ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls. Mark McLaughlin
Читать онлайн.Название Hideous Faces, Beautiful Skulls
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781479408757
Автор произведения Mark McLaughlin
Жанр Ужасы и Мистика
Издательство Ingram
They say she found him reading his bleak blank verse to chic neo-Goths in a warehouse. She gazed into his predatory eyes and with a wee sigh, fell into the flame-lick’d cauldron of her own sweet candyfactory. How she adored the poet’s sharp, fierce face, his needle-teeth and piebald flesh and incessant, monkey-shrill blabber. Truly he was monster-gorgeous, delectably repugnant—a ranting, chanting demogorgon of desire. And his name was Paxton Catafalque.
Our Anne took him out for espresso and was soon driven mad by all things little and big: the touch of his lean little fingers (she didn’t mind the occasional scratches from his curved black nails), the little ear nips and neck nibbles, and of course, the big tingly barbarism slung between his lanky legs.
The gossip columns made much of their nonstop goings-on. Our Anne and Mr. Catafalque traipsed about in tiger-striped sunglasses, from club to club, island to island, for a glorious season—during which, five Movies of the Week were released based on their saucy intrigues and misadventures and general joie de vivre. Surely theirs was a union destined to make history, to create mad wonders—and after months and months of glowy earthmother bulbousness, Our Anne plopped out the maddest wonder conceivable: the Infante Sarkazein.
They say he was born with the cuticles already pushed back. That squealing bundle of fuzz cried out for goat’s milk laced with cigarette butts; he draped his own shapely ass with perfumed pages of fin de siécle melodrama; he paraded about in frilled pirate shirts and silky pantaloons and a gilded monocle. At three months of age, he received a grant to publish a deliriously campy arts journal. Within a year, his first novel became a riotous bestseller and his paintings were displayed in galleries so trendy, no one was allowed admittance.
The boy grew fast, and soon, supermodels and millionaires and glamorous criminals were vying for his affections. Media vultures circled his summer cottage in smoke-churning chug-a-bug helicopters. And sad to say, no one even bothered to turn an eye toward Our Anne or Mr. Catafalque. Their careers were now the stuff of yawns.
Paxton without the paparazzi is merely a shallow beast; and Our Anne needs too many flash bulbs to brighten her day. They grew dull and dowdy in the shadow of their magnificent urchin; and likewise, the assorted glitterati and ne’er-do-wells clustered about the Infante gradually lost their zest, their style, and even some of their hair. Wrinkles crinkled ’round their drab eyes; their hands curled into spotty, shaky talons. They dwindled and kept on dwindling—none died, but who knew they were alive? One by one, they could no longer keep up with the Infante’s breakneck schedule; as each fell away, a fresh new celebrity was drawn into the fold. Thusly did each sweet rose surrender its bloom.
Our Anne learned to accept her curiously reduced state; she loved her dapper boy and could not bear to be parted from him. But Paxton—! He decided to set the lad straight…such a sad mistake.
What’s worse, Mr. Catafalque initiated the confrontation before the cameras on a public TV telethon (the Infante Sarkazein, for all his faults, did support the arts whenever possible). I happened to be watching and I must say, it was a rare moment indeed. Paxton cried out against his son, calling him a leech, a praying mantis, a crazy-ass vampire. The poet’s shrill monkey-voice grew louder, faster, higher—a spray of spittle sizzled from his thin wry lips. I could not tear my eyes from the screen! The Infante simply smiled and gently put a hand to his father’s cheek. And he said, so sweetly, “I love you, Daddy!”
Paxton Catafalque shut his mouth.
The boy said it again—“I love you, Daddy!”—and the poet began to fall in upon himself—as though someone had stuck a giant syringe in his bottom and drawn out a gallon of blood. Once more the words rang out—“I love you, Daddy!”—and a look of surprise popped into Paxton’s eyes—then bliss, then excruciating rapture—
Sarkazein, no longer an Infante, is now more beautiful, more powerful than ever. And still Our Anne orbits her glorious son. Oh, she is a bony, horrid thing. It’s not quite right—and to make matters worse, she insists on towing around that shopping cart and its reeking cargo.
I must have a word with her. Even if she wanted to keep the cart, surely no one would fault her for dumping that vile load: a loose, leathery sack of wretchedness that can only twitch its long black nails and whisper, faint but still monkey-shrill, “That’s my boy.”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.