_ | \ | \ | | \ __ | |\ \ __ _____________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ _____________ | ___________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ ___________ | | | _/_/_____ | | > > _/_/_____ | | | | /________/ | | / / /________/ | | | | | | / / | | | | | |/ / | | | | | | / | | | | | / | | | | |_/ | | | | | | | | c o m m u n i c a t i o n s | | | |________________________________________________________________| | |____________________________________________________________________| ...presents... Painted Stranger by Weasel Boy 01/01/1997-#324 __//////\ -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- /\\\\\\__ Est. 1984 \\\\\\/ xXx BOW to the COW xXx \////// Est. 1984 __ _ _ __ _ _ __ _ _ __ _ _ __ |__heal_the_sick__raise_the_dead__cleanse_the_lepers__cast_out_demons__| The cold harsh light of a California dawn crept over the town of Buena Verde as Carin left the cemetery. Her eyes were heavy as she pulled herself home. Another wasted night, waiting for him. She had first seen him when she was seven, just after her mother had died. Over the years, as her knowledge grew greater, she recognized his manner of dress and his ways of speaking. Now as she approached her thirtieth birthday, she longed for another glimpse of him. She had spent the last ten years trying to remember what he looked like. She painted myriad pictures, always depicting the same man. Dressed in Victorian finery, with eye fob and top hat, he looked very pale and drawn on the canvas. Every picture she painted seemed to lack some spark, but she knew it to be an accurate representation. Many times she thought him to be some sort of vampire, and she said as much to the people around her. She soon learned to stop sharing her thoughts as most people rejected them. Still, a few people listened and soon her circle of friends carried word of the strange man to other people who were interested. This worked to Carin's advantage. She had countless paintings of him, and whenever a visitor would come to ask her about him she would sell them a painting. She refused to take much money for it, only a little more than the cost of paints and materials. Some people insisted that she take more, for her paintings were exceptionally fine and detailed. When she refused to take their money, there would invariably be an envelope under her door the next morning with no return address and cash inside. One day, about the time of her twentieth birthday, he stopped appearing to her. At this point, she had a hard time keeping up with the demand for paintings of this mysterious figure. Her work was becoming known throughout California, and many people confessed to her that they had seen the exact same man at various times. A fashion revolution even occurred at one point, when a famous designer bought one of the paintings and churned out a line of clothing that made half the people in southern California walk around in long Victorian trench coats. Carin was always startled when she saw a group of these people but the fantasy never lasted long. She knew them to be absolute and utter fakes, pale heroin-induced visions of her original spectre. The designer even thought to send Carin a royalty check, but she didn't care. Her vision was gone. She did a very good job of remembering what he looked like, and continued to paint him. She never saw him, but she knew he was around. Hushed whispers in her ear about a friend of a friend who saw him in the cemetery told her that he was alive and well. She started waiting for him in the cemetery, painting pictures that overlooked the sea framed against the bleak outlines of the cemetery. Her life was consumed with her wait on the cliff. She slowly realized what had happened to him. He had found life and haunted other peoples dreams now. He didn't need to bother her any longer, much as she wished that he would. Carin's tired eyes were nearly closed that morning, and she walked full into his billowing black trench coat. At first, she thought he was another one of the many victims of her fan the fashion designer, but after ten years of deprivation, she recognized his voice. "Hello there, mon cherie," he said in a voice that managed to be loving and yet mocking at the same time. "You," said Carin in a harsh whisper. In her shock, this was all the reply she could manage. "Surely you have not forgotten me?" His voice was even more mocking than before, and made her a little nervous. "No. I haven't forgotten you," Carin's voice came back, and she gathered her wits about her. This stranger, if he was the one she remembered, was very tricky to talk to. "Ah good! I was beginning to think that we might have to reacquaint ourselves! Sit down and talk to me!" The stranger patted a tomb off the path of the cemetery, beckoning Carin to sit beside him. She moved, as if drawn to the motion of his hand. "You've done well, cherie. You've made me a very famous man. Everywhere I look, people imitate my coat and hat. I am known by more people in this world than ever." "What do you mean, known?" asked Carin. This phrase struck her as rather odd. "Known. More people believe in me. Do you mean to say, my sweet Carin, that you aren't aware of the nature of the beast before you?" He laughed. "My goodness! I shall have to explain to you!" Carin wanted to say something to interrupt him, anything. She could not. "I have always existed. Back in some prehistoric cave on the plains of Africa, a small naked ape crouched in fear of my coming. Of course, they didn't have top hats back then." One of his eyes winked at her. "I wasn't really there, at first. But the caveman thought of me. In thinking of me, he brought me to life. I am nothing but an idea." "You may wonder why I came to be. Do not worry yourself with trivial matters. You may as well ask the same question of your existence. I wasn't well known, before you. Sometimes, I cropped up in history books. But I existed mostly in the minds of your ancestors. I waited patiently for an outlet." "I do not remember who it was that taught you about me. But I suspect that you do." The stranger moved his face very close to Carin's, and she could smell the funereal smell of new flowers on his clothes. He smelled like lilies. The scent brought a flood of memories crashing back to Carin. The sight of her mother, laid out in her coffin, haunted thoughts of mortician's wax and fine veins along the backs of her crossed hands. The feeling of not being alone in the funeral parlor was pervasive. "Starting to see the light now, eh cherie? You and I had our start in that room. Your mother told you stories of how a prince would come, no? Look at your prince, Carin." Carin looked at his face. It wasn't a fixed kind of face. It jumped all over, as if defying any one structure. It seemed to Carin that his face was a melting pot of all the faces she'd ever seen in her life, male and female made androgynous and spliced one on top of the other in a sped up movie. If she concentrated hard enough, he would start to look more like one person. But who was that? "Trying to find out the real roots, eh now?" He grabbed her wrist, shocking her with how cold his grasp was. It was the way he was holding her that triggered another persistence of memory. Flashes of insight flew at her from all directions. She had an intense memory of frantic and passionate lovemaking in a bed she felt at home in. She allowed herself to be washed in the memory. She felt the harsh hands feel the soft crevices of her young body, and felt an impassioned tongue tickle her nipple. She started to feel warm and felt the rough hands cup her smooth and silky teenaged hips. She was obviously remembering an intense experience, but she never remembered the loving attentions of any teenaged boy being so masterful. She shuddered as the memory of orgasm after orgasm being coaxed by experienced hands from her young body wracked her thoughts, and she longed to remember who this mystery lover was. She remembered feeling his sex enter her, and soon she found the unmistakable rhythm too powerful to ignore. She moaned softly and laid back against the tomb. The stranger's hands had not changed a bit since she was seventeen. They made love in the gathering dew of the morning for what seemed like an eternity. Carin lost herself in absolute pleasure as she realized that she had never had anything as good as this. The realization came at a cost. In that instant, she realized the lover in her bed during her teenaged years. She remembered it all with perfect clarity, even the first few times after her mother had died. The person who was her lover was no stranger to her. She was confronted by the face of her father, looming above her and how she adored him in the ways that all little girls do. She remembered wanting to make love to her father, and of pleasing him after her mother had died. She remembered the drunken nights on which he would cry himself to sleep, and of how she crawled into bed to perform loving ministrations on his wounded soul. She had forgotten all of it, and now she remembered with such forceful horror that she screamed. As the terror welled inside of her, so did the physical steam of passion come to a head. She screamed herself hoarse as she felt his burning member inside of her, and the pleasures of the flesh mixed thoroughly with the pains of the heart. "Do you not know who I am yet?" he mocked. "I will tell you. I am the image of your own death, and tonight I will bring you to your sweet reward. You created me from the fragments of death and despair in your life, and you offered me up to shield you from the cruelties of the outside world. Well, I've come to take you home now." The last thing Carin ever remembered was the sweet pain of that final orgasm, as the stranger's black trench coat enveloped her and she felt herself falling towards the sound of crashing waves. Her nude body was found the next day by a local fisherman. After her clothes were found on the crypt, it was surmised that she had committed suicide and the case was closed. There were no signs of foul play on her body. The whole town had seen her as something of an eccentric, and expected this sort of thing to happen. As the police cleared away the crime scene tape from the cemetery, one of the officers noted the clothing of the deceased with wry amusement. Even to the end, she'd clung to her insane ramblings about a mysterious figure. Everyone in the town had heard it. The lone officer poked at the easel and paints left haphazardly on the ground. The unfinished canvas was obviously a painting of this man, he surmised. Using his watchful policeman's eye, he decided that the top hat next to the painting would have been the model for her final touches on the work of art. What a waste, he thought. .-. _ _ .-. / \ .-. ((___)) .-. / \ /.ooM \ / \ .-. [ x x ] .-. / \ /.ooM \ -/-------\-------/-----\-----/---\--\ /--/---\-----/-----\-------/-------\- /lucky 13\ / \ / `-(' ')-' \ / \ /lucky 13\ \ / `-' (U) `-' \ / `-' the original e-zine `-' _ Oooo eastside westside / ) __ /)(\ ( \ WORLDWIDE / ( / \ \__/ ) / Copyright (c) 1997 cDc communications and the author. \ ) \)(/ (_/ Award-winning CULT OF THE DEAD COW is a trademark of oooO cDc communications, PO Box 53011, Lubbock, TX, 79453, USA. _ oooO All rights reserved. Edited by Swamp Ratte'. __ ( \ / ) /)(\ / \ ) \ \ ( \__/ Save yourself! Go outside! Do something! \)(/ ( / \_) "THE COW WALKS AMONGST US" Oooo