Read William S. Burroughs for Free Online Page B

steadily louder. Kim stops on the
edge of a glade, the sky a deeper blue than the sky of earth, with a
suggestion of perilous depths. He is trembling with anticipation. On
the other side of the clearing he sees a smear of red as a creature
breaks from cover.
    It is a giant spider
covered with fine red hairs like copper wire growing on its shiny
body. The creature has the torso and head of a man. The arms end in
insect pincers. The spider man pauses, looking around desperately
with his faceted eyes, grinding his mandibles and salivating
with fear. A horrible odor drifts across the clearing. Kim doubles
over retching and when he looks up the creature is gone. The sound of
horns and flutes is closer and now a procession of hunters moves into
view led by tall thin figures in red robes, floating just off the
ground as if riding on invisible skateboards. Bounding around them,
leaping ten feet into the air, naked boys with heavily developed
thighs and buttocks are playing flutes. Other boys are riding huge
crabs and playing horns. They wear headdresses of shell through which
the music vibrates. The boys are inside the crab creatures up to
their waists. The huntsmen stop, the flute players poised and silent.
The shell boys freeze and Kim can see that they have something like a
tuning fork jetting from their foreheads and translucent pink disks
for eyes. They converge, pointing with the tuning forks like dogs, to
a cluster of bushes and vines that projects over the void. Kim
can see now that the spider man is clinging to the underside of the
ledge, hidden by the bushes. One of the red-robed figures glides
forward with an ivory wand. He leans down and with a touch of the
wand loosens the spider man's hold and sends him plummeting into the
void screaming and trailing a wake of red excrement.
    The Lord turns now
and looks where Kim is standing, not looking at Kim but letting Kim
see him. The eyes are like shafts of dead water leading down into
black depths, devoid of feeling or even of thought. The nose is
pocked with tiny holes. There is no mouth. The hands are smooth and
yellow, semitransparent with red insect claws at the fingertips. Kim
notices youths in the procession with wings flaring from the ankles
and the sides of the head, casques of bright red curls growing from
pink marbly flesh.
    The procession is
moving back through the clearing, the flutes and horns trilling out a
song of victory so vile that Kim retches again. One of the winged
youths stops and looks at Kim. The eyes are green, completely
immobile, with slitted pupils and bright red lashes. The boy touches
Kim's arms and a shock of alien recognition burns through his body.
The boy is naked, his body smooth as marble. Over his genitals is a
cupped red seashell translucent and pulsing. Kim realizes that he is
also naked, his phallus erect and pulsing. He runs his hands down the
boy's stomach, which is like flexible marble, and touches the
covering shell which glows and dissolves in light. The boy's phallus
stands out smooth as polished coral.
    His eyes shift from
green to deep blue with a purple pupil that glows like an amethyst
crystal. He leads Kim toward the edge of the cliff. They stand poised
on a jutting ledge. His wings quiver and he follows his closed fist
in a half-turn, so that his back is to Kim, and bends over.
    Kim feels himself
pulled forward by the boy's long sinuous arms hooked behind his
buttocks and he slides into the smooth pink opening, a soft mollusk.
The boy's wings vibrate, pulling him forward and over the edge. They
move down in a slow dream slant. A rush of wind carries them up into
the sky. Kim is „ steering the youth
through the wind, his head back, teeth bare, the wings whistling
against his ears...
    Portland
Place ... empty houses ... yards
overgrown with weeds ... out through the west
gate ... Joe Garavelli's ... roast-beef
sandwiches and spaghetti ... Skinker
Boulevard ... a pond ... the
farm at Saint Albans ... Tom leafing through Field &