The December Special Guest Writer is Piers Anthony
Please feel free to visit Piers at: http://www.hipiers.com/
AORTA’S ART
by Piers Anthony
Aorta answered the phone. “The Weapon Shop,” she said brightly. Then after a moment she spoke to Isher. “It’s for you, boss. The Cartel.”
Isher touched his speakerphone. “No, this shop is not for sale. I thought you understood that. I’m going straight.”
“Meet us in Ogre Alley in twenty-five minutes to discuss terms,” the speaker said. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen to that cute girl of yours.” It clicked off.
Isher pondered. The Cartel was savvy and hard-nosed. It wanted to buy out the store and keep him on as their employee. Their offer was fair, as these things went; he would receive a nice price and good pay, and would be safe from any molestation. That included his lovely employee. It would be easy to sell out.
But then he would become their pawn, and no longer legitimate. His expertise with weapons would serve their illicit interests, he being a cover for them. He could not abide that. It would also be a betrayal of the name. The Weapon Shops of Isher was the title of a science fiction novel by A E Van Vogt that he had borrowed from, as an expression of admiration. He hated the idea of soiling that with this garbage.
He looked across at Aorta. She was from another type of story, the heartthrob. She was picture pretty, with neatly coiffed dark brown hair, matching eyes, a classic face, and a body that gave passing men wet dreams. She was also surprisingly smart, considering that she hardly needed to be. Yet she worked for him for nothing, by her choice. She was quietly rich in her own right.
Well, almost nothing. He paid her in weapon instruction. She was learning how to use every weapon the store carried, and it had some exotic ones. Isher had been a weapons instructor in the marines, and he had kept his hand in since retiring. Aorta wanted to be as good as he was, and such was her potential, she was getting there. She was amazingly coordinated, and stronger than her lush figure suggested. In fact she was the best student he'd ever had. But she didn't want it known. It was their secret. One of three.
“You heard,” he told her. “Now they’re threatening you. They think I’ve got a thing for you.”
“And don’t you?”
He laughed. “I know your magic.” That was Secret #2: she could conjure any weapon within range into her own hands. That was why she didn’t bother to carry any; it would have messed up her outline.
“You’re evading the issue.”
“Always,” he agreed. “You can do so much better for yourself, Aorta. I can’t convince you to quit this job and go marry a playboy who's even richer than you are?”
“He wouldn’t like me once he really knew me.”
“I know you.”
She nodded. “You know my secrets, and you still like me. What other man would?”
He had no answer to that. He also knew that she wanted to marry him. “I’m afraid of you, Aorta.”
“You have no need to be, if you meet my price.”
“You’re as bad as The Cartel!”
“Thank you. But a lot more fun in bed, if you just give me the chance.”
“Damn,” he muttered.
“You know you can't go to Ogre Alley alone. They’ll lay you out as an example to other businessmen who suffer the delusion that they can safely say no.”
“They are great for examples,” he agreed soberly.
Aorta glanced at her watch. “You have fifteen minutes.”
“Damn it, I’m between a boulder and a soft place!”
“Thank you,” she repeated. She was of course the soft place.
Isher sighed. “All right, you lady dog. I will pay your price.”
She smiled brilliantly. “Seal it with a kiss.”
He got up, walked across to her, leaned down, and kissed her firmly on the lips, sealing the deal.
“You’ll need this,” she said, handing him his cell phone as she stood. It had been securely fastened in his pocket, but now it was in her hand. Her magic.
“Naughty girl,” he said, lightly spanking her pert bottom.
“Tonight you’ll get to do that bare.”
Meaning that he would now have access to her evocative body, instead of just appreciating it from a circumspect distance. Aorta was as true to her word as The Cartel was to its word. Capitulation had its compensations.
They locked the store and departed, unarmed, walking together like the couple they had become. In ten minutes they were in Ogre Alley.
Aorta adjusted her decolletage to proffer just the right amount of hinting, and smoothed out her short skirt. Isher merely looked his ordinary somewhat sloppy self. They separated as they entered the shadowed region.
Two men were in the alley. One looked like an ogre indeed, matching the setting. The other resembled a businessman. Both were accurate representations, as far as they went. They were of course anonymous.
“Last chance,” Businessman said. “Take the deal.”
“No,” Isher said.
A handgun appeared in the man’s hand. “Stay put.”
Isher stayed put.
“Perhaps a bit of additional persuasion is in order,” Businessman said. “Watch. Listen.”
Ogre tramped toward Aorta, bearing a huge knife. She stood still, facing him, not seeming alarmed.
“Start with the ears,” Businessman said. “She’ll still be pretty without them. No sense in doing more carving than we need to, in case the mark turns out to be reasonable after all.” He looked back at Isher. His pistol had never wavered; he was a professional. “Are you sure about that no?”
“Yes,” Isher said.
“Too bad.” His eyes flicked to Ogre. “Do it.”
Ogre lifted his blade to Aorta’s face. Then he rocked back, clapping a ham-hand to his head, where blood flowed from his severed ear. Somehow the blade was in her hand. Before he could do more, the knife flashed again, taking off his other ear.
“What the—” Ogre exclaimed, grabbing for the woman. Then he dropped like a felled stag to the ground, blood spurting from his sliced throat. He was done for.
“What the?” Businessman repeated. And dropped as the hurled knife skewered his open mouth. He was dead before he hit the ground.
“There is the incidental business,” Aorta murmured.
“I’ll wait,” Isher said, turning his back.
Soon she spoke again. “Done. Now you may appreciate my art.”
Isher turned back, knowing that this was something he had to do. The two bodies were lying on their backs, naked, spreadeagled. On each bare chest, neatly arranged in a circle, were two ears, two eyeballs, and two testicles. In each mouth was a severed penis.
“I suspect The Cartel will get the message,” Isher said, shuddering. “They won’t send any more representatives out for sacrifice.”
“Unfortunately,” Aorta agreed, wiping off the knife on a separated shirt and laying it across Ogre’s depleted genital area. Her outfit was unruffled, her hair unmussed, and there was no blood on her. “But this double feature was nice. I don’t get to practice my art often.”
Her art was something else. It was the third secret, her passion for the bizarre. It would remain secret, as The Cartel would clean up the mess without reporting it to the authorities; it was private business. Fortunately, for Aorta, it was the doing that counted, rather than any public appreciation. “Remind me never to make you angry.”
She joined him as they exited the alley, tucking her arm possessively into his. “Just don't use anything on other women you might want to keep.”
Isher expected to have no difficulty there. He did not want to become another example of Aorta’s art. Fortunately he would be able to use whatever he wanted on her, without losing it. She loved him, in significant part because he accepted her as she was, secrets included.
“There’s a justice of the peace not far ahead,” she said. “I have done the essential paperwork. It wouldn’t be proper to do what we will do tonight without being married. I am old-fashioned in that respect.”
Isher could only agree.
About Piers Anthony
Piers Anthony was born in Oxford, England, in 1934. His family was doing relief work in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, so Piers spent a year in Spain. The new fascist government expelled the family from Spain, and Piers had his 6th birthday on the ship to America. He was not a great student, taking 3 years and 5 schools to make it through first grade because of his trouble learning to read. Yet in due course he became a writer, making his first story sale in 1962 and going on to have 21 novels on the New York Times bestseller list. Today he lives with his wife on their tree farm in backwoods Florida. He is still writing stories and novels. To date he has had over 170 books published.
