Posted by Sawney Beane on April 05, 2006 at 23:33:10:
In Reply to: Story Posting posted by Sawney Beane on April 05, 2006 at 23:28:28:
The Collected Works of Sawney Beane: Volume #3
BABYLON
by Sawney Beane
8,19 November 1991
5,787 words
DISTRIBUTION NOTICE and DISCLAIMER: Sawney Beane requests that any distribution of this work of fiction remain within the realm of social responsibility. This story is suitable neither for minors nor for the seeming majority of adults who have difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality. It is pure fantasy, which means that, for whatever reason, someone has found it interesting to think about the events depicted herein. It does not in any way mean that the author would like to see this fantasy become reality, so if you are the type of person who might be swayed into doing something irrational by reading a work of fiction, the author respectfully requests that you decline to read further.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Sawney Beane, originally a native of Edinburgh, lived for twenty-five years in a cave on the coast of County Galloway, subsisting on the flesh of unfortunate travellers, roughly a thousand of them all told. He and his wife raised a large family of eight sons, six daughters, eighteen grandsons, and fourteen granddaughters. Eventually, the family was captured, and the whole lot was brutally and unjustifiably tortured and executed without trial. Since his death in the early 17th century, Beane has reformed his ways and now confines his atrocities to his literary endeavours.
WARNING: This story contains scenes of male and female snuff and some less fatal exploitations. If you find such things offensive, please steer clear; you have been warned.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is something a little bit different. It's not really a fantasy or anything but rather a odd story idea I had once upon a time. I rather like it, and I think the style is markedly better than in my first two efforts. It's not the best story I ever wrote, but it's worth reading I think.
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My name is Arthur Winston Doyle. This is not at all significant. The only thing that my name might reveal is that my mother was interested in detective stories and a certain Prime Minister of Great Britain. I'm very glad that she didn't name me Conan. These facts are likewise not terribly significant.
My friends and even casual acquaintances call me Art. This is a similarly insignificant bit of information. I really don't mind being called Art. After all, it seems to follow well from my actual name of Arthur. It sounds quite natural.
Most people are amused to discover that my chosen occupation in this evanescent life is art criticism. Many have credited my mother with a subtle form of clairvoyance regarding the careers of her offspring. This is most likely a mistaken assumption. I prefer to think that she has a talent for subliminal occupational guidance counselling in young children. I happen to have an older brother named John who sells toilets for a living. My younger sister Melody is a professional musician. My oldest sister, Mary, is a housewife. Spooky, isn't it? Nonetheless, all of this is insignificant.
You might wonder why I am not writing in the characteristic style of a veteran art critic, which is carefully handed down in esoteric rituals from generation to generation of art critics. The reason for this lack of flowery art language is that I am talking about myself, and I am no work of art. I'm fifty-seven years old, forty-seven pounds overweight, and twenty-five centimetres below average height. I possess two hundred and twenty-seven thousand too few hairs on my balding head, seventeen too many scars on my body, and seven more fillings in my teeth than I would like. That's just for starters. I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture, whether you want to or not. It's all insignificant anyway.
I've been an art critic for thirty-five years now. I've written an average of three articles a month in that time. This means that I've written up in my career 1,260 examples of art or claims in that direction. Almost all of them were insignificant.
One was not insignificant. I intend to tell you about it. It was about twenty years ago, in '17. It was back in the time when I still believed that most of the art I was criticizing was really significant. Thus, I was not at all surprised that this example of unusual art was significant. The surprising thing is that I still believe that it was important, despite years of increasing cynicism and disillusionment with the bulk of my subjects.
The famous eccentric Roderick Babbage III had sent a request to the New York Art Monthly, the magazine for which I was working at the time. He wanted a critic to attend one of his infamous parties, at which he planned to unveil a revolutionary new form of art. I was assigned to attend. I believed myself to be wasting my time.
When I arrived at the lusciously decorated Connecticut mansion of the renowned Mr. Babbage early on a Saturday afternoon as instructed, I was immediately taken with the beauty of the surroundings. Babbage might have been a rampant hedonist and shameless lecher, but he did seem to know his art, and he had the money to buy whatever specimen he felt inclined to purchase.
The scene was busy. Countless servants shuffled purposefully around the mansion and grounds like worker ants trying to construct an entire anthill in one day. One of the butlers greeted me and led me into a high-ceilinged room stuffed with Victorian furnishings.
Sitting motionlessly in the centre of the room, the calm eye of the servants' hurricane, was a most exquisite-looking human being. She was young, not more than twenty-five, and perfectly proportioned. She fit snugly into her long blue evening gown. Long dark hair flowed over her bare shoulders to her stunningly displayed breasts. She stood and revealed the long cut-out portion of her dress, which enticingly failed to cover most of the smooth expanse of her back. A mischievous smile accompanied the piercing gaze of her bright blue eyes. I know art when I see it.
The woman greeted me with a velvety smooth voice and extended her hand. I mumbled a response and pulled the proffered hand toward my lips. As I kissed her knuckles gently, I noticed a strange thing about her wrist. A shiny yellow metallic tube pierced her forearm between the two bones of that limb, the radius and ulna I believe they are called. The tube was approximately one centimetre in diameter and allowed an eerily clear view through the woman's arm. The ends were fluted and decorated and faded naturally into her flesh. It did not seem to impair her movements in any way nor did it seem to bother her.
I looked up questioningly. "Yes, it is real gold," she explained and pushed the pinkie finger from her other hand through the tube for my benefit. A devious smile accompanied this perverse answer to a question that was not foremost in my mind. She seemed delighted in a childish way by her answer. I knew that she knew that I was wondering more about the hardware's origin and reason for existence than about its composition. However, I could not think of a tactful way of asking her about it. I let the subject drop.
We sat down in chairs facing one another and began a polite conversation. I eventually asked her about the art that was to be unveiled that night. She said that it was a sort of performance art. She also said that she had been instructed to allow the illustrious Mr. Babbage or the artist in his employ to explain the creation. We continued our pleasant conversation, avoiding the topic of new art forms.
I discovered that the woman's name was Jennifer Millet. She was a former fashion model, who had recently taken full-time employment in the household of Mr. Roderick Babbage III. I was not entirely clear about her duties in the home. She never answered a question straightforwardly.
In time, much time, Mr. Babbage arrived. He was about ten years older than myself and in quite fine form. He was slim and strong and dressed elegantly. His blonde hair maintained its shape perfectly, apparently through the use of many artificial additives. He carried a cane, which he did not need and carried a pipe, which he did not light. He kissed Jennifer Millet mostly for my benefit and introduced me to his companion.
This other individual was a short black-haired man with a long moustache and goatee. He dressed all in black and spoke with an unplaceable foreign accent. Mr. Babbage introduced him as Maximillian von de Lieu, the artist of Babbage's patronage.
I was welcomed to the grounds and informed about many things that interested me very little before the subject of new art reached my ears.
When I asked them what the new art was all about, they told me only that it was performance art and that I would have to see it to believe the power of the image. They were right, but I was clueless. When I asked who would be performing, they reluctantly conceded that the subject would be the sumptuous Jennifer Millet. I pressed them further to explain what she would be doing. They said simply that she was to be hung and refused to explain further. The conversation passed on to other things.
At this point I must digress rather severely, as that is what my mind was doing at this point in the story. In my life of art criticism, I have witnessed many terrible things that people do to themselves and others in the name of art. I could hardly stand the idea of any harm coming to Jennifer Millet. My mind desperately played back memories of my exposure to two of the most perverse examples of cruel would-be artists in history.
The first occurred during my first year as an art critic. I was to review a performance art video tape. I was not prepared for what I saw and heard. The film began with a pseudo-interview with a Southeast Asian girl. She was speaking English with difficulty, and it was clear that she had been told what to say without being told what it meant. It was ten minutes of drivel about how much the girl admired the artist's previous work and her happiness at being a part of his next project. She had no reason to be happy.
I later learned that the girl had been purchased from her parents, who felt little need for daughters. I had believed that such horrible human trade was declining in popularity. However, the artist had apparently found at least one family willing to trade its youngest daughter for a trifling amount of money. The tape continued.
The camera followed the girl as she walked to a large bed on a concrete veranda somewhere in the world. The girl forced a smile the whole time as she had obviously been instructed to do. She stood by the bed uncertainly for a while before slowly and shyly removing her clothing. Soon, the girl stood naked before the bed with a faint forced smile on her thin lips. She was attractive but not gorgeous. It was very clear that she was terrified.
Mysterious black-clad figures entered the picture and placed the girl roughly onto the bed. They tied her wrists and ankles securely to the four bedposts and left the scene. The girl smiled still, but it was obviously a very difficult task for her.
Some time later, she gasped in fear at something happening outside the camera's range of view. Soon, a lighted torch was tossed into the picture and landed between her legs. The gasoline-soaked bedclothes ignited readily and her lower legs were immediately engulfed in flame. She tried to maintain her composure for a few seconds, but even the most ardent family loyalty could not overcome the intense pain she was feeling. Before the flames had crept to her waist, she was struggling in her bonds and screaming pathetically. The shrieks continued for many minutes as the girl died a slow and painful death. She stopped screaming abruptly and became motionless, her body obscured by the flames. When the tape ended, all that remained of the young woman was a pile of ashes and a few badly charred bones. Her form could be vaguely detected on the bed, but her substance was nowhere to be found.
I rushed to the bathroom and reviewed my lunch. My analysis of this latest performance art video was less than positive. It was not art, and it was not beauty. It was quite the opposite: the destruction of beauty.
Some people can never get anything right. The artist claimed that the beauty of the performance lay in its destruction of beauty and the creation of a higher form of beauty. This was complete and utter nonsense. It's quite one thing for critics and artists to make up this drivel in regard to normal everyday watercolour paint drippings, but when murder is involved, the matter changes entirely.
Despite my criticism, the artist became quite popular. Eventually, however, someone realized that this business might somehow be illegal. The artist was convicted of murder and jailed accordingly, but not before the death cries of the pathetic Asian girl had been made into a single record and sold a million copies. This is truly a sick world.
The other episode that ran through my mind as I imagined Jennifer Millet's upcoming performance was equally, if not more, grotesque. Later in my career, five years after the first incident, I attended an exhibition entitled "Metamorphosis--The Basic Components of Human Life." It was unique.
As I walked into the crowded hall, my attention was drawn to a large piece of machinery in the entry way. Closer investigation revealed that it was a wood-chipper of the sort used by road crews to grind unwanted foliage into pourable chunks. I noticed a few reddish-black spots blemishing the yellow paint around the mouth of the beast. A horrible feeling crossed my mind.
I walked into the main hall with a crowd of excited viewers. Nine stations were set up along the perimeter of the room. Each station sported a large-screen television set. Behind each television was a life-size poster photograph of a naked or scantily clad human being. Around the edges of each large photograph, filling in the space that did not portray a human form, was a collage of dozens of smaller photos of the same individual throughout his or her life, from birth to early adulthood.
Three of the stations were occupied by men in their twenties or early thirties. The remaining six stations displayed women of similar ages. None of the nine were entirely unattractive, but only two or three could be called beautiful. Each and every one of the large photos contained a radiant smile. I wonder why.
Beside each television was a five-foot glass column filled with a multicoloured fluid. I did not know what it was at first, but I later found out.
Each of the television sets was playing an endless repetition of a bit of film starring the person whose photograph was nearest it. The plot of each film was the same. Each began with the subject walking into the picture, smiling and waving, undressing, and sitting on the edge of the running wood-chipper behind him or her. The next part was beautifully filmed in split screen. One side showed the subject throwing his or herself into the machine. The opposite side showed the same individual coming out of the machine and being collected in a large vat. Suffice it to say that they underwent major personality changes in the process.
One of the men and three of the women entered happily, smiled convincingly, waved good-bye without remorse, stripped elegantly, and promptly dived into the mouth of the ravenous metal monster. The other five were not so eager.
One of the most pathetic examples was a young woman of about twenty-two. She ran her fingers through her long blonde hair and revealed her second thoughts with her deep blue eyes. After her somewhat forced smiling and waving, she shyly removed her beautiful clothing piece by piece and just stood staring uncertainly at the waiting machine. Someone off-camera whose voice was unrecorded was obviously speaking to her for a few moments. She gathered her courage and sprang at the machine. However, she changed her mind at the last minute and stumbled into the machine head-first and hit her bare waist hard against the rim of the machine. She pulled her body quickly from the beast and clutched a bleeding arm that now ended at her mid-forearm. She sat on the edge of the hungry beast's gaping maw with tears in her eyes and blood dripping onto her tanned thighs. After some time, she slowly slid her body into the machine and waited with her eyes closed to be sucked through and into the collection vessel. I came very close to tears as I watched her demise. The exhibit was indeed emotionally charged.
The glass columns filled with shredded human flesh were really quite beautiful until I discovered through the infinitely repeating video tapes just what they contained. The process of sedimentation had allowed the densest components to sink to the bottom, while the lighter parts floated to the top. Thus, a pile of bone fragments lined the bottom of each column, and a mass if diced hair floated at the surface. The thick liquid filling the rest of the tube faded from dark red near the bottom, through various shades of pink to a nearly colourless fluid near the top.
Once again, this was a case of some crackpot failing to create art. Fortunately, this individual did not put out any hit records. He was convicted of abusing his position as an operator for the Suicide Prevention Hotline to solicit volunteers for his bizarre art aspirations. He also failed to pay, as he had agreed, various large sums of money to the subjects' families in return for their lethal services. His jail sentence lasted five years for fraud and various other minor crimes. Throughout his trial, murder was not once mentioned or even implied.
Enough of my diversions; you get the point. With my experience, I had every reason to fear for Jennifer's safety. At four o'clock, my conversation with Mr. Babbage and his artist drew to a close. His party was to begin at six o'clock sharp and Ms. Millet had to be prepared for her artistic debut. I was invited to watch the preparations. I followed the trio uncertainly out of the room.
We entered a great hall lined with the lesser works of the greatest artists and passed through dozens of equally finely decorated chambers. Finally, we found ourselves in the most enormous bathroom I had ever seen. A large sauna-bath-shower occupied only a third of the immense floor space. I stood by the door and watched as Jennifer Millet was led to the centre of the room. She stood by the tub playfully beckoning me to come closer and get a better look. I stood my ground shyly.
The lovely young woman kicked her shoes in my general direction and urged me to watch closely. She reached behind her back and unfastened some sort of miracle fastener. Without its support, the long blue dress slithered silently to the floor. Millet stepped out of the blue circle of cloth and kicked it at me. Her aim was good; the dress struck my left arm. I watched from ten feet away as she slipped out of her pantyhose and completed her nudity. She showed no signs of embarrassment, despite the fact that three men were present for her unveiling. I was shocked.
Babbage complimented her on her beauty, which, according to him, increased exponentially with every day. She stepped toward the bubble-filled bath with grace and invited the three of us to join her. Babbage began to undress. The artist refused politely, as did I. From my vantage point, I could not see Jennifer Millet with optimal clarity, but I noticed when she moved that I sometimes caught a glimmer of gold in her vicinity.
Babbage and Millet splashed about playfully for some time until Babbage wore himself out and left the pool. Three pretty unclothed servant girls entered the room from a door behind the bath and proceeded to scrub Jennifer Millet into unknown realms of cleanliness. Babbage made several inane comments about the need for hygiene on this big day.
Millet positively sparkled when she emerged from her bath and slipped a pair of slippers onto her shapely feet. The artist smiled approvingly and led the woman to a long make-up table on one side of the immense bathroom. A flock of servants arrived to apply innumerable substances to innumerable locations on the body of an incredibly attractive human female. When they had finished their work, Millet's radiance filled the room. She was beautiful from her painted fingernails and toenails to her reddish-purple lips to her tastefully shaded eyes. She was ready for anything. I was not.
I followed as the beautiful vision was led wearing nothing but a pair of house slippers out of the bathroom and down the hall to the main receiving room of the house. Every servant turned to look admiringly at the supreme figure amongst them.
The woman's caravan made its way across the Brobdignagian room to a long table opposite the main entrance and clearly visible from the latter. The woman climbed gracefully onto the furniture and placed her shimmering body horizontally along the length of the table. Then von de Lieu and Babbage produced a velvet bag from beneath the table and removed from it a stack of various sized golden rings. Each ring was severed discretely and was somewhat flexible. Thus, they could be opened slightly and snapped onto something.
This is exactly what they did. I stepped closer and saw Jennifer Millet's body clearly for the first time. It was amazing. Babbage and von de Lieu took turns clipping large rings into the shaft that I had seen embedded in the girl's wrist and other, previously unnoticed, shafts in her other wrist and both of her ankles. I soon learned that a curved golden tube ran under each of the woman's collar bones. Other shafts pierced the prominent bone on each side of the upper front of her pelvis. Four rings were inserted into these tubes. A ninth ring was woven into Millet's dark hair near the scalp.
As I watched, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen sprouted nine large golden rings across her body. I was unspeakably curious. Babbage playfully kissed the smiling woman on the nose and produced a small remote control box from beneath the table. I watched as nine golden chains descended from the ceiling approximately above the nine golden rings. Babbage and von de Lieu clipped the golden clips on the end of each chain onto the corresponding female flesh-piercing ring.
Millet looked up at me and asked what I thought of her hardware. I merely stuttered. She grinned broadly and mentioned that it was all real gold. I smiled. She announced her readiness, and Babbage excitedly flipped a switch on his control box. The chains began to rise, grew taut, began to squeak, and elevated Jennifer Millet above the table.
I watched in amazement. The four chains connected to the woman's pelvis and collar bones supported her torso, while the rings through her wrists and ankles supported her limbs. The ring woven into her hair supported her head quite nicely. The chains stopped rising when she was approximately two feet above the table. Babbage made fine adjustments to her position with his control box.
Millet's position was precisely adjusted. Her head was turned slightly toward the room so that she could view the scene. Her hands were suspended about a foot from her sides with the palms facing inwards. Her feet were about two feet apart, allowing observers at the base of the table an explicit view of her most private parts. However, the work was not done.
Medium sized rings were produced and slipped through small shafts through the fleshy parts above the woman's knees. Others pierced the skin next to her elbows. A fifth was inserted into a shaft piercing the upper rim of Millet's navel. Babbage lowered five more chains and clipped them onto the new rings. The chains were raised until they grew taut but no further. These rings were for show, not for support.
Millet smiled at me once again and asked my opinion. I managed a smile and a nod. She gave me a knowing look. There was more to come. Half a dozen small rings were produced and inserted into the woman's pierced ears, nose, nipples, and labia. As before, six golden chains were lowered and raised until taut.
I viewed the vision before me with utter awe and amazement. I saw a nearly perfect specimen of humanity connected to the ceiling and raised above the floor by twenty golden threads. She was an angel, hovering above the ground but not related to it. She was a being from another world, suspended tenuously in the air of this world but not a part of it. She was a beautiful woman hanging happily in the breeze without a stitch of clothing on her fine body. I really couldn't decide what to make of her.
Babbage announced that the time was five o'clock and that he had to run and make other preparations. I was instructed to keep Jennifer Millet company for the next hour and interview her if I felt interested in the subject. I was.
I stared at Millet for a long time before asking what possessed her to allow this unusual treatment of her divine body. She replied that she was being paid quite well for her services. She was to receive nearly fifty times my yearly salary for providing aesthetic embellishment at each and every one of Babbage's weekend bashes until she grew tired of the job or until her radiant beauty faded. This meant that she was required to spend sixteen hours a week, eight hours every Friday and Saturday evening, every week of the year suspended above a marble table. I was impressed and appalled.
I asked her about the golden shafts piercing her body in awkward locations. She said that they were entirely painless and did not hinder her movements except for the first few days after they were implanted. I was incredulous. She said that she had been too, but that the body adjusts quickly and the muscles work around the carefully placed shafts. In addition, she had been paid a bonus equal to ten times my yearly salary to compensate for the trouble of the initial piercings. She smiled broadly as she explained these things to me. Then she changed the topic saying that she did not want to talk about money.
I asked her what she had done prior to taking this unusual job. She had been a small-time model and budding actress. Neither of her careers had been leading anywhere. She knew that, if she were destined to become as famous for hanging around as Babbage had assured her she would, she would easily be able to slide into a prestigious acting career after five years of performance art.
She told me that she had spent about twenty hours suspended in practice for this debut night. She had been strung up for several short periods the previous week and had remained for a full eight hours the night before. She had been hired a year earlier, and the golden shafts had been residing in her body for nearly six months.
As we talked, dozens of servants began filling the table beneath my interviewee with countless vessels filled with a wide range of edible substances. I inquired about this, and Millet explained that the table was the refreshments table and that she was placed in this strategic location because it would attract the most attention to her.
She suddenly told me to touch her. I stared at her incredulously, wondering from whence the command had come, until she repeated it. Then I complied. I ran my fingertips gently across the silky smooth surface of her abdomen. Tiny goosebumps appeared in the path of my digits. I stopped and retrieved my hand. She told me to continue. I repeated the same action over a longer distance and allowed my hand to drift toward the woman's navel. I carefully ran my index finger around the ring through that portion of her anatomy. It fit so well into her flesh that it appeared to be a natural part of her. She seemed pleased by my manual investigations. I continued for a while and then stopped to resume the conversation.
I asked why she had required my touch. She replied that it had been written clearly across my face that I had wanted to touch her. I didn't know that I was so transparent. She remarked with a smile that it wasn't often that a person finds art that he can touch. I replied that it wasn't often that a person finds art that he could talk to. She murmured agreement.
When I asked her if she was nervous, she admitted to a small case of butterflies. After all, she was a few minutes away from being gawked at by three hundred people. I told her that I would run away in such a situation. She informed me that I would do no such thing were I chained up as she was.
My pleasant conversation with Jennifer Millet ended abruptly when Babbage returned to make last minute adjustments with his remote control. Jennifer warned him not to manipulate her body with the black box while the crowd was present. The movements hurt her slightly, and she had no intention of becoming a marionette for Babbage to play with.
I said good-bye to the lovely Jennifer Millet. She made me kiss her succulent lips before I left. I was flattered. She smiled as I was led out of the room to wait for the other visitors.
During our conversation, a large partition had been erected between Jennifer's table and the rest of the room. Babbage intended to make a dramatic introduction. I waited patiently and mingled with the rapidly arriving guests.
At precisely seven thirty, Babbage mounted a small podium and introduced in flowery terms of adulation the man responsible for the creative idea behind Babbage's new form of art, Maximillian von de Lieu. The latter made a long speech full of such drivel that even and art critic would have to say that he was full of shit. Nonetheless, he did manage to build the crowd up to a feverish expectation before revealing his pride and joy.
On cue, several servants dragged the partition out of the way. Gasps escaped from three hundred mouths as their owners viewed the most beautiful work of art they had ever seen, Ms. Jennifer Millet.
She was an angel from Heaven and a devil from Hell. She was pure, unabridged sensuality. She was descriptionless beauty. She was a woman suspended from the ceiling. She was twenty golden chains supporting a female body. She was everything, and she was nothing. She was modern, but she was ancient. She was a hanging garden of lust, desire, sex, and virtue. She was invisible, yet blindingly brilliant. She was the best of everything and the worst of nothing.
Millet's beauty was, if anything, increased since I had seen her last. Her fair flesh hovered gracefully above dozens of bowls of potato chips and fruit salads. Her long dark hair flowed in a hirsute cascade to splash just a bit on the surface of the marble table, forming a natural barrier between the punch bowl and a sea of cheese dips. Her smile never faded. She appeared completely comfortable and natural in her unusual position as she chatted casually with many of her onlookers.
She was for just a minute blue, then red, then orange, then no colour, then every colour. She was helplessly bound in the air, yet she was supremely in control of herself. She was the last nail in the coffin of the long-dead feminist movement, but she was a glowing torch symbolizing the power and worth of women. She was contradictory, and she was completely consistent.
The power of the image was immense. It was pure emotion of every kind flowing through my eyes and out the back of my head. Her unique beauty was not just in the eye of the beholder but also spread throughout the entire body of the beholder.
She was violence, and she was tranquillity. She was a goddess, but she was entirely human. She was joy, pain, sorrow, and ecstasy. She glowed with a brilliant eternal light, which blotted out everything else in the room. She was the room. She was wonderful, yet she was horrible. She was steel, wood, plastic, flesh, and bone. She was pathetically artificial, but she was serenely natural. She was.
I could not take my eyes off of her fine form until the party drew to a close at midnight, and guests paired off and made their way into the bedrooms of the mansion and of houses miles away.
I talked to an exhausted Jennifer Millet for the hour between the time the party ended and the time the table was cleared of its residual foodstuffs. Von de Lieu lowered first the six thin chains, then the five medium chains, and finally the nine principle chains until Millet was again on solid table. He and I removed the twenty rings from her body, and she stood up with relief. She kissed me passionately and told me to give her a good review. I promised that I would.
She excused herself and retired to her bed for a well-deserved rest. I watched her as she went, still cheerful and perfect. I never saw her again, except in the movies, of course. However, I have thought of her every day to this day. I will always remember the day I saw the most beautiful sight ever seen by a man.
I cannot say whether the significance of Millet's performance is positive or negative. It is both in many ways. Many have copied with some success. As we all know, human hanging portraits are a common sight at parties hosted by hosts rich enough to afford the salary or rental rates these men and women demand and deserve. Thus, it cannot be denied that Jennifer Millet, as the first such performer, was significant.
On the positive side, the new art form produces a level of beauty previously unattainable. It produces the illusion or reality of a perfect human shape, the most beautiful shape we can recognize. Countless viewers have been edified by this exaltation of the human body. The art form does not employ cheap imitation in various inhuman media. Even less does it require destruction. So in a sense, the display is a positive influence on our lives.
On the negative side, the fact that most of the people displayed are female might tend to appeal negatively to the more vulgar side of our being. The insistent image of a woman strung up and helpless has, according to some plausible reports, caused a decay in the position of women (if such is possible in this day and age). This I believe is an unfair criticism because the women's movement was in its grave long before Millet's appearance.
The one thing I can say for certain about the performance is that it was a powerful emotional experience. The difference between positive and negative emotions is in truth quite small. thus, we needn't worry so much about it and should realize that Jennifer Millet was an astounding burst of emotion for everyone who saw her.
Thus, I must write that I will never forget the woman, now a veteran movie star and hard to avoid noticing, who opened my eyes to true beauty for the first time. I must admit that my career as an art critic has suffered since I met her, as all beauty pales in comparison to Jennifer Millet.