Excerpt (an exceedingly weird sex scene) from bizarro novel THE SHIFT by Hugh Cook
Excerpt (an exceedingly weird sex scene) from bizarro novel THE SHIFT by Hugh Cook
A correspondent recently introduced me to the term "bizarro fiction," which turns out to mean something like "fiction on the weird side of strange." Having thought about it for only a little while, I thought that a lot of my own fiction could quite reasonably be thought of as fitting into the bizarro genre.
My correspondent sent me the following bizarro-related links:
http://www.bizarrocentral.com/
http://www.bizarrocentral.com/about.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_fiction
Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article:
[Bizarro fiction is a contemporary literary genre noted for its focus on "high weirdness." The term was coined in 2005 by the independent publishing companies Eraserhead Press, Raw Dog Screaming Press, and Afterbirth Books in response to the rising demand for unique and outlandish fiction. In the introduction to The Bizarro Starter Kit, Bizarro is described as "literature's equivalent to the cult section at the video store" and a genre that "strives not only to be strange, but fascinating, thought-provoking, and, above all, fun to read."]
The Wikipedia entry contains the following quote from Rose O'Keefe of Eraserhead Press:
[Basically, if an audience enjoys a book or film primarily because of its weirdness, then it is Bizarro. Weirdness might not be the work's only appealing quality, but it is the major one]
By those words by way of preamble, I hereby present an excerpt from my science fiction novel THE SHIFT, first published in 1986 by Jonathan Cape. I am currently in the throes of putting together a second edition, and, once the second edition is available for sale, I will post details on this site.
Here, then, is the excerpt:
They breathed each other's heat.
“Lahrisa,” he said.
His breath was breathless;he drew another as she swooned against his chest.
“Clive,” she said.
Surrendering.
He slid his hand into the heat between her lips. She touched and tingled. Her nipples were priapic. Her body flushed with delicious anticipation.
At the very moment his stallion lusted home, she felt the earth move. But that was only the beginning. As she fevered, matching his thrust with hers, the entire room swayed with delirium. The bedposts began to go round. Straining towards climax, they felt the bed become airborne.
Grunting, screaming, imploring, clawing his back as she hauled him in, in, hard, home, she saw sky, stars, galaxies, exploding lights. A harsh wind whipped back her head as she gasped, as if drowning, as his spasm jolted home and her convulsions tightened her mouth in an uncontrollable rictus.
Their rut was over.
As they began to relax, Lahrisa nuzzled against her lover, tasting his sweat.
“Nobody ever made me feel that way before,” she said, using the same words that Manda had used after her demon lover, Nietzsche, had worked her over with a bazooka.
“You were wonderful,” she said.
“So were you,” said Clive.
“I felt the earth move.”
“So did I,” said Clive. “I saw stars.”
“I can see them now,” said Lahrisa, her voice slightly uneasy as she studied them.
The bed lurched alarmingly. The duvet slipped sideways, and the wind tried to carry it away. Lahrisa grabbed hold of it and saved it. The bed lurched again as she got to her knees.
“Clive,” said Lahrisa, her voice small and frightened, “something's wrong.”
Clive took a look, then took a good look, and yelped in shocked alarm. The bed was now floating at an altitude of 354 meters. They were leaving Capri, ancient holiday home of the emperors Augustus and Tiberius, and were drifting in an easterly direction towards the Italian mainland.
“We have to jump,” said Lahrisa, looking at the lights of Capri diminishing in the distance behind them.
“You'd be killed,” said Clive, grabbing her.
The sudden movement upset the bed. It canted over to one side. Mattress, pillows, bedding and bodies began to slide into the gulf of air beneath them. Clive screamed. Lahrisa grabbed one of the bedposts. Clive clutched her ankle and saved himself. Their pillows tumbled away into the night, falling towards the darkened sea.
By the time they had righted the bed and established themselves in the most stable position, they were both getting cold. The night wind was chilly. They wrapped themselves up in the duvet. Lahrisa began to cry.
She had been warned. Nobody had been ready to tell her whether the female orgasm was vaginal or clitoral, but, nevertheless, she had read enough to find out about sex (real sex, as opposed to what happened with her daddy) and she had seen it all in black and white often enough, all that business about the earth moving and the bed going round and the stars and so forth. But she had gone ahead and done it nevertheless. And now she could hear the thunder, which meant it was going to rain, or lightning would blast them out of the sky.
“What do we do now?” said Clive.
“What do you mean, what do we do now?” said Lahrisa.
He was supposed to be her hero — strong, masterful, aggressive and overpowering. Instead, he was positively cowering. She had a good mind to push him out of bed. The thunder was getting louder.
The thunder grew rapidly to the onslaught of a swiftly approaching helicopter. Then came the lightning — the beam of a searchlight lacertating the night.
The bed was buffeted by the wash from the rotor blades. Lahrisa closed her eyes and flung her hands up to shield her face. Too late.
“Lahrisa!” boomed a grossly amplified voice.
It was her father speaking. Iridian Troy was on that helicopter. He saw. He knew. He had found her out.
The helicopter rose above them and then began to descend, as if to try to force them down. Clive Sendarka took the duvet and flung it upwards. It was sucked into the disc, tangling with the rotor blades. Crippled, the helicopter began to fall. The bed jolted violently as the helicopter clipped it, then the big machine had fallen away into the night.
“You killed him!” screamed Lahrisa, attacking Clive. “You killed my daddy!”
“You crazy bitch!” shouted Clive, as she tore at his face, his hair, his mustache.
While they struggled, the helicopter, falling, distingegrated. An escape capsule broke free from the wreckage. Braking rockets flared to kill the capsule's momentum as it fell. Iridian Troy had escaped alive, but it might be some time before he and his pilot were rescued from the sea.
Meanwhile, the love bed drifted on towards Italy.
A correspondent recently introduced me to the term "bizarro fiction," which turns out to mean something like "fiction on the weird side of strange." Having thought about it for only a little while, I thought that a lot of my own fiction could quite reasonably be thought of as fitting into the bizarro genre.
My correspondent sent me the following bizarro-related links:
http://www.bizarrocentral.com/
http://www.bizarrocentral.com/about.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_fiction
Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article:
[Bizarro fiction is a contemporary literary genre noted for its focus on "high weirdness." The term was coined in 2005 by the independent publishing companies Eraserhead Press, Raw Dog Screaming Press, and Afterbirth Books in response to the rising demand for unique and outlandish fiction. In the introduction to The Bizarro Starter Kit, Bizarro is described as "literature's equivalent to the cult section at the video store" and a genre that "strives not only to be strange, but fascinating, thought-provoking, and, above all, fun to read."]
The Wikipedia entry contains the following quote from Rose O'Keefe of Eraserhead Press:
[Basically, if an audience enjoys a book or film primarily because of its weirdness, then it is Bizarro. Weirdness might not be the work's only appealing quality, but it is the major one]
By those words by way of preamble, I hereby present an excerpt from my science fiction novel THE SHIFT, first published in 1986 by Jonathan Cape. I am currently in the throes of putting together a second edition, and, once the second edition is available for sale, I will post details on this site.
Here, then, is the excerpt:
They breathed each other's heat.
“Lahrisa,” he said.
His breath was breathless;he drew another as she swooned against his chest.
“Clive,” she said.
Surrendering.
He slid his hand into the heat between her lips. She touched and tingled. Her nipples were priapic. Her body flushed with delicious anticipation.
At the very moment his stallion lusted home, she felt the earth move. But that was only the beginning. As she fevered, matching his thrust with hers, the entire room swayed with delirium. The bedposts began to go round. Straining towards climax, they felt the bed become airborne.
Grunting, screaming, imploring, clawing his back as she hauled him in, in, hard, home, she saw sky, stars, galaxies, exploding lights. A harsh wind whipped back her head as she gasped, as if drowning, as his spasm jolted home and her convulsions tightened her mouth in an uncontrollable rictus.
Their rut was over.
As they began to relax, Lahrisa nuzzled against her lover, tasting his sweat.
“Nobody ever made me feel that way before,” she said, using the same words that Manda had used after her demon lover, Nietzsche, had worked her over with a bazooka.
“You were wonderful,” she said.
“So were you,” said Clive.
“I felt the earth move.”
“So did I,” said Clive. “I saw stars.”
“I can see them now,” said Lahrisa, her voice slightly uneasy as she studied them.
The bed lurched alarmingly. The duvet slipped sideways, and the wind tried to carry it away. Lahrisa grabbed hold of it and saved it. The bed lurched again as she got to her knees.
“Clive,” said Lahrisa, her voice small and frightened, “something's wrong.”
Clive took a look, then took a good look, and yelped in shocked alarm. The bed was now floating at an altitude of 354 meters. They were leaving Capri, ancient holiday home of the emperors Augustus and Tiberius, and were drifting in an easterly direction towards the Italian mainland.
“We have to jump,” said Lahrisa, looking at the lights of Capri diminishing in the distance behind them.
“You'd be killed,” said Clive, grabbing her.
The sudden movement upset the bed. It canted over to one side. Mattress, pillows, bedding and bodies began to slide into the gulf of air beneath them. Clive screamed. Lahrisa grabbed one of the bedposts. Clive clutched her ankle and saved himself. Their pillows tumbled away into the night, falling towards the darkened sea.
By the time they had righted the bed and established themselves in the most stable position, they were both getting cold. The night wind was chilly. They wrapped themselves up in the duvet. Lahrisa began to cry.
She had been warned. Nobody had been ready to tell her whether the female orgasm was vaginal or clitoral, but, nevertheless, she had read enough to find out about sex (real sex, as opposed to what happened with her daddy) and she had seen it all in black and white often enough, all that business about the earth moving and the bed going round and the stars and so forth. But she had gone ahead and done it nevertheless. And now she could hear the thunder, which meant it was going to rain, or lightning would blast them out of the sky.
“What do we do now?” said Clive.
“What do you mean, what do we do now?” said Lahrisa.
He was supposed to be her hero — strong, masterful, aggressive and overpowering. Instead, he was positively cowering. She had a good mind to push him out of bed. The thunder was getting louder.
The thunder grew rapidly to the onslaught of a swiftly approaching helicopter. Then came the lightning — the beam of a searchlight lacertating the night.
The bed was buffeted by the wash from the rotor blades. Lahrisa closed her eyes and flung her hands up to shield her face. Too late.
“Lahrisa!” boomed a grossly amplified voice.
It was her father speaking. Iridian Troy was on that helicopter. He saw. He knew. He had found her out.
The helicopter rose above them and then began to descend, as if to try to force them down. Clive Sendarka took the duvet and flung it upwards. It was sucked into the disc, tangling with the rotor blades. Crippled, the helicopter began to fall. The bed jolted violently as the helicopter clipped it, then the big machine had fallen away into the night.
“You killed him!” screamed Lahrisa, attacking Clive. “You killed my daddy!”
“You crazy bitch!” shouted Clive, as she tore at his face, his hair, his mustache.
While they struggled, the helicopter, falling, distingegrated. An escape capsule broke free from the wreckage. Braking rockets flared to kill the capsule's momentum as it fell. Iridian Troy had escaped alive, but it might be some time before he and his pilot were rescued from the sea.
Meanwhile, the love bed drifted on towards Italy.
posted by Hugh Cook at 8:44 PM
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