"Harlan Ellison - Spider Kiss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

jungle murmur of the anxious crowd rose a decibel. There would be no Master
of Ceremonies to start festivities, no prefatory acts.the Tumbling Turellos;
Wally French & Sadie, the educated dachshund; Ivor Harrig with mime and
merriment; The DeLaney Sisters.there would only be that golden spotlight, a
blast of sound, and the curtains would part. This was one manтАЩs show, as it
had been one manтАЩs Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 6 show for two weeks.
This was The Palace, and it had been invaded. Two weeks before they had made
The Palace alter all its precedents. The screaming, feral teen-age girls with
their eyes like wine-soaked jewels, their mouths hungry, their adolescent
bodies rigged and trussed erotically. They had booed and hissed the other
acts from the stage before they could gain a hearing. They had stamped and
clamored so outrageously, the booker and stage manager had decided.in the
absence of the manager.to cut straight through to the feature attraction, the
draw-card that had brought an audience rivaled only by the gates of Garland,
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Belafonte and in days past, Martin & Lewis. They had set the other acts
aside, hoping this demonstration was only an opening day phenomenon. But it
had been two weeks, with SRO at every performance, and the other acts had
been paid off, told a profusion of sorrys, and the headliner had lengthened
his stint to fill the space. He seemed, in fact, suffused with an inner
electricity that allowed him to perform for hours without fatigue. The Palace
had regretfully acquiesced ... they had been conquered, and knew it. Now,
as the golden moon-face contracted, centering at the overlapping folds of the
curtains, the orchestra burst into song. A peculiar song; as though barely
adaptable to full brass and strings, it was a repetitive melody, underslung
with a constant mechanical piano-drum beat, simple and even nagging.
Immature but demanding, infectious. The audience exploded. Spider Kiss by
Harlan Ellison 7 Screams burst from every corner of the theatre, and in the
first twenty-seven rows of the orchestra, girls leaped from seats as though
spastic, lanceted with emotional fire. A senseless, building fury consumed
The Palace and beat at the walls, reverberated out onto Seventh Avenue. The
love affair was about to be consummated.again. The curtains withdrew
smoothly, the golden circle of light fell liquidly to the stage, hung in the
black mouth of no scenery, no cyclorama, nothing, and the orchestra beat to a
crescendoing final riff. Silence... The hushed intake of a thousand, three
thousand, too many thousand breaths... The muscle-straining expectancy as
bodies pressed upward toward the empty space soon to be filled... The
spotlight snapped off... Darkness... Then back to life and he was there! If
the insanity that had ruled seventy-six seconds before was great, what was
now loosed could only be called Armageddon. Seats clanged up against the
backs of chairs, a PerditionтАЩs chorus of screams, wails, shrieks, moans and
obscenities crashed and thundered like the waves on the Cliff at Entretat.
Hands reached fervently, feverishly, beseechingly upward. Girls bit their
fists as their eyes started from their heads. Girls spread their hands
against their breasts and clutched them with terrible hunger. Girls fell back
into their seats, reduced to tears, reduced to jelly, reduced to emotional
orgasms of terrifying intensity. Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison 8 While he