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damp rumpled sheets and patting Miss Flatface on the thigh. "I'm
afraid you've had it. Don't you know, one must never think that
no other life is possible than this. All other lives are imaginable, pos–
sible, even probable."
"What have I done?" she cried, dismayed to see that he had
inserted his monocle in the socket of
his
left eye. Mr. Obscenity never
removed his monocle except when engaged in the most profound
carnal inquiry.
"Unless you wish to risk your life in one of the most picturesque
exploits known to man-an orgy with no holds barred-I'm going
to send you on your way. With references, of course. And some cash
to see you through your first week."
An orgy with no holds barred? Drugs? Instruments of torture?
Perversions? Artificial phalluses three feet long? She bowed her
head in thought. The spirits of William James and Fatty Arbuckle
whispered hoarsely in her ears, beckoning and forbidding. Mr.
Obscenity drummed an indecipherable tune on her belly with his
fingertips, waiting for her to come to a decision.
She was a brave girl, but not that brave. One sought an educa–
tion in order to use it. She had not left Jim to die, but to live. For
Miss Flatface there was a limit, even to voluptuousness. Innocent
as she might be, despite all she'd experienced, she had some sense
of her own worth.
"Want to flip a coin?" said Mr. Obscenity, languidly sketching
with a soft orange lipstick the details of the pudenda in the vicinity
of Miss Flatface's navel.
"Don't bother. I'll go," she said.
Someone put a dime in the jukebox. "Anyone Who Had a
Heart," wailed a girl, "Would Love Me." Mr. Obscenity whisked a
mirror from his pocket and began preening himself. First he inspected
the inside of his nostrils, then punched his midriff for signs of
flabbiness. Miss Flatface had never felt so let down in all her life.
Suddenly, she felt terribly, terribly alone.
5.
Yet, Miss Flatface knew she was not alone in this place. There
were other young American women here, too, in the charge of other
educators like Mr. Obscenity. Just possibly they might be all in the
