Category Archives: Short Story

The Black 13 – Ellery Watson Calder (1935)

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sascoverAfter the last couple of racially-charged stories, I was relieved to see the title referred to a roulette wheel.

Steve King plunks down his last $5 on the titular black 13.  In a million-to-one [1] shot, his number actually hits and the croupier pushes $175 his way.  Another gambler reaches for it and says, “I beg your pardon.  That was my bet.” Fortun-ately she is “a young girl.  And damned attractive” or she would have ended up like Jake Jennings.

Inexplicably, he lets the girl have the loot and strolls out of the casino.  He hears someone come up behind him.  “It was the raven-haired wren who’d cabbaged my thirty-five blue chips.”

She knows King and his tragic story.  He was a pilot who crashed a plane in the desert, killing 3 passengers.  Though he was found to be drunk, she knows that he was set up. After the crash, someone poured gin down his throat while he was unconscious.  If he goes back to the US, the FCC will put him in jail (the FAA being 23 years in the future).  She also knows that his plane was sabotaged.

The girl hands him $175 which is precisely opposite to the transaction that I am used to with women.  She was just trying to get his attention with the cash grab.  She tells King to come to her room at 11 pm.

“She had discarded her evening gown.  She was clad in a diaphanous, flowing negligee. Black crepe it was, and her white body showed through it like a Turk’s dream of paradise.”  She immediately tells him to hide in the closet.  “What kind of shenanigan is this?” he asks.  Who says these stories aren’t educational?  I didn’t even know it was possible to have a single shenanigan.

Another man is coming to her room in 10 minutes.  Her plan is for King to conk him on the head.  They will then haul his body to an airplane which they will take back to El Norte.  King says he’s in enough trouble already and declines.  The girl starts coming on to him.  Looking a gift-ho in the mouth, he wants to know if she thinks he’s cute, or just needs his help.  His solution: “I ripped the negligee all the way open and fondled her breasts.”

She actually just needed his help, so throws him out . . . thus no longer having his help. King is a good egg, though, and circles around behind the building.  Knowing the girl is in trouble, he climbs the fire escape to her window hoping to witness her visitor; and maybe her boobs again.

The man comes in and grabs the girl.  She does not toss him out as she did King.  After producing some secret plans he asked for, she has a secret plan of her own.  She attempts to slip a Mickey into his drink, but he catches her.  As he begins roughing her up, King smashes through the window.  He conks the man on the head, so the original plan is back on track.

As she races to get dressed, King gets glimpse of her “white melons”.  They had been mere “hillocks” 2 pages ago.

On the way to the airport, the girl says there was a government agent on the plane King had crashed.  An organization of international spies coincidentally called Black 13 sabotaged the plane.  After the crash, they swooped in, lifted the secret plans off the agent’s dead body, poured gin down King’s gin-hole [2], and stole 500 packs of peanuts. She finally reveals her name — Yolande Carteret — and says the agent was her brother Ted Carteret!  King collates these facts . . . roulette, black 13, Black 13, government agent, secret plan, sabotage . . . and concludes Yolande Carteret is not married — ha cha cha!

Black 13 intercepts them at the airport and plans to drop them over the desert from 5,000 feet.  There is a double-cross, a fake double-cross, gun fire, a barf-bag, and the other shenanigan.  King is able to save the day.  The spy ring is smashed, his name is cleared, and he gets the girl.  He celebrates by pawing the “creamy white, velvety surface of her swelling  white breasts” like a TSA Agent right there on the tarmac.

Another pretty good outing for what it is.

Post-Post:

  • [1] And, by “million”, I mean thirty-seven.  Odds are 36-to-1 on a French wheel. This story takes place in Mexico, though, so I’m going with the American version. Why is ours 37-to-1?  Donald Trump is right — we get screwed on every deal!
  • [2] i.e. alco-hole.
  • First published in August 1935.
  • Also that month in plane crash news:  Will Rogers dies.
  • Ellery Watson Calder was previously heard from with The Tattooed Blonde.
  • Heh, hehe . . . cabbaged.

Red Bamboo – Jason Lyttell (1935)

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sascoverAt the head of the safari rode a lone white man and a girl.

The man is checking out her “undulating breasts” with “an insane desire to crush one firm globule in his hairy hand.”   The men in this collection have the hairiest mitts since 3rd-from-the-right-guy on the evolution chart.  They also seem to share another trait:

  • Shanghai Jester:  Her boyish body was clad in a negligee that had fallen open at the throat.
  • Cave of the Criss-Cross Knives:  A pair of sheer silk step-ins only partially covered her boyish hips.
  • Red Bamboo: He licked his lips as his eyes strayed down her body . . . down her slim waist to her lithe boyish thighs.

Sally’s fiancee John Evans financed this safari and is bringing up the rear.  Leaving the sweaty, glistening, scantily-clad Sally with the manly-man guide Masterson on the lead camel might not have been the wisest choice.

Masterson stops the caravan for the night.  When one of the crew [1] begins pitching a tent (heh, heh), Masterson kicks him for positioning it above some bamboo shoots.  “The damn things will grow right through a man’s bedding during the night!”

Masterson gets a nice show from Sally as she strips for bed, silhouetted against the side of her tent (like in Austin Powers but with less fisting (or Seinfeld)).  After getting pretty worked up, he creeps over to her tent.  It seems likely he would have raped her if Evans didn’t save the day.

The men fight, but stop upon hearing “a weird, pulsating wail.”  Evans recognizes it as the cry of frightningly-named Torzo the Wicked One from the not-at-all frightningly-named Valley of Little Pale Women.  Evans is concerned for Sally’s safety, but Masterson refuses to turn back.

In a temple in the jungle, Masterson finds a jewel.  As he is stealing it, something strikes his hand — he is surrounded by little white women who only come up to his waist.  “They were entirely naked except for hair like spun gold . . . His eyes fastened themselves on the tiny curves of their perfectly formed breasts . . . heavy gold bracelets encircled their tiny ankles.”  They swarm him and he begins tearing them apart, breaking bones, squashing them.  Somehow, they manage to paralyze him, and he lets out “the long agonized wail of a soul in hell.”

Sally, Evans, and their associates [1] hear the scream and decide maybe it is time to turn head back to civilization.  As Masterson is writhing in agony on the ground, he sees the body of another man with a bloody bamboo shoot sticking through his abdomen.  I think we are to believe that they are going to kill Masterson by paralyzing him and letting a bamboo shoot grow through his body.  If this is indeed the ludicrous plan, all I can say is BRAVO!  That is truly original.

Masterson let out another “soul-rendering scream“.  One of Evans’ entourage [1] says, “Better we pack.  Big white man not come back.”

The story is nothing special, but kudos for imagery of a tribe of tiny naked blondes — and I can’t stress this enough: tiny adult women, not children! — swarming Masterson. And for an utterly original method of torture and execution which is actually fore-shadowed.  Well done!

Post-Post:

  • [1] Slaves
  • First published in June 1935.
  • Also that month: Joe Louis whoops Primo Carnera.

Also seen this day: After being delayed more times than a Delta flight through Atlanta, Flight 7500 was finally released this year.  It is not bad as much as it is a missed opportunity.  The pieces are all here: mostly good cast, unoriginal yet always fun plot, claustrophobic airplane setting — it’s just very blah.  Not even the very cute stewardesses can save it (and might be the most unbelievable element of the movie).

White Meat – Don King (1934)

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sascoverOne hundred black Monbuttus . . . danced about the nude white man chained to a stake.

Well, this is going to be uncomfortable.

I mean because of the naked dude — let’s get back to the topless babes like every other story in this collection so far.

We get a description in pretty good detail of the man being burned at the stake.  As he is partially consumed by the flames, he screams in agony.  Finally, he is dead, the constraining vines have burned away and he falls to the ground.  The Monbuttus then . . . uh, eat him.

The rest of this is pretty standard stuff for the era, maybe — British colonials, broad-shouldered American savior, virginal blonde daughter [1], cannibalism, white slavery, etc. But sitting here at 2 am in 2016, it doesn’t play very well, and is too mean-spirited to even enjoy mocking.

But what did I expect from a story called White Meat?

These posts are just a tool to force me to experience a bunch of TV shows and short stories that I never got around to.  Mission Statement accomplished.  This one can be quietly entered into the record as short story # 11 in Spicy Adventures.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Who are these professors and colonials who drag their beautiful, blonde, clothes-shedding virginal young daughters into the jungle?  I don’t know, but God bless ’em.
  • First published in April 1934.
  • Kane Bedford’s name changes to Kane Wilbur halfway through the story.
  • Probably too late for a sequel called The Other White Meat.
  • The other Don King.

Tattooed Blonde – Ellery Watson Calder (1935)

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sascoverA young, lithe and beautiful blonde is on stage at a rally screaming at the crowd.

“You spineless cowards!  Are you going to let the Dixon interests get away with their high-handed methods?  Are you going to let them pay you slave’s wages forever?  Are you going to let them treat your women as they’ve treated me?”

With a dramatic gesture, the girl’s hands went to the neck of her cheap cotton dress.  She ripped at the material — tore it open.  Terry Dixon gasped.  In the nickering flare of the torches that lighted her, he saw her suddenly-bared breasts, unbrassiered, and incredibly lovely.  Across her milk-white bosoms, standing out boldly against the satin-smooth skin appeared the word “Striker”.

Terry Dixon is appalled and knows his family would not have abused the girl like that.  A “huge, hulking man, beetle-browed and powerful” takes the stage — Stanislaus Slavich implores the crowd to strike against Dixon Mill.  After his speech, the girl finally “drew the torn shreds of her dress over her naked breasts.”  Dixon follows her to a one-room shack at the edge of the company compound.

He peers through a window and sees she is alone.  He breaks down the door, ties her wrist and ankles, and gags her.  “With a savage gesture, he tore the cheap cotton dress away from her shrinking shoulders, baring her body to the waist.  For an instance his eyes rested upon her exposed beautiful breasts.”  He grabs a washcloth and begins scrubbing the tattoo, although we are sadly lacking the critical 4-page scene where he soaps her up.

Slavich bursts in and tells Dixon that he has played right into his hands by coming to the shack.  He plans to hold Dixon hostage until his father gives in to the strikers’ demands. Now Dixon is the one with his wrists and ankles tied.  Thankfully, he is not stripped. They stuff Dixon into a car and take him to a cabin in the woods.

The girl sneers, “With this guy captured, his old man will have to agree to the demands of the workers.  If he does, the increased wages will bankrupt him.  If he doesn’t, the men will strike — and the mill will close anyhow.”

Slavich — no rocket scientist — leaves to personally deliver the ransom note.  In his absence, the girl breaks into a trunk and retrieves a document proving that Slavich is an agent for a competing mill.  His agitation for a strike is just to bankrupt Dixon Mills.  The girl reveals that she is a Pinkerton operative who was undercover to get the goods on Slavich.

Unfortunately, as she is cutting Dixon loose, Slavich returns.  Ticked off at being described by the author as beetle-browed for the third time, Slavich lunges at the girl. “He grabbed at her, ripped the tattered dress from her shoulders.  Naked to the waist, she backed away from him, her bared breasts rising and falling swiftly, pantingly.” This girl’s boobs get more fresh air than Bear Grylls. [1]

Dixon manages to get free and beats Slavich to a spicy pulp.  He averts the strike, foils the competition, and gets the topless girl.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Alternatively:  Her bare girls get more fresh air than Bear Grylls.
  • First published in April 1935.
  • As far as I can tell, the girl never has a name.
  • Maybe the only book, short story, poem, movie, TV show, play, or folk song in history where Management is the good guy.

Talisman of Doom – James W. Marvin (1935)

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sascoverFlaming death rattled from Brad Langdon’s gun. Yeah, baby!

In WWI The Great War, when men were men, women were women, and planes were bi, Langdon and his boys are attacked by nine German Fokkers (heh, heh).  Langdon gets his Mann, sending him “screaming to earth in a billowing black cloud of smoke.”

Sadly, one of his mates is shot down and the other is being pursued by the eight remaining Fokkers (heh, heh).  He is able to identify the plane as his brother’s because of the titular talisman fluttering from the strut, “a girl’s brassiere that Rocky had brought triumphantly back to the tarmac with him from his last leave of absence in Paris.”

The Germans shoot down Rocky’s airplane.  He is already dead as he falls from the cockpit and no chute is seen, his last words being, “Yo Ardennes!”  Langdon, in a rage, dives after them, but they retreat back to Deutschland without engaging him. He can see Germans on the ground already swarming over his brother’s crashed craft.

Back at HQ, Colonel Higgins tells Langdon that three ammunition dumps have been bombed that month.  It is believed German spies are secretly sending intel from France to Germany — written on items of lingerie.  When the Germans see such an item fluttering from a strut, they focus their attack on downing that particular plane to get the info.

Langdon knows the name — Jeanne — and address of the mademoiselle who gave his brother the bra.  He bravely volunteers to remove another bra from this French babe. War is hell.

Langdon goes to her maison and is surprised to see Jeanne is “a girl, half-child, half-woman.”  Which makes sense —  the Germans had tried using more voluptuous women, but their bras made the planes fly in circles.  She gets over Rocky pretty quickly and Langdon stays the night.  She gives him her bra as a souvenir.

The Colonel writes a new message in the bra and Langdon goes on a suicide mission to deliberately get shot down for having a bra on his strut.  If the target the Colonel wrote in the bra gets bombed, then they will haul the French girl in and shave her head; and maybe work on those ‘pits too.[1]

The plan works.  Langdon is shot down, but does not fall like a Rocky — he is able to make a controlled landing in his damaged craft.  Flight Commander Higgins [3] is then able to rescue him before the Germans get to the site.

When the bogus target is bombed, Langdon goes to Jeane’s house.  He tells her he had to abandon the titular talisman she gave him.  She gamely offers the bra off her back to replace it.  He rips the bra off, and for the third story so far, a character exhibits a weird fetish for piercing a woman’s left breast:

  • Talisman of Death: He trained [his service automatic] at her naked left breast. 
  • Black Murder:  The figurette was unmistakable — it was Wynne Dana herself, entirely nude, with white jutting breasts tipped and pointed.  The head was lowered over a long, shiny pin that transfixed the left breast.
  • Suez Souvenir:  Buried to the hilt in the firm white flesh of her young, virginal, rounded left breast was a short oriental scimitar.

One of the better stories in the collection — this one actually had a plot.  This one also did the best job at making nudity actually be both German and germane to the plot — not essential, but appreciated.

Post-Post:

  • [1] I had a link to pictures of French women getting their heads shaved after D-Day for sleeping with Nazis.  Even though they are likely dead and they did offer comfort to the enemy, it seemed a little mean-spirited at this point.
  • [2] On the other hand, I did learn that their act was called “collaboration horizontale”  That’s even more awesome than my idea of “aiding and a-bedding the enemy”.
  • And way, way better than my first draft “providing aid and a comforter to the enemy.”
  • [3] Either this is the same guy as Colonel Higgins, or the service back then was literally a Band of Brothers.
  • First published in April 1935.