he noted that some were not shaped quite like cherries. He inspected one of these more closely—and discovered that it was actually a frozen testicle.

Well, they were still solid, stinging little missiles. He knew the strikes annoyed the creature, though they could hardly hurt it. Maybe it was angry because its trophy-collection was being scattered.

The mighty penis aimed again, swinging grandly around as though mounted on gimbals. Prior tried to button the slit with a well-aimed cherry-ball, but his marksmanship wasn't that good. More fluid gooshed forth, arching beautifully and descending to strike Prior's arm. It was hot and gooey and repulsive. He jerked away but the gob clung to him. He slapped at it with his other hand—and it stuck there too, stretching out between arm and hand in a glistening string, that cooled as it thinned and hardened as it cooled. It smelled richly of butterscotch.

Good God! This wasn't ejaculate as he knew it—it was taffy!

Prior lurched on. The hardened goo just would not come off without taking the skin along too. Now his mobility was seriously hampered. What if the next ejaculation struck his legs? Or his face?

He couldn't escape the eeg and he couldn't fight it. What else remained?

What else but copulation?

He imagined being reamed by that horrendous member, and half a gallon of boiling taffy being firehosed into his colon, and knew he couldn't surrender. He'd kill himself first.

In the midst of this noble sentiment, he slipped on a rolling cherry and went down on his face. This time he hit hard, because his arms were entangled in solidified taffy jack. Light and darkness tinged with cherry-red exploded in his eyes, and he knew he was on the verge of unconsciousness. An unconsciousness he was unlikely to emerge from before being stuffed with butterscotch.

One thing fixed in his mind: what the hell was a cherry demon doing with butterscotch in its generative tract? The eeg should at least be consistent!

The light and the darkness and the bit of red swirled through face and brain, dancing shadow-shapes of zero depth. White and black stretched and strove as though at war and shaped themselves into a silhouette, and the image was of an ebony head with red in the mouth.

"You two-bit, whiteassed, lily-pekkered shit!" the head said.

"Black!" Prior cried. "How good to hear your compliments again! I thought you were dead!"

"I am dead, you pale-faced mother-sucker! That whore-demon defucked me, may the Good Lord piss on her."

"The Good Lord didn't get around to it, assuming that He still lives. But if it makes you feel better, I—"

"Shut your farting face, bleachturd! I'm dead (that's how I know God ain't)—but you still got heat in your balls. Get up and fuck that fucker!"

"But the eeg is invulnerable!" Prior bleated.

And woke. The vision of Black was gone, and the eeg was hauling his torso into position for the final ass-sault.

Well, he had Black's posthumous advice, for what it was worth. All he had to do was fuck the fucker (to use the big dead Negro's quaint idiom)—when the eeg had no orifice for the occasion.

Then his mind cleared, helped by a jolt from the demon, and he understood.

The eeg was dragging him arsey-versey past the geyser of ice cream. Prior jerked and twisted and managed to fling one booted foot into that rising column. Instantly his leg was wrenched up, splattering peach ice cream over them both, and he and the demon were hurled sidewise. The eeg's grip was broken, the taffy on Prior's arms cracked with the cold, and he scrambled free again.

He got to his feet and ran. His toes were numb from cold and shock even through the sturdy leather, and his entire leg was coated with peach syrup, but it remained serviceable. He lunged for his pack and pawed through its contents.