This is the third story I’ve read by Bellem, and I’ve enjoyed all of them. Even though the three are each very different, this one stands apart. Blood for the Vampire Dead was just as matter-of-fact as the title suggests. The Shanghai Jester had the same stripped-down prose but with a noirish detective flavor to it. The Moon God Takes is more romantic and has literary pretensions that the others don’t even hint at. I was caught off-guard, but it hooked me. The ending regresses to the mean, but it is still fun.
John Salvar is watching a woman dancing naked in the moonlight before a large grey rock. She reminds him of his late girlfriend Helen. “Hungry he was for the lovely dancing girl . . . Strange, weird unearthly was the girl’s dance.” If there is a deleted scene of Yoda at a titty-cantina, this would be his dialogue.
Salvar had lived in the cottage on the cliff for a year and had never noticed the big rock. Who is the woman who seems to him like a Moon-Goddess? And not just when she has her back to him.
He watches her dancing naked before the stone for an hour before approaching her with some singles. He asks her name and she replies, “My name? I have no name. I dance in the moonlight. I belong to the Moon-God.” Salvar says he is a sculptor. She says she wishes she were a sculptor so she could carve the large stone to look like the Moon-God.
Salvar offers to sculpt the stone into the Moon-God for her if she will come live with him in his cottage. Since Salvar has never seen the Moon-God, the girl directs his sculpting. Salvar begins chipping away the stone, but discovers it feels like he is carving flesh. He is repulsed, but the girl strips naked and threatens to leave, so he continues.
Days later, when he finishes the sculpture, he steps back. “My God! It’s foul! It’s monstrous! It’s blasphemy!” It sounds like a modern art masterpiece, but Salvar tries to destroy it. The girl stops him. When she tells him that the Moon-God is actually Satan, “maggots of horror ate into his heart.” She strips naked again and he is suddenly cool with the devil-worshipping. That’s her answer to everything — her excellent, excellent answer.
At midnight, Salvar awakens to see the girl in the scaly arms of the Moon-God. She will be his mate unless Salvar confesses that he killed Helen five years earlier. He agrees, writes a confession and flings himself off the cliff to save the girl.
The twist is that the girl is actually Helen’s sister. She created this elaborate ruse so that Salvar would confess his crime and finally face punishment for murdering her sister. Her husband Ted was a good sport by pretending to be the Moon-God. Also by allowing his wife to dance naked in the moonlight for hours, to strip naked repeatedly, and to bang Salvar. [1]
What baffles me is why the stone felt like flesh as he carved it. Was it just his imagination? Was he flashing back to carving Helen up like a roast when he disposed of the body?
Another fun story in this collection.
Post-Post:
- [1] There is a similar scenario in Bellem’s Blood for the Vampire Dead where a man is pretty forgiving of his wife being abducted, stripped naked and used as bait.
- First published in December 1936.
- Also that month: Mary Tyler Moore born.
- Actually, in some alternate R-rated universe, this would have been a good role for MTM.
Horace Ford is sitting at his drafting table where a mouse is running in circles. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to see the little string, but I love it. Phillip Pine walks in and Horace shoots him with a cap pistol. Horace is a toy designer and seems never to have grown up. It’s one thing to toss out great ideas like Tom Hanks in 
He tells a friend at work about the kids he saw and about a Mickey Mouse watch he had 20 years earlier. It’s close, but damn if they weren’t introduced exactly 20 years before this aired. At dinner that night, he tries to tell the same old stories to his wife and mother. He goes on and on about his childhood and a friend who used to say “Shakespeare, sock in the ear,” then tweaks his wife’s ear. She is horrified, but not as much as if he had tried the old “
Horace gets fired for neglecting his job. His mother reacts by yelling at him about her needs. At least his wife tells her to beat it. Jesus Christ, he just won’t stop his infantile whining about having to go to work to support his wife and mother while his little friends are playing.
The opening shots of this episode made me think of 
She asks her bridesmaid to point out the woman — described as tall with a red scarf on her head — who gave her the note. They actually see the woman outside the church, but she gets in a cab before they can catch her. Samantha and Carlos get hitched without a hitch. Well, until a guy starts hacking up phlegm during the always-suspenseful “if anyone objects” section. False alarm, but well played!
She regrets that when she starts hearing strange noises. She ventures out in the hall which is now dark thanks to a gloved hand turning off the lights. She runs into the preacher and he tells her that he had performed the wedding of Carlos parents. It was memorable for reasons he won’t divulge.
Post-Post:
The sponsor is still Kreisler Watch bands. Their new jeweled band will be popular with the ladies because ladies “love jewels from their forehead to their fingertips.” What? But on to the show . . . .
Vic finds the locals afraid to discuss the reported flying saucer. He comes back to his room to find the old geezer going through his stuff. He has learned Vic’s true identity — an army pilot who was grounded for talking too much about flying saucers.
He goes with the geezer to see a flying saucer. The geezer takes him to a shack, but the occupant disappeared after seeing the saucer. After he goes to look for the saucer, Ginny tells a confidant that there are too many people on their literal alien tails.