Prior's attention was attracted downward by the passing snicker of a ten year old girl. His spent penis was still hanging out, and the box's filament was nuzzling it.

He whipped his organ out of the way. He had no hankering to have a tampon rammed up it. Or a lighted cigarette.

Chapter Six

Two weeks later the demon was back. Prior had almost succeeded in putting her/him out of his mind, and he had long since had himself checked out again at the VD clinic and pronounced clean. (He hadn't actually had contact with the infected slot, but you couldn't be too careful about a thing like that.) He had not washed his penis in five days, and was feeling much more comfortable in the mundane world. He had perfected his tamponer by eliminating the cigarette-lighting feature—tampons did not burn evenly anyway—and modifying the filament and rinse. He expected to make his fortune momentarily.

"It didn't work," the succubus said. "That slot still has the clap."

"She never had the clap," he pointed out. "That means gonorrhea, not syphilis."

"Details," she muttered. "You jism didn't jizz, regardless. She's as VD'd as ever."

"So? You were the one who made the claim. I never thought my produce was premium grade. I'm just glad I never dunked my own tender flesh in that slot-cesspool."

"There's still something. Maybe you radiate curative rays or something. Come on—I'm taking your pint-sized pekker to a specialist."

"Pint-sized? That's sixteen ounces—a full pound!"

"Pint it right this way, then," she said, bringing him to the door.

"What the—?" he cried. But she was already hauling him outside and around to his car. He didn't even have a chance to set down the tamponer.

"Drive," she said. "I'll tell you where and when."

"I'm being hijacked by a demon," he muttered. But he engaged the atomics and drove. Any time this creature wasn't interested in sex, something serious was up.

It was a party. Costumed people drifted in and out of the multiple rooms sipping glasses of wine, beer, scotch, cucumber juice, urine, and kerosene, by the smell of it. "They aren't all human," the succubus warned him privately, "so watch your language. Don't take the names of any supernatural beings in vain, or step inside any pentagrams or eat any apples or stroke any lamps. I'll see if I can find Tantamount."

"Tantamount to what?" But she was gone.

Prior drifted among strangers, nibbling a raw horseradish and sipping a horn of strong mead, alternately perching on top of the turned-off tamponer, which he didn't want to leave just anywhere. He quickly discovered that it was not exactly a costume ball. The costumes were genuine. A toothy vampire was not merely playing when he moved from woman to woman and deep-kissed each fair throat. The twin punctures remained above the jugular, though they did not seem to bother the wearers. A satyr made similar rounds, conducting the tittering victims to a separate chamber for an instant nuptial. Prior assumed at first that the vampire and satyr were fakers, but he spied blood welling out of some of those punctures and watched surreptitiously through an imperfectly closed door and discovered that the penile act was equally realistic.

He turned after that to find the vampire at his throat. "Hey!"

"Don't do that!" the creature said, annoyed. "You almost made me hit the carotid."

"What difference does that make? I don't want my blood sucked!"

"What difference!. The jugular is placid, unoxygenated blood that I can keep under control. The carotid has fresh arterial blood under pulsing pressure. When my teeth dip into that, I have to seal it over hard to stop the spurt, and the toxin is carried into your system before I can recover it."

"The toxin! What are you talking about?"

"The vampire toxin, naturally. Anyone who absorbs too much of that becomes a vampire himself. Didn't you know?"

Prior backed away, holding the tamponer up as a defensive shield. "No thanks!"

"It isn't that I care about your sentiments, you understand. I just don't like the competition. Too many vamps spoil the blood."

"Just leave me alone!"

The vampire shrugged and zeroed in on another victim. The tamponer was now a liability. Somewhere along the way he had jammed into the on/off switch so that the machine was now locked on, its filament looking for an orifice to analyze. Prior set the unit on a vacant chair where he could keep an eye on it and fetched himself another drink. This one looked like rum, tasted like prunejuice, and had a kick like a shot of morphine. It would do.

"I found Tantamount," the succubus said beside him. "She'll be along in a minute."

"Who's Tantamount?" he asked again. He was watching a whiskered man going from woman to woman and snapping their bras. It looked like fun, especially when he snapped a low-cut bra-less outfit. An excellent way of testing the firmness of the bosom, not to mention its authenticity.

"The hostess. Tantamount Emdee. I want her to have a look at you."

"MD? She's a doctor?"

"She's a penologist. An internist in penises. Uh, I wouldn't imbibe too much of that particular brew, if you're not used to it."

"Seems OK to me. In fact I'm beginning to feel real hairy. What is it?"

"Werewolf elixir."

Prior paused to consider this. "Does this mean what I'm afraid it means?"

"That depends—"

She was interrupted by a scream. The satyr was attacking a stout woman, right in the center of the crowd. But she hadn't cried out; he had. The party had reached the stage where all women were willing but not all men able. She was tittering, enjoying the attention. Prior craned to get a better view.

The woman had been backed up against a wall and the hooved demon was having at her. His member was monstrous—a good foot long, about four inches thick at the base and tapering hornlike to a narrow apex. Prior imagined that such an instrument should be able to puncture panties readily and shoehorn its way into the tightest vulva—but he could not imagine any woman absorbing the whole of it.

Nevertheless, the satyr was the one in trouble. Frustrated by some obstruction, he had yanked up the woman's dress and underdress and petticoats and slip, and yanked down her heavy-duty panties, and was driving vainly at her corset. The thing was stoutly ribbed and cross-hatched with ivory stays and reinforced with layers of canvas. Prior fancied that a cross-section of that fabric would resemble the plies of a top-grade metal-braced nylon racing tire. Stout garters and straps depended from it, serving no purpose Prior could fathom since they did not hitch to stockings, but they did effectively wall off the crotch. No wonder the satyr had been balked! The armor-like undergarment made a dandy chastity belt.

"Good evening."

Prior turned to find an absolutely beautiful woman adjacent. Her hair was a lustrous green fading to purple at the extremities. She wore an intriguing furry halter that offered tantalizing glimpses of the truly shapely breasts within. Prior studied the halter, fascinated. He was tempted to perform the bra-snap test, but there was no strap. The halter seemed to merge into her tresses without any demarcation. In fact—

In fact, her hair was the halter. It looped back from her head, parted behind, and passed forward under her arms to embrace her luscious bosom. When she nodded her head, her breasts lifted and quivered invitingly. Prior was obtaining more erectile action from those living, breathing mammaries than he had had from anything short of the slot arcade. But the sex of the slots was fundamentally dirty; this beauty was fundamentally clean.

Then he remembered the satyr. This was no sight for a lovely lady of such quality! "Let me take you away from all this," he began.