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Frank and the Hermaphrodites by Jacob Miller

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“Cat got your tongue?” Christy said to Frank, seating herself beside him in the cramped bar. She smiled, an effort which transformed her thin, delicately cut face. She looked, for a moment, appealing pretty.

Curtly, in his usual; brisk tone, Frank said: “Shut up!”

* * *

It was night, and Jack found himself at a deserted street corner, cold and shivering, blinking in the white light of the street lamps. What am I doing here? He asked himself, slightly bewildered. He looked at wristwatch, it was two o’clock in the morning. I’m supposed to be at the nightclub, aren’t I? He thought dazedly.

I can’t miss it, he realised. That’ll be three nights in a row, Frank will be getting suspicious.

* * *

After the dance, Frank led Christy back to the table, gripping her small fingers tightly until both of them had taken their seats. Tom sat slumped over next to Julie, half-asleep and muttering vague indecipherable sounds. Julie sat trimly upright; she’d finished her drink and had ordered another one.

“Another round?” Christy asked Frank, with fading cheerfulness. She got hold of the waiter and reordered. “Tom, you look like you’re about to die on us.”

With an effort Tom raised his shaggy head. “Madame,” he answered, “leave a man something.”

The evening was coming to a close and people were beginning to filter out of the club and back up the stairs to the street level. On the stage the man and the woman reappeared, removed their clothing, and were once more going through their supernatural dance. Frank scarcely noticed them, he was sinking into gloomy contemplation. He sat, dully sipping his drink, distantly aware of the murmur of voices and the thick opaqueness of the air. When the floorshow ended, then major bulk of the audience got up and began pushing toward the exit. Already the room was half-empty. From the street a blast of frigid early-morning air swirled down, chilling the customers still sat at their tables.

“It’s late.” Frank said.

Across from him, Christy’s face flitted with panic. “They’re not closing for a long time yet,” she protested pathetically. “And in the back they don’t close at all. Dance with me again before we go.”

Frank shook his head. “Sorry babe, I’d fall over.”

Julie was on her feet. “Tom, will you dance with me.

“Sure,” Tom said. “I’ll do anything.” Holding her clumsily by the arm he half-led, half-dragged her through the departing people, to the front of the dancefloor. There, a few tired couples swayed back and forth. Two hermaphrodites, currently both women, were dancing calmly with their male patrons. Presently, bored of that, they switched sexes, became men and wandered among the tables looking for female partners.

Sitting at his table, Frank said: “They can’t control it can they?”

Christy sipped her drink. “Probably not, it’s quite an art.”

“It’s depraved.”

One by one the lights dimmed out. When next Frank looked he saw Tom slumped over at a table, no longer dancing. Where, then, was Julie? For a minute he couldn’t locate her and then he spotted her familiar black hair. She was dancing with one of the hermaphrodites, her face glazed with desperate excitement. His arm around her, the slender young man danced passionately and expertly.

Before Frank knew it, he was on his feet. “Wait here,” he told Christy.

Gathering up her purse and coat, Christy started after Frank. “We’d better not separated.”

But Frank could only think of Julie and the hermaphrodite, walking hand-in-hand through what instinct told him was the entrance to the still-functioning back rooms. Pushing a few loitering couples aside, he followed. For an instant he walked through a dense darkness and then he was standing in a deserted corridor. Head down, he ran blindly forward. Around a corner, he stopped short.

Julie, leaning against the wall, a glass in her hand, was talking to the hermaphrodite. Her hair was a disarranged cascade. Her body slumped with fatigue, but her eyes still flashed, bright and alert.

Striding up to her, Frank said: “Come on, we’re going.” He was darkly aware that Christy and Tom had followed him.

“You go ahead,” Julie replied in a strained voice. “Go on, fuck off!”

“What about you,” Frank demanded, shocked. “What about your husband, Tom.”

“To hell with Tom!” she cried in sudden agony. “To hell with everything! Screw the lot of you! I’m not going anywhere, I’m staying right here, and if you care one iota about me you’ll understand.”

The hermaphrodite turned slightly and said to Frank, “Mind your own business, man. It’s a free world!”

Frank reached out, grabbed hold of the creature’s androgynous shirt, and lifted him from his feet. The hermaphrodite was amazingly light, but he struggled and twisted, and in an instant he slid out of Frank’s hands. Stepping back, the hermaphrodite flowed into a female. Her eyes mocking she danced jerkily away from him. “Go on,” she hissed, “hit me!”

Julie had turned and she was making her way down the corridor. The hermaphrodite, noticing, quickly hurried after her, an eager expression on her face. As the creature following Julie down the hall to a side door, Christy slipped up close and caught hold of her. With an expert motion, Christy twisted the creature around and yanked her arm back into a paralysing lock. The hermaphrodite instantly flowed into the figure of a man. Frank stepped forward and punched him hard in the face. Without a sound, the hermaphrodite sank down, totally unconscious, and Christy released him.

Jacob Miller