Flesh Mob: Collection of Classic Erotica, #25

By Lawrence Block

Sheesh. What a lousy title.

 

Flesh Mob was published by Midnight Reader, a fellow imprint of Nightstand Books, in 1962. I can tell at a glance that it's my work, although I don't specifically recall writing it. And I must have put a title on it, but I  an assure you that it wasn't Flesh Mob. It could only have been the inspiration of some editor in Illinois.

Several notables filled that role over the years, including Earl Kemp, A. J. Budrys, and Harlan Ellison, but it's hard to imagine any of those three making a eureka moment of Flesh Mob.

 

For years it struck me as merely a bad title, two works that when combined had a sort of reverse synergy, amounting to rather less than the sum of their parts. Then just this week I looked at the title and saw that it could only be a pun on the phrase "flash mob."

 

That still didn't make it a good title, but at least it gave it a lame reason for being.

 

Except not. Because a little internet research shows that "flash mob" came into existence, as both phrase and concept, sometime shortly after the turn of the present century, and approximately forty years after my humble little novel first appeared wherever bad books were sold. AJ and Harlan and Earl were grounded in science fiction, but that's not enough to account for a title that was a pun on a phrase nobody would utter for another four decades.

 

Never mind. The book's a multiple-viewpoint novel, with a rich cast of characters. Here's a sample of two of them:

#

"I'M LEAVING MATT," Kitty said.

 

Linc digested this bit of information. She searched his face, trying to decide whether he approved or disapproved. His face was a mask. She couldn't tell how he felt about it.

 

"I'm leaving him," she said again. "He didn't even come home last night. And the fact doesn't even bother me. There's not a thing left between us, Linc. Nothing at all. He can go his way and I can go mine and neither of us gives a whoop in hell about the other one. That's no basis for marriage."

 

"Will he give you a divorce?"

 

"I think so. He barely knows I'm alive. He'll probably be glad to get rid of me."

 

Linc shrugged. "His pride might be hurt. And he might be upset from a pure financial standpoint. Divorce can be costly to a man. Alimony."

 

"I wouldn't want alimony from him."

 

"Oh?"

 

"Just freedom."

 

He said: "What will you do after the divorce?"

 

"Oh," she said. "I don't know. I may stay in Clifton, at least until I decide where I want to go next. New York eventually, I think. Small towns can get to you. I think I'm ready for the city."

 

"You'd fit right in."

 

"But for the time being we can have our fun. Do you feel like… like some fun now, Linc?"

 

"God, you're insatiable."

 

"I've been inactive for a long time," she told him. "Too long. It can get to you. Are you interested, Linc?"

 

"I'll race you to the bedroom," he said.

#

There you go, Gentle Reader. Flesh Mob. It is what it is…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lawrence Block
• Release date: Mar 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781386515623

Lawrence Block

Lawrence Block is one of the most widely recognized names in the mystery genre. He has been named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and is a four-time winner of the prestigious Edgar and Shamus Awards, as well as a recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan. He received the Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association—only the third American to be given this award. He is a prolific author, having written more than fifty books and numerous short stories, and is a devoted New Yorker and an enthusiastic global traveler.

Book preview

Cover, Flesh Mob

Flesh Mob

Lawrence Block

A Lawrence Block Production

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More by Lawrence Block

NOVELS

A DIET OF TREACLE • AFTER THE FIRST DEATH • ARIEL • BORDERLINE • CAMPUS TRAMP • CINDERELLA SIMS • COWARD’S KISS • DEAD GIRL BLUES • DEADLY HONEYMOON • FOUR LIVES AT THE CROSSROADS • GETTING OFF • THE GIRL WITH THE DEEP BLUE EYES • THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART • GRIFTER’S GAME • KILLING CASTRO • LUCKY AT CARDS • NOT COMIN’ HOME TO YOU • RANDOM WALK • RONALD RABBIT IS A DIRTY OLD MAN • SINNER MAN • SMALL TOWN • THE SPECIALISTS • STRANGE EMBRACE • SUCH MEN ARE DANGEROUS • THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL • YOU COULD CALL IT MURDER

NON-FICTION

STEP BY STEP • GENERALLY SPEAKING • THE CRIME OF OUR LIVES • HUNTING BUFFALO WITH BENT NAILS • AFTERTHOUGHTS 2.0 • A WRITER PREPARES

THE MATTHEW SCUDDER NOVELS

THE SINS OF THE FATHERS • TIME TO MURDER AND CREATE • IN THE MIDST OF DEATH • A STAB IN THE DARK • EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE • WHEN THE SACRED GINMILL CLOSES • OUT ON THE CUTTING EDGE • A TICKET TO THE BONEYARD • A DANCE AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE • A WALK AMONG THE TOMBSTONES • THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD • A LONG LINE OF DEAD MEN • EVEN THE WICKED • EVERYBODY DIES • HOPE TO DIE • ALL THE FLOWERS ARE DYING • A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF • THE NIGHT AND THE MUSIC • A TIME TO SCATTER STONES

THE BERNIE RHODENBARR MYSTERIES

BURGLARS CAN’T BE CHOOSERS • THE BURGLAR IN THE CLOSET • THE BURGLAR WHO LIKED TO QUOTE KIPLING • THE BURGLAR WHO STUDIED SPINOZA • THE BURGLAR WHO PAINTED LIKE MONDRIAN • THE BURGLAR WHO TRADED TED WILLIAMS • THE BURGLAR WHO THOUGHT HE WAS BOGART • THE BURGLAR IN THE LIBRARY • THE BURGLAR IN THE RYE • THE BURGLAR ON THE PROWL • THE BURGLAR WHO COUNTED THE SPOONS • THE BURGLAR IN SHORT ORDER

KELLER’S GREATEST HITS

HIT MAN • HIT LIST • HIT PARADE • HIT & RUN • HIT ME • KELLER’S FEDORA

THE ADVENTURES OF EVAN TANNER

THE THIEF WHO COULDN’T SLEEP • THE CANCELED CZECH • TANNER’S TWELVE SWINGERS • TWO FOR TANNER • TANNER’S TIGER • HERE COMES A HERO • ME TANNER, YOU JANE • TANNER ON ICE

THE AFFAIRS OF CHIP HARRISON

NO SCORE • CHIP HARRISON SCORES AGAIN • MAKE OUT WITH MURDER • THE TOPLESS TULIP CAPER

COLLECTED SHORT STORIES

SOMETIMES THEY BITE • LIKE A LAMB TO SLAUGHTER • SOME DAYS YOU GET THE BEAR • ONE NIGHT STANDS AND LOST WEEKENDS • ENOUGH ROPE • CATCH AND RELEASE • DEFENDER OF THE INNOCENT • RESUME SPEED AND OTHER STORIES

BOOKS FOR WRITERS

WRITING THE NOVEL FROM PLOT TO PRINT TO PIXEL • TELLING LIES FOR FUN & PROFIT • SPIDER, SPIN ME A WEB • WRITE FOR YOUR LIFE • THE LIAR’S BIBLE • THE LIAR’S COMPANION

WRITTEN FOR PERFORMANCE

TILT! (EPISODIC TELEVISION) • HOW FAR? (ONE-ACT PLAY) • MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS (FILM)

ANTHOLOGIES EDITED

DEATH CRUISE • MASTER’S CHOICE • OPENING SHOTS • MASTER’S CHOICE 2 • SPEAKING OF LUST • OPENING SHOTS 2 • SPEAKING OF GREED • BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS • GANGSTERS, SWINDLERS, KILLERS, & THIEVES • MANHATTAN NOIR • MANHATTAN NOIR 2 • DARK CITY LIGHTS • IN SUNLIGHT OR IN SHADOW • ALIVE IN SHAPE AND COLOR • AT HOME IN THE DARK • FROM SEA TO STORMY SEA • THE DARKLING HALLS OF IVY

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FLESH MOB

Copyright © 1962, by Lawrence Block

Original Publication, writing as Andrew Shaw

All Rights Reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—spoken, written, photocopy, printed, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise through any means not yet known or in use—without prior written permission of the publisher, except for purposes of review.

Cover & Interior by JW Manus

Lawrence Block LB Logo

A LAWRENCE BLOCK PRODUCTION

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Contents

Chapters

1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12

About the Author

More by Lawrence Block

The Classic Erotica Series

Chapter One

EIGHT O’CLOCK CLASSES are always painful. When you’re a student they are bad in the extreme, because you are expected not only to be up and dressed at such an ungodly hour, but because you are also expected to absorb a certain amount of the nonsense that the professor is spewing at you. But when you’re a professor it is even more difficult. You don’t just have to listen. You have to talk, and you have to teach, and you have to make a certain amount of sense. When you are a professor, eight o’clock classes are horrible.

When you are a professor with a hangover, they are worse.

Matthew Boulton was a professor with a hangover. Thirty-one years old, black hair with an embryonic trace of gray, thin face and hollow eyes; sort of Cassius-like in his lean and hungry look. Tall, gaunt, rather brilliant, and generally handsome.

And hung to beat the band.

He was in the front of the classroom now, half-sitting against his heavy oak desk, one foot crossed over the other. His properly tweedy suit jacket was unbuttoned and his tie was purposely loose. He was talking about the philosophical groundwork of the novels of Tobias Smollet. The course was Development Of The English Novel, a medium-advanced lit course which Clifton College was devilishly proud to offer to its captive student body. Tobias Smollet was an eighteenth-century English novelist, author of such stirring epics as Humphrey Clinker and Roderick Random, and Matthew Boulton was talking about him.

He was not thinking about Tobias Smollet.

He was thinking about his hangover.

This was a technique he had mastered ages ago—talking to a class about one topic, thinking about another. The best professors didn’t do this. The best professors were intimately involved with the material they were teaching, and intimately involved with the teaching process itself, and they got a genuine kick out of gabbing away at such ungodly hours as eight o’clock in the goddamn morning, hangover or no. But if you were not one of the best professors—and Matt Boulton knew damned well that he wasn’t—then you adopted a few survival mechanisms. One was to lecture magnificently without paying any personal attention to what you were saying.

Instead he thought about his hangover.

And related topics.

Like, for example, why he had ever become a teacher in the first place. It was a legitimate question, and one he always asked himself during intensely introspective periods, such as the ones occasioned by hangovers. He had never really meant to be a teacher, needless to say. Few people did. You didn’t become a teacher, actually, because somehow that concept more or less implied a conscious choice, and nobody he knew had ever consciously chosen teaching. It just wasn’t something you became.

It happened to you.

It had happened to Matthew Boulton just as it had happened to a myriad of other poor souls. He had gone to college—not at Clifton, but at another school which could have passed for Clifton in a pinch. He had gone there, and he had majored in English because he liked to read and because there was nothing else that particularly captivated him. So he majored in English, and he wrote a few bad poems while he was deluding himself that he was going to become a writer. Then he stopped writing bad poems and just read books and participated in pretentious bull sessions with members of the English Department.

Four years passed quickly. He was a senior, with graduation just a little way distant, and the sudden realization came that he was going to have to leave the cozy isolation of the groves of academe. He would graduate. He would go out into the world. He would do two years in the army (or else he would do six months and mortgage the rest of his life to the reserves) and then, horror of horrors, he would get a job somewhere and fight the world.

It was terrifying.

So what the hell. A professor talked to him, mentioned something about getting a Masters at Columbia. The prof had friends at Columbia. Things like a scholarship could be arranged. Was Matthew Boulton interested?

He wasn’t, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. He copped the arranged scholarship and went to Columbia; rooming in a horrible little building on the upper west side, ignoring the juvies and the junkies who inhabited the area, burying himself in the academic life. He took graduate courses and picked a thesis topic—Color Symbolism ln the Plays of Congreve. Not because of some deep interest in Congreve, but because he had done a rather involved project on Congreve at college and thought he might as well stick to his major point of knowledge. He did his thesis, and it was accepted, and he was a Master of the Arts.

And then? Army? Work?

Hell.

He got a doctorate at Iowa State. A prof at Columbia knew a prof at Iowa State rather intimately (rumor had it that they slept together, or something but people were always saying things like that) and the prof arranged for a sort of teaching fellowship, and off he went to Iowa State. He wrote a doctoral thesis on Philosophical Trends As Revealed In the Plays Of Congreve. After all, he knew one hell of a lot about Congreve. He didn’t much like him, but you couldn’t throw away that kind of knowledge.

And then? Army? Work?

You get used to the academic life. You get used to not having to fight, not having to struggle, not having to escape from the womb of the collegiate scene. There was the offer of an instructorship at Charter Oak. A decent offer.

So he took it.

Hell.

You got hooked on it. It was like a heroin habit, except that there was no kick at all, just an escape from the pains of withdrawal. You spent your life doing pointless research on pointless and over-specialized topics, published elaborate monographs in professional journals, and spent five or six hours daily teaching other little idiots some of the idiocy that you had so painfully and fruitlessly acquired. Most of your idiot students would use your information to function as pseudo-sophisticated citizens of Suburbia, U.S.A. The rest would become carbon copies of you yourself, walking the academic highway, becoming mindless intellectuals and teaching still other generations of future idiots.

God.

At Iowa State, Matt Boulton had acquired a wife. Not, he thought rather bitterly, because he had wanted to. He never seemed to do much of anything because he wanted to. For that matter, he never seemed to want anything very desperately. He had gotten married for the same reason that he had done everything else. It had seemed like the obvious thing to do. Getting married, at that particular point, was infinitely easier than remaining single.

There was nothing wrong with his wife. Kitty Boulton was not an ugly woman, although it would be stretching a point to call her genuinely pretty. She wasn’t a dull woman, although no one had ever been known to describe her as stimulating. She wasn’t frigid, although her passion was severely limited. There was nothing wrong with her.

Nor, for that matter, was there anything particularly right with her.

Like Mount Everest—or not like Mount Everest—she was there.

She was an English major—which was about all they had in common. She had been working on her Masters while he had worked on his doctorate. They had met, and they had dated, and ultimately that had slept together. Not, he thought sourly, out of any overwhelming desire on either’s part for a physical affirmation of love. Not even out of any burning yearning for sexual titillation. Just because, after a couple dated for a certain amount of time, you got to the point where sleeping together seemed to be The Thing To Do.

So they slept together.

And, because it also eventually seemed like The Thing To Do, they got married.

Now they lived together in a five-room rented house on Pickford Street in the town of Clifton, which in turn was in the state of Ohio. Two or three times a week they made love lackadaisically in their secondhand bed. Six or seven nights a week Matt Boulton drank a little too much blended whiskey, and six or seven mornings after he was hung. He preferred Scotch. When you are an assistant professor at a small Ohio college, you can ill-afford Scotch. You can barely afford blended whiskey.

No children. The thank-God-for-it invention of oral contraceptives permitted Matthew Boulton to enjoy his wife twice a week without any fear of progeny. He did not want children, and neither did Kitty. When you came right down to it, he did not even want Kitty. Or teaching. Or much of anything.

Or Tobias Smollet.

But he went right on talking about Smollet. Quite glibly, quite articulately. And, because he seemed to have a clock in his head, his most elaborate dissertation on the philosophical groundwork of the novels of Tobias Smollet came to a proper conclusion just in time for the bell to ring announcing the end of another fifty-minute hour. The class had ten minutes to get to their nine o’clock classes. Or, if that hour was free, they had ten minutes to find a seat in the john and smoke.

The bell rang. The class rose to its collective feet and headed for the door. Matthew Boulton, head throbbing, let out all his breath in a sighing gasp and collapsed into the chair behind the heavy oak desk. He opened the desk, hoping that it contained either aspirin or cyanide. It contained neither.

Then he was dimly conscious of a presence at the side of the desk. He raised his eyes slowly, warily.

A skirt; plaid, red predominating, secured by a black leather belt.

A sweater; white angora, stuffed with a pair of plump and eminently desirable breasts.

A neck.

A face. Youthful, pretty. Strange that he hadn’t noticed the face in the course of his lecture. But then he never noticed his students. He didn’t lecture to students. He lectured to a collective entity—the Class. And didn’t pay any attention to it.

A face; youthful, pretty, capped by a tangle of blonde hair. A red-lipped mouth opening to speak.

Mr. Boulton, a honey-and-milk voice said, there was something I wanted to ask you.

∗ ∗ ∗

HER NAME WAS Jan Cameron.

In about a week it would be her birthday and she would be nineteen years old. Nineteen is one of those ages which is frequently neglected in any analysis of the social development of late adolescence. Nineteen is an ambiguous age. There is the Old Nineteen of a person almost through with college and quite mature, and there is the Young Nineteen of a person just recently through with high school and having a lot of growing to do. There is the Nineteen who has been places, who has done things, who has already enjoyed a sufficient amount of independence to have grown considerably. There is the Nineteen who has been sheltered, who has done relatively little, and who is yet a step or two from the threshold of maturity.

Jan Cameron was a Young Nineteen—or would be, in a week. She was asophomore, a native of southern Indiana, an English major, a lovely girl, a real blonde, and finally, a virgin.

Now, breathing heavily, she stood over Matthew Boulton’s desk and stared into his deep brown eyes and did not hear a word he was saying.

The question, something dimly related to the subject of his lecture, was not remotely important to her.