Category Archives: Short Story

Leaf of the Lotus – Guy Russell (1937)

Posted on by
Reply

sascoverLieutenant Pat Gardner drives to the Hawaiian home of Ah Lee Cheng-kai.  A beautiful Chinese woman serves them tea.  Seeing that Gardner likes her, Ah Lee introduces her as Puen T’ang  — oh come on!  Who wrote this, Ian Fleming?

Another white girl as disappeared, the daughter of a officer at Pearl Harbor.  Cheng comments, “White flesh has an irresistible attraction for the mongrel spawn of these brown people.  The misbegotten liliha dogs.”

Gardner is investigating the disappearance of several girls.  None ever turn up, even dead.  They just seem to vanish.  Poon Tang pours Gardner another drink but accidentally spills some on him.  Cheng instructs his huge servant — also Flemingly-named Wun Kow — to take her to the quarters below for punishment.  Gardner says this is not necessary, but adds, “I don’t even want to know what you’re going to do to her.”  Add this to the fact that many of Cheng’s wives have disappeared, and we may deduce Gardner is no Charlie Chan; or Erle Stanley.

After a 2-hour meal, Cheng takes Gardner below to watch One Cow mete out the punishment to Poon Tang.  Gardner is stunned to see her hands cuffed above her head, held by a rope and pulley from the ceiling.  She is draped in some sort of “sack-like garment“, that is it is kind of “shapeless“, I mean sort of a “tubular shroud” with some sort of “drawstring” and . . . oh hell, in 5 seconds, she’s naked anyhow.

Her upstretched arms threw every line of her perfect body into bold relief against warm, velvety skin.  From glowing honey-colored breasts down the smooth swell of her stomach, to rounded curving hips, her perfect little body raised the already dangerous temperature of Gardner’s blood to another degree.

One Cow whips her with a 3-foot braided whip.  Gardener tries to stop him, but Cheng assures him that the beating is light.  Her anguish is really at “the lack of a young strong man to assuage her.”  i.e. she just needs a man.  Cheng leaves Gardner alone with Poon Tang, but he is a gentleman and just releases her.

A week later as Gardner is preparing for a swell night of playing Bridge, he learns that his date has disappeared.  He races to Cheng’s house and shoves a .45 in his gut. Cheng knows where the girl is but says he won’t tell Gardner for his own good.  As he is leaving Poon Tang sees him, and tells him Cheng is responsible for all the disappearances.

Poon Tang directs him back to the underground lair. He sees Cheng and One Cow standing beside a “girl’s slender, naked body hanging head-downward from a great hook”.  Gardner shoots Cheng, then sees his erstwhile Bridge partner “alive, clothing stripped from her long smooth thighs and swelling, upthrust breasts”.

One Cow then attacks.  Gardner is able to fight him off, but gets an assist from Poon Tang who stabs him between the shoulder blades, then flees.  Gardner gallantly offers the unclothed girl a raincoat.  Well, after untying her straps . . . explaining to her why Poon Tang wasn’t killed . . . marching her buck-naked up the stairs . . . then totally nude down the driveway . . . and 100% bare-assed down the road . . . to the car where he left his raincoat.

I also imagine a lot of fumbling with keys, and maybe her shivering in a light freezing rain, but that’s really reading between the lines.

Post-post:

Sky Goddess – Clive Trent (1937)

Posted on by
Reply

sascoverNeale, the American, called himself The Tumbleweed because, like tumbleweeds of his native west, he was forever rolling.

Like the tumbleweeds on The Outer Limits, this one is sentient.  He wants a wife, kids and a home . . . he didn’t want to roll.

He currently holds the cushy post of Acting Deputy Commissioner[1] for Allaha the White Queen of Amatonga in Rhodesia.  Since Robert Mugabe was only 13 years old, it might have still still been a nice place to live.

The White Queen is the son of an English Commander who apparently did not believe in the Brexit, because he sired over a hundred children.  They were of “all shades and coloring” but she was the only one white enough to be queen.  She grew up to marry “the coal-black Chief of the Amatonga”.  The Chief was killed by a lion when “learning to hunt with a rifle instead of a spear”, so  Allaha ascended to the throne.  Later, after her stomach calmed down, she ascended to power.

Back in the present, Allaha and Neale receive word that Lady Diana Sutwell and Fred Blake crashed flying into Capetown.  “Three-score of blacks with spears and loin-cloths” are dispatched to find the white woman . . . and the dude, if he happens to be there.  Before they even have the chance for a single man to be killed by lions — did the Chief’s death teach them nothing? — Blake and Lady Di stumble into camp on their own.  Quickly, her body language is nagging Neale to death:

No brassiere restrained [her breasts].  They stood out, firm little mounds pressing against that shirt of hers as if she was saying “Yes I am a woman.  Now what the hell are you going to do about it?”

Hips alone that would drive a man crazy.  She stood smiling at Neale as if she was saying, “What the hell?  I’m a woman, yes.  What does that mean to you?”

Despite having bedded Allaha the night before, Neale tells Lady Di — the daughter of a duke — that he loves her and wants to marry her despite his lowly station in life.  He knows this is as unlikely as a chauffeur marrying the Lord’s daughter.  He tells her straight-out, though, that he wants to have the sex with her.  She declines, saying that she is content to wait for Mr. Right.

Uber-respecter of women Neale leaves to find the other white meat, Allaha.  Unable to locate her, he circles back to the house.  He overhears Diana telling his assistant Roscoe that of course she and Blake were more than just travel-buddies.  She then disses Neale, saying she prefers a man who lives life to the fullest like Blake.  She and Roscoe then begin making out.  What?

Neale orders Roscoe back to his post.  Blake enters and seems to have no problem with either Roscoe or Neale banging his girl.  Worried of an attack by the natives, Neale prepares by picking up Diana’s clothes.  He says, “I’ll give these back to you before we leave.  Till then you’re going to be just a human female creature, and you’re going about without clothes like any female of the animal species.”  

The natives, led by Allaha, attack the house.  The four white bullet-chuckers easily dispatch the natives attacking the house with spears.  Blake suggests that maybe Diana — who fought while still naked — might get her clothes back.  Diana says, “Hell I don’t want them!” just to torture Neale.  Yeah, that’ll show him.  I mean literally show him.

The natives return to the house and set it on fire — which really should have been Plan A.  The gang is rescued by the Rhodesian police.  After all the stereotypes and racial epithets that I have skipped over, there is this surprisingly progressive passage:

Through the bush came a troop of hard-bitten Rhodesian police troopers firing with carbines from their saddles driving the natives into the depths of the scrub, tramping them down, imposing on them the terror that the white man exercises on the native everywhere in the world.

Only Neale and Diana survive the siege.  That night he goes to her tent.  She says, “You fought so gallantly and I had thought you were just a weakling.  I couldn’t love you when you came to me with your life story instead of dominating me.”

They agree that they hate each, so naturally start making out.  The next day Lady Diana heads back to Buluwayo, hopefully not tailed by paparazzi.

Meh.  But it does deserve special recognition for most gratuitous use of nudity in a story.

Post-post:

  • [1] Or Deputy Acting Commissioner according to his boss.
  • She really is referred to as Lady Di in the story.
  • First published in March 1937.

River of Fire – Ken Cooper (1937)

Posted on by
Reply

sascoverA Spicy Adventure story set largely in the bayou which goes a whole five lines before mentioning “barbaric voodoo!”

Dr. Bob Carson is asked if he is willing to be assigned by the government to Okochee Bayou, said to be “a fester of filth and disease.”  The doctor thinks of “Pasteur . . . Lister . . . Walter Reed.”  Although he might have actually been thinking of Reed’s namesake when he heard about the filth and disease.  Dr. Carson not only accepts the assignment, he intends to take his wife Enid with him.

As their guide rows the Carsons across the bayou, they are chilled by the eerie calls of owls and bullfrogs.  “Some folks say dey’s duh spirits ub duh dead,” he says, channeling Buckwheat.  With those comforting words, he drops them at their new shack.  He leaves, but says he’ll be back in a week . . . if they are still there.  Bwa-ha-ha-ha!

They are surprised to be welcomed by Boll Eddinger.  Maybe surprised because he is described as a giant; or maybe because he is inexplicably wearing a sombrero in the Louisiana swamp.  He says he is happy to have a local doctor again.  A lot of the local “white trash” have been dying lately.  The local custom is to burn the bodies and eat the ashes so that the deceased’s soul stays alive in them, and on the carpet.

He says the locals don’t much cotton to that big-city medicine.  “Last week a girl ran a sliver through her hand.  They didn’t wait to see what come of it.  They just chopped the hand off.”  After Boll leaves, Bob assures his wife, “In a month, we’ll have them eating out of our hand.”  You know, if they don’t get a sliver.

Unbeknownst to the Carsons, after Boll leaves they are still not alone.  “Neither of them saw the face at the window.  It was thin, sallow and heavily bearded.  Dark malevolent eyes peered out from under scraggly unkempt brows.  The yellow green tusks of root rotted teeth hung viciously over a twisted lower lip.  It was the face of a maniac.”  But not so maniacal that he didn’t check out Enid’s boobs as she fooled around with Bob.

The next night, “a barefoot girl in a filthy rag of a cotton dress” knocks at the door.  She is nonetheless beautiful and seems to be wearing nothing else.  Bob goes with her to check on her sick father.  After Bob is gone, the hideous face is again checking Enid out.  This time she sees it and screams.  He opens the door and tells her, white-coated tongue a-wagging, that folks in these parts don’t like strangers and they’d best be shipping back to where they came from.  Enid replies with the punchline from an old Ronald Reagan joke:  But we’re from the government, and we’re to help!

He snaps that they don’t want no help and that they have ways making people leave.  He is joined by a “shuffling, gray-haired hag.”  She begins chanting a curse that terrorizes Enid to the point she imagines a devilish beast attacking her and ripping her clothes off.

Meanwhile, Bob is following the girl.  “A twig had caught in the girl’s dress bodice, ripped it down the front.  It had fallen from her shoulders.  Her youthfully firm breasts were bare.”  Being a doctor, Bob’s first concern is for the bruises revealed on the girl’s bare back.  She says her father beat her.  Bob realizes that she was sent to lure him from the shack, leaving Enid alone.

He races back to the shack and kills his wife’s attackers, but the real action comes when he and Enid try to escape by boat.  The locals begin attacking them.  They throw cans of oil into the water, setting the swamp on fire.  As the old boat is beginning to burn, Bob and Enid dive out and swim under water to the shore.  Not familiar with the old going-under-water trick, or bathing in general, the locals suddenly hail them as heroes.

Points for the setting and going the extra nautical mile for the ending.  But these stories are getting to be a bit of a slog.

Post-Post:

  • First published:  March 1937.
  • I fell into a burning river of fire.

Message to Morgan – Guy Russell (1937)

Posted on by
Reply

sascover“Blonde-bearded” Don Jaime is hanging out with “bright-bandanna-ed Caribs, huge ring-nosed West Indian blacks, and hawk-nosed Spanish soldiery” in a Panama bar where everybody knows your hyphenated name.

He is feeling pretty good that everyone thinks Admiral De Vaca has taken his fleet to Cartagena.  He expects Captain Morgan to attack the town, falling for De Vaca’s ruse.  His scantily-clad serving wench cares only for the jewel Morgan wears in his neckerchief.  Note that the man at the bar, and two men not even on the mainland had names on the first half-page while the wench still does not.

As she wends her way through the crowd, a strap on her blouse is unraveled, so “a firm white curved breast escaped from its flimsy moorings to gleam naked and inviting.” The wench sneaks out the back door to make a name for herself — Rosa; also traitor.   She spills the beans to Roger Blake that De Vaca is just setting a trap for Morgan.  Blake sends a warning to Morgan then bangs Rosa behind the tavern.  Remember boys, Loose tits sink ships.[1]

The fiesta is interrupted by men who bust in and capture Blake as Rosa attempts “to cover her ivory nakedness with two small hands.”  So she is a triple-agent who has ratted out Blake for an unspecified number of pieces of silver.

Blake is hauled back to San Cristobal and chained in the dungeon.  Also in the dungeon is Black Richard — let’s just call him Richard — the man Blake sent to warn Morgan. He got the message through, but returned to town to look for Blake.  Now Rosa and Don Diego are laughing at his predicament.  As they are leaving, Rosa manages to leave behind a knife for Blake — aha, she is a quadruple-agent!

Blake orders Bl . . . er, Richard to try the ol’ sick prisoner routine.  Sure, it’s an oldie now, but maybe this was the first time it was ever used.  However, the sentry comes in and kicks Richard in the ribs.  This gets guard close enough for Blake to over-power him.  He and Richard go up the staircase.

As escapes go, this ain’t the great one.  Richard and Blake are recaptured almost immediately.  Realizing that Rosa gave Blake the knife, Don Diego orders her put into the Iron Maiden.  After being stripped, of course.  Richard explodes in a rage and breaks free of his chains to save the day and free Rosa before the Iron Maiden’s spikes can do much damage.

They head for the wharf so they can swim out to Morgan’s ship to warn him of the true plot.  Rosa is only wearing a cloak which she can’t swim in.  She nudes-up again and swims to the ship of pirates.  The spikes in that Iron Maiden might not seem so bad compared to the penetrations she is about to suffer.

Another story I just could not care less about.

Post-Post:

  • [1] Remembered from National Lampoon circa 1915.
  • First published in March 1937.
  • Admiral De Vaca in the same issue was a story by Jose Vaca?  Coincidence? Vaca is Spanish for cow — who would use that was a nom de plume?

Also seen today: The Break-In (Amazon Prime). Just awful.  Only 110 minutes and not one goddamn thing interesting happens for the first 105 minutes; or in the last five.  Actually, I did like the “twist” but it was not worth the wait; it might been tolerable as a short in a VHS anthology.  Or better yet, ABCs of Death.

Marriage for Murder – C.A.M. Donne (1937)

Posted on by
Reply

sascoverMaxie’s Magic Manhood Moss[1] is just one of many potions Maria purchases from Maxie Werner to land a fella.  The fact that she needs so many makes me think a Fitbit would be a better investment.

That is not the case, though.  Matt Rhodes, in Maxie’s shop to borrow money at a usurious rate, notices “beneath her thin white dress, the firm lines of her lithe body were exquisite.  Her small breasts, untrammeled by any brassiere thrust outward against the light fabric.  Her face was extraordinarily pretty with soft mouth and eyes, and proud nose and chin.  She was 18 or 19, he guessed.”

Apparently San Juan is a pretty small town, or Maxie’s is a really big shop.  As Maria turns to leave, she runs into Sylvester Jarvis, her former love interest who just married an older woman — for money, because MILFs had not been invented yet.  Like an episode of Lost, it just so happens that Rhodes knows Jarvis — he needs to borrow the money because Jarvis cleaned him out at the poker table.

When Jarvis suggests they should continue fooling around, Maria whips out a stiletto. Rhodes is a pretty good sport and grabs Maria from behind, and takes the knife from her, saving Jarvis.  Maxie loans him $30 and a good luck charm to use next time he decides to throw his money away by gambling.  He escorts Maria back to casa de Maria where she gives him a drink . . . dosed with Maxie’s Magic Manhood Moss!

As they are making out, Jarvis’s new wife Margaret shows up outside with a pistol — both are loaded.  She screams for her husband, thinking he is both inside Maria and inside with Maria.  She breaks in and mistakenly shoots Rhodes in the shoulder.  After he is conked on the head, he awakens to find Margaret dead, a stiletto in his hand, and Maria gone.  He suspects Maria framed him.

Maxie the full-service loan-shark stops by and tips off Rhodes that the police are on the way.  He has some ‘splaining to do about that useless-ass good luck charm too.  Maxie helps him to escape, but Rhodes realizes Maxie is just trying to set him up too, so he doubles back to the shop.  Sneaking into the cellar, he feels around in the dark until he finds Maria’s breasts.  She is tied up, and admits to killing Margaret, but says it was Maxie’s stockboy Vincenzo that conked Rhodes on the head.

Jarvis and Maxie were in cahoots.  Vincenzo, having a crush on Maria, tried to intervene. Rhodes ends up in control of the situation and forces Jarvis to write a confession, even to the murder that Maria actually committed.  He sees the two teens are crazy — and I mean literally loco — for each other, so let’s them go off together.

He does actually suggest they don’t keep any stilettos in the house.  No, really.

Post-Post:

  • [1] It would be far too disgusting for me to mention that this sounds like the debris from manscaping.[2]
  • [2] Except for [1] where I just mentioned it.
  • First published in March 1937.
  • Also that month:  H.P. Lovecraft dies.