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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32345-h.zip b/32345-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..372ccc5 --- /dev/null +++ b/32345-h.zip diff --git a/32345-h/32345-h.htm b/32345-h/32345-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d3b26bf --- /dev/null +++ b/32345-h/32345-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1323 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Animated Pinup, by Lewis Parker. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Animated Pinup, by Lewis Parker + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Animated Pinup + +Author: Lewis Parker + +Release Date: May 12, 2010 [EBook #32345] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANIMATED PINUP *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + +<h1>The Animated Pinup</h1> + +<h2>By Lewis Parker</h2> + +<p>[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of +Science and Fantasy July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any +evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="sidenote">You're not expected to believe this story since it's the kind +of thing that science calls impossible. But anyway, she happened. Who? +Why—</div> + + + +<p>To make it clear how normal everything was when the evening started out, +I'll let you in at the time Willy phoned me. I was in my apartment with +a lady from down the hall....</p> + +<p>I had asked her what she liked and she'd purred, "You." I had asked her +with soda or gingerale and she'd said, "Straight," so I'd obliged and +poured myself a triple too and sank into the sofa beside her.</p> + +<p>The phone rang.</p> + +<p>"Oh damn," she said.</p> + +<p>"Your earlobes—" I began.</p> + +<p>"The phone, James."</p> + +<p>"Your shoulders—"</p> + +<p>"James? Don't you think you'd better answer it?"</p> + +<p>So I sighed and handed her the glass and told her not to hold it till I +got back or she'd melt the ice. I crossed the room to the telephone.</p> + +<p>"City morgue," I said.</p> + +<p>"Uh—unh—"</p> + +<p>"Hullo Willy," I said, recognizing the stammer.</p> + +<p>While he gulped and stuttered a couple more times I threw a kiss to the +lady. She failed to throw it back because she was placing a bet with +herself that Willy was short for Wilhelmina.</p> + +<p>Willy straightened his tongue out. "Jim, I've got to see you."</p> + +<p>Now Willy was a nervous little guy from faulty thyroid but neurotic in a +bearable way. He sounded even more upset than he usually did. I didn't +particularly like him, but he was a topflight illustrator and I liked +the way he drew women, and besides I'd been trying for a year to tag him +for our agency. All the slicker art agencies were after him, that's how +good he was. We'd made the highest bid for him but he still had this bug +in his noodle for free-lancing, which showed he had more business sense +than the rest of his ilk but which wasn't doing my position at the +agency any good. I'd been joed to bag him.</p> + +<p>Which was why I hesitated and reconsidered the impulse to brush him off. +This was the first time he had definitely asked to see me. Sunday +midnight is one hell of a time to suddenly decide to see a dogging +agent, but like I said Willy was neurotic. So I just tested the impulse.</p> + +<p>"Well, Willy," I said, "I'm pretty busy at the moment looking after the +interests of the agency artists. They always come first, you know. Could +it wait—"</p> + +<p>"Jim, I've got to see you. It's—It's driving me nuts trying to figure +out what to do."</p> + +<p>"Tax trouble? Or maybe one of your models?"</p> + +<p>"No, nothing like that. Listen. Will you come over tonight?"</p> + +<p>I let my instincts juggle the stress between pleasure and business. Both +were practical, well-balanced personal interests. The thunderous night +was young and the lady had nice earlobes and my apartment had that +feeling about it. On the other hand the little fair-haired artist was in +a jam and if I played fairy godmom bigger and better apartments and +earlobes were in the offing from the agency.</p> + +<p>So I made the mistake of my life.</p> + +<p>I said, "I'll be there in half an hour," and hung up.</p> + +<p>"<i>Jim</i>-mee," the lady said. She was pouting, so I pinched her earlobe +and patted her shoulders and bemoaned the tyranny of the business world +and helped her into her coat. She went back to her own apartment. I +tidied up the place, stacked the etchings in their corner, and took a +cab outside.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I tossed that part of it in to make it clear that on the face and the +underneath of it I could be readily classed as a normal, practical sort +of a guy.</p> + +<p>I am. I shun unnatural, illogical things, like mysteries, or falsies, or +counterfeit bills. Or fourth dimensions. I like an item right on the +table where I can eye it and touch it and say, "That's a spade," or, +"That's a buck." If there's water on Mars I'll believe it when I drink +it, but until then I'll say, "So what's with Mars? It's one hell of a +long way off."</p> + +<p>You see what I'm driving at? With me, James Gilbert Crisp, things are +either down to earth or they're nowhere. I'd never admit messing around +with something I couldn't put my hands on. If I touch it, I accept it, +and if it's willing I'm able.</p> + +<p>"Jim!" said Willy, grabbing my hat. "Come in, come in!"</p> + +<p>I grinned at the little guy assuringly and shook the rain from my coat +and tossed it on an easel. He shunted a chair at me and seated himself +nervously, rubbing his neck, on the other side of a monster coffee table +loaded with paints, bottles and oil-stained cartons. I was familiar with +this studio, the working half of Willy's ranch-style chalet. The studio +itself was as big as a barn and had more windows than walls; rain pecked +at the glass in the northerly-exposed roof.</p> + +<p>Willy was tidy for an artist. Most of the boys on the agency's hook have +la Boheme delusions that class them apart from us hucksters; their +studios, which we see in spite of ourselves, <i>look</i> like barns. But +Willy's neuroses, although conventional, were bearable because in a lot +of ways he was practical. He kept things where he could put his hands on +them. Like the cigarettes he now fished from a box on the coffee table +labeled 'caseins'.</p> + +<p>I shifted uncomfortably; these new-fangled chairs they twist out of wire +will never replace the Morris. Willy drew furiously on the fag he had +forgotten to offer me. It was taking him longer than usual to warm up to +his subject. I shifted again.</p> + +<p>"What's the problem, Willy?" I asked.</p> + +<p>He jumped, then looked at me with his scared-spaniel eyes, butted his +smoke and reached for another. Just watching him was giving me the +heebies, but I flashed my old fairy godmom smile.</p> + +<p>"Jim," he said finally, "I called you because, well, you're a practical +guy and can face things in a practical way. I've got to tell <i>somebody</i> +about it. I'm—it's driving me crazy, Jim."</p> + +<p>I stifled a yawn and fixed my smile and found my mind wandering back to +the lady's earlobes. Now I'm not against a guy letting down his hair, +but I was sure that with Willy it couldn't possibly amount to anymore +than another fruitless crush on a model. He had them frequently, but +they always fizzled out before the girl got around to compromising him. +He was always a foot short of them, but he had money; the usual solution +was little more than another illo assignment which required a horsey +model of another color. I'd begun to suspect that the cause of neuroses +in little artists like Willy was too many here-now gone-tomorrow +beautiful babes. Transference, or something like that. It makes them so +dizzy they forget which is the real entity—the canvas reproduction or +the model. This and other things like a pithless pituitary loosens the +screws, and then they make from Bohemia. I don't pretend to be a +psychologist, but that's the way it adds up.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>So I was half-thinking of getting the lady at the apartment to give +Willy a real down-to-earth tumble when he started his spiel. I must have +missed a few paragraphs of his monologue, because when I caught up to +the subject I was away off base.</p> + +<p>"... so I've got to give it up, Jim. If I don't there's no telling what +it would lead to. You could—help me, with your drag at the agency you +represent. I could do account execking, or maybe be a consultant art +director-without-portfolio, anything—"</p> + +<p>"Whoa down, Willy," I said, startled. "Give up illustrating? Just +because of a dame—"</p> + +<p>Willy shook his head sadly. "She's got nothing to do with anything +<i>else</i> I draw. She isn't at all like the models. Oh, I know what a goop +I've been about them, but Red has cured me." He paused and looked at me +quizzically, shaking his head. "I knew you had a level head, Jim—that's +exactly why I've told you this. But even so, your reaction—" He +frowned. His hurt-dog eyes narrowed resentfully. "You don't believe me."</p> + +<p>I cursed myself inwardly for not having paid more attention to him, but +his voice was the kind that would put a sympathetic Father Confessor to +sleep if he concentrated too hard on it. I'd been prepared to let him +get it off his skinny chest, pat him on the back and tell him to leave +everything to old Jim Fixit. But the quitting business was a looper. He +was too canvas-happy to give it up without a fight.</p> + +<p>"Look," I said to cover up the fact that my ears had been closed, "what +you told me may seem unusual to you, but to me it's just one of those +things that aren't quite what they seem. Now, uh—go over it again in +detail and I'll apply myself to it completely from your angle this time. +Tell me <i>exactly</i> where Red fits in, and where the—uh—trouble +started."</p> + +<p>Willy slapped his knees and looked even more forlorn, reaching for a +smoke while he still had one in his mouth. "Sorry I doubted you, Jim, +but you can understand how I feel about it. Look—"</p> + +<p>He stood up, butted the fresh fag, and walked across the room to the +drawing desk where he did his layouts.</p> + +<p>"The best thing to do is simply show you," he said. I sighed and dragged +my chair over and sat to one side of him. He pulled out a layout pad, +opened his pastels and arranged them deliberately beside it. I wondered +how he could show me his love-troubles this way, unless it was by +diagrams.</p> + +<p>"Nothing happens," he said, waving a pastel stick under my nose, "until +I've used the three basic colors and signed the illo. If there isn't a +balance of the three basics it's no good. That's why I arranged the +pastels that way."</p> + +<p>He naturally assumed I knew what he was talking about. It meant nothing +more to me than a freak technique he'd developed. That signature +business sounded—neurotic.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Now this part of my story is important. Until he finished that sketch I +was the normal, practical guy I was telling you about. Nothing fizzed on +me unless it added up to four and I could feel the two and two of it. A +buck was a buck, a girl was a girl—</p> + +<p>His grey pastel flew over the paper and as usual I marvelled at how +these guys could do it. Like the saying goes, all I can draw is flies +and rubber checks, and frequently a blank. I've seen a lot of artists do +their stuff, but none of them come up to Willy. You've seen his illos in +most of the big slicks—you know, the guy and gal in all angles on the +yellow beach under a pink sky, and the story title reads "When Will You +Come Back, Dearest?", or the cola series on the back cover where the +girl swigs and the guy gawks at her bathing suit, that sort of stuff. +The fat accounts, they all came running for Willy. With him on the +payroll the agency could have made a fortune.</p> + +<p>I was considering ways to broach this subject so it would tie in with +the poor guy's dilemma when he started working the third color into the +sketch. Naturally it was a dame; he could draw them with his eyes shut. +The third color went into the bathing suit. He smudged chalk on his +finger and touched the sketch with quick strokes, moulding the form, and +what a form. I leaned forward, and half stood over his chair, marvelling +at the way he did it. Then, applying a dough rubber to pick out +highlights and stray smudges, he leaned back and reached for a pencil. +Noticing how tensed he was, I sank back into my chair and lit a +cigarette.</p> + +<p>"There," he whispered, his hand poised with the pencil at the bottom +left-hand corner.</p> + +<p>"So now what gives?" I asked. "Is she the—"</p> + +<p>"So now I sign it." He looked around at me, spaniel-eyed. I gathered +that he was reluctant to sign it. I wanted him to get on with it and +explain how it tied in. I must have looked impatient.</p> + +<p>"So go ahead," I said. "Sign it."</p> + +<p>He signed it.</p> + +<p>The girl got up off the paper and brushed herself off.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I felt the cigarette smoke burning my eyes, but was too frozen to close +them. I must have gone as white as the paper the girl got up off of. +Willy touched my shoulder. I looked blearily at his spaniel eyes, which +were puzzled.</p> + + + +<div class="figleft"> +<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<p>"Didn't you believe me?" he asked.</p> + +<p>I made a noise in my throat, and suddenly wanted desperately to be back +in my apartment. Anywhere. But I knew that if I stood up my legs would +fold. So I just stared at the girl while my heart flopped like a beached +fish.</p> + +<p>She smiled at me, then turned to Willy.</p> + +<p>"Who's your friend?" she asked in a voice proportionate to her size, +which was about a foot.</p> + +<p>Willy looked at his hands. "Just a friend." Turning to me he said +imploringly, "You <i>did</i> believe me, didn't you, Jim?"</p> + +<p>I felt like asking him what the hell difference it made whether or not +I'd believed him, but I merely swallowed and cleared my throat. I worked +my jaws. I took the cigarette from my mouth and looking at it, then at +my hand, moving it back and forth to adjust the focus. I didn't want to +do any thinking about it because I knew I'd be scared senseless by the +conclusions. So I made my mind a throbbing blank and to the cigarette +said the first thing that popped into my head.</p> + +<p>"She's pretty."</p> + +<p>The girl smiled coyly and seated herself on the blank layout pad.</p> + +<p>"Of course I'm pretty," she said. "I'm Willy's ideal. He wouldn't have +drawn me if I weren't." She blinked her eyes demurely.</p> + +<p>Willy just sat there looking woebegone, so I went along with it.</p> + +<p>"What's your name?"</p> + +<p>"Red."</p> + +<p>It fitted. The first basic had gone into her hair. I felt myself +beginning to twitch. The reaction was setting in again. I found myself +wishing that Willy would do something, and not just sit there with his +jaw drooping to the floor. I wondered if he could erase her with his +dough rubber. I clung to that thought because it seemed funny. I started +to laugh. The girl pouted. Willy looked up at me and frowned.</p> + +<p>"What's so funny," Red asked.</p> + +<p>I took a deep breath and gritted my teeth, but the shakes were coming +and this time they wouldn't be deferred. I wheeled from the chair and +charged for the door. Willy was up and grabbing at my arm.</p> + +<p>"Don't go, Jim! Please! I've only started to—"</p> + +<p>I swung around at him and threw his hand off, panic making my actions +loose. Then I saw his spaniel eyes, sad, pleading. I glowered at him and +ran my hand through my hair. Looking back at the pint-sized beauty I +socked my fist into my hand and stalked back to the drawing desk. I +reached out for her. She squeaked and cowered away.</p> + +<p>Willy let out a holler that just about scared the pants off both of us, +and was tugging at my arm again.</p> + +<p>"I just want to <i>touch</i> her," I roared. "I won't kill her."</p> + +<p>"You touch her like that and you <i>will</i> kill her," Willy cried. "Sit +down, will you? Listen to me—"</p> + +<p>"If I can feel her with my hands," I said, still whoozy but cooling +down, "I'll believe she's there. Otherwise I go home and sleep it off." +I rubbed my forehead. "This kind of stuff isn't for me, kid. You keep +your bloody mirages—"</p> + +<p>"Please, Jim."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I scowled and dropped into the chair. Willy fumbled for his cigarettes +and offered one to me and then in his nervousness proffered one to the +redhead, who had held her palms pressed to her ears while we shouted at +each other. Red shook her head, smiling. Willy chuckled his +embarrassment and sat down in the other chair. We were both facing the +desk but I couldn't bring myself to look at the girl.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she leapt from the desk and was standing in my lap. While I +groaned and held my breath she stretched her arm out.</p> + +<p>"You may touch me, if it will make you feel better."</p> + +<p>I glanced at Willy, who nodded, and touched the point of my finger to +her palm. She was there all right. I drew my hand away quickly, and she +laughed. It sounded precisely like the voice of a full-length girl +coming from another room. I studied her with my chin resting on my fist, +and saw that she was indeed a beautiful creature. Full-size, she'd be a +knockout; I'd be falling, as the saying goes, all over her. But a foot +high!</p> + +<p>Then I remembered that Willy had sketched her. She was a drawing. +Tri-dimensional, but nonetheless a figment of Willy's imagination. Yet +she was solid. I was getting confused again, trying to tie it, so to +fend off a return of the shakes I forced another blank into my mind. It +was easier, this time. The whole thing was so ridiculous it was +intriguing.</p> + +<p>"Who is she, Willy?" I asked. It was easier to talk to him.</p> + +<p>"Like I told you. Red. My dream girl."</p> + +<p>I looked at him. "Yeah. M-hmm." I looked down at Red. She was sitting on +my kneecap, combing her hair. "So just what seems to be the problem?"</p> + +<p>His eyes were pathetic. "Again, like I told you. I'm too big for her."</p> + +<p>"Yeah," I said. "Uh-huh." It had to be as simple as that. Something +practical-like; for Willy, like I said, was basically a practical guy. +Or practically a basic guy. I frowned at him, for the answer was also a +simple one.</p> + +<p>"Then why don't you draw her full size?" I asked.</p> + +<p>Willy looked miserable. "I do."</p> + +<p>I said, "Mmm?"</p> + +<p>"I <i>do</i> draw her full-size. That's Red's full size. Twelve inches."</p> + +<p>I nodded, following his lips.</p> + +<p>"Once," he continued, "I drew her a little larger."</p> + +<p>From her perch on my kneecap Red said, coolly, "Don't you dare try +<i>that</i> again."</p> + +<p>"No, dear," Willy said, sadly.</p> + +<p>I rubbed my head. To Willy I said, "You can't—project her?"</p> + +<p>Willy started to answer, but Red interrupted. She looked piqued.</p> + +<p>"Of course he can't project me. That would be a distortion of myself. It +wouldn't," she yawned, ruffling her red locks, "be me."</p> + +<p>I rubbed my head again. I couldn't think of anything to say.</p> + +<p>Willy shifted. "I can draw her smaller," he said. "But that would make +it even worse, of course."</p> + +<p>I nodded. "Of course." Because it seemed practical to say it, I said it: +"But wouldn't that be a distortion too?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not," Red said, and I had the fleeting impression of being +faced by a school teacher in the minute end of a telescope. "Minimized +elements are true elements, merely condensed. Maximized elements are +bloated, therefore distorted." She sniffed. "Any figment knows that."</p> + +<p>I tossed it around in my floundering mind, but it still came out the way +it sounded. There was another silence. I could see that the two of them +were losing faith in my godmaternal fairyhood. So just to keep the +conversation jogging, I tried another tack. To Willy I said:</p> + +<p>"If Red's a figment of your imagination, why didn't you imagine her a +more practical size in the first place?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Willy chewed on it for a couple minutes. Red turned away in disgust to +leap from my kneecap to Willy's. She seated herself primly and began +fussing with her infinitesimal nails. Willy said, "After all, she does +have a mind of her own, Jim. She wanted to be imagined the size she is, +so—" He looked at me and shrugged.</p> + +<p>"Why," demanded the little woman, "should I go up to him? Why can't he +come down to me?"</p> + +<p>I was getting riled. "You love him, don't you?"</p> + +<p>She frowned. "He loves me, doesn't he?"</p> + +<p>This had a familiar feminine ring to it which balked pursuit of <i>that</i> +subject. I wouldn't have believed that Willy possessed such a dogmatic +objective imagination. If <i>I</i> wanted to conjure up a babe I'd make sure +beforehand that she came out the way I whimmed her. Red had a mind of +her own, which was the negative, or feminine, part of Willy's mind.</p> + +<p>All these thoughts popped up in my head because I had to keep this in a +practical light to insure against a return of the shakes. If I started +considering the <i>impractical</i> side of it I'd recognize it in its true +light, which was unmitigated madness.</p> + +<p>Willy and Red remained silent, inferring that I was to carry the ball.</p> + +<p>"What I'm dim about, Willy, is how this ties in with your professional +livelihood. Why do you have to give up art?"</p> + +<p>"Isn't it obvious?"</p> + +<p>I shook my head meekly. Willy sighed and reached for a pastel stick. He +sketched quickly on the layout pad, first in greys, then filling in with +the three basics. It was a martini glass, and the first basic was the +cherry in it. Then he addressed his signature under the sketch.</p> + +<p>He picked up the martini glass and drained it.</p> + +<p>Looking apologetically at my ogle he picked up the pastels again and +said, "Sorry. Care for one?"</p> + +<p>I said sure. You have to go all the way or nowhere with these things. +Besides, a drink might stop the rumbling in my stomach. "Make it a rye," +I said. "Triple."</p> + +<p>He sketched it and signed it and handed it to me, and I said, "I see +what you mean. Everything you sketch, huh?" The rye was good.</p> + +<p>Willy sighed morosely. "Anything in color. And I made my name in color +work. I can't do a black and white for beans."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you—"</p> + +<p>"Leave off my signature?" He smiled wanly. "You know better than that, +Jim."</p> + +<p>I did. He had a big name, and that, as is the way of commerce, is what +the buyers paid for. Things looked hopeless for Willy. We sat. Red got +up and stretched, then adjusted her halter, into which Willy had put too +much imagination. She jumped from Willy's knee to the drawing desk, and +stretched out on the pad. Willy looked at her hungrily, and she smiled +warmly back at him. I was beginning to get that "third party" +feeling—and then it hit me.</p> + +<p>I leaned forward excitedly. "We will make a million!" I roared.</p> + +<p>They stared at me. Coolly. I went to the back of the chair again. After +a few minutes their contemptuous stares got my neck.</p> + +<p>"Okay, okay," I muttered. "We <i>won't</i> make a million."</p> + +<p>They waited expectantly for a compatible solution. To show that I was +still working on it I started talking again.</p> + +<p>"Let's sum up. You and Red want to get together. Which is only right, +because you literally belong to each other. Check. But you can't, +because Red's too small and you're too tall."</p> + +<p>"Check," they said simultaneously. I stumbled on.</p> + +<p>"Okay." I addressed Red. "Let's take you first. You are +your—uh—natural size. You are satisfied with it. You cannot be +projected up because it would distort you."</p> + +<p>Red nodded. "I would consider it indecent."</p> + +<p>"And anyway, you are satisfied with your element. You prefer it to +Willy's."</p> + +<p>"Immensely more. So would Willy."</p> + +<p>"And what is your element?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Willy's mind."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>I ignored that because it led to the shakes department. I turned to +Willy. I was getting excited.</p> + +<p>"Now, Willy. You are your natural size. You are unsatisfied with it, +because—uh—your peculiar talent is lousing up your profession. What is +more, Red's size and element is the preference manifested in your mind. +Her element is doubly preferred, then, as against your own, by both of +you, uh—"</p> + +<p>"Making the preference unanimous," Willy suggested.</p> + +<p>"Right," I said, pushing the thing out of my mind now that I'd stumbled +through it. I spread my arms and gave what I hoped was a confident +smile.</p> + +<p>"There's your answer," I said.</p> + +<p>I got blank looks.</p> + +<p>"It's obvious!" I said to Willy. "You go to Red's element!"</p> + +<p>Willy's meager features were perplexed, but Red caught the idea. She +jumped excitedly back on her beau's lap. "Don't you see what he means, +Willy? Draw yourself to my size!"</p> + +<p>That is a verbatim report of what led up to Willy propping a full-length +mirror in an easel and making a twelve-and-a-half inch full-length +portrait of himself, with me drinking triple ryes while Red directed +which of Willy's features should manifest the most prominence. It was a +very good likeness of himself as he might have looked had he been the +physical Adonis his mind pictured him as, which was only right, +considering the element he was journeying to. Red insisted he wear a +bathing suit that more or less matched her own.</p> + +<p>When he was finished, he stepped back, naturally, to admire it.</p> + +<p>"That's terrific!" I said, clapping him on the back.</p> + +<p>"Watch on whom you're spilling the rye," Red flared. I apologized, and +in my philanthropic state stooped to kiss her. She backed away.</p> + +<p>"A kiss for the bride," I said, pouting. "That's all."</p> + +<p>She laughed. "You'd swallow me." But she approached and stood up on +tip-toe and bussed my nose.</p> + +<p>"Break it up," Willy said, a new authority in his voice. "I've got to +put my signature to the sketch." He tapped impatiently. "Red. Lie down +beside the sketch."</p> + +<p>Red flushed and placed her hands on her hips. "Now look here, Willy. +Don't you go getting too big for your boots!"</p> + +<p>I guffawed. "It's the other way 'round! He'll be too <i>small</i> for his +boots."</p> + +<p>This diverted the quarrel enough for Willy to give me final +instructions, which he did from a prone position on the floor. "Is Red +lying down beside the sketch, Jim?"</p> + +<p>"Yup," I said, squinting at the once-again two-dimensioned Red-head.</p> + +<p>"Now I'll transfer my mind to the sketch. I'll move an arm when I'm +there."</p> + +<p>He closed his eyes, and a straining expression twisted his features.</p> + +<p>"Am I there yet?"</p> + +<p>"Nope," I said, bringing my eyes to focus three inches from the sketch.</p> + +<p>A few grunting moments passed. "Am I there yet?"</p> + +<p>"Nope," I said, stifling a yawn.</p> + +<p>"Something's wrong," he said. I turned to look down at him. His +straining expression was now from thought. I turned back to the layout +pad, and jumped.</p> + +<p>"What's taking him so long?" Red demanded, sitting up.</p> + +<p>"He can't transfer," I said.</p> + +<p>She gave me the schoolmarm expression, hands on hips. "Haven't you +killed him yet?"</p> + +<p>"Mmm?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"You've got to <i>kill</i> him, silly!"</p> + +<p>I shook my head. "Unh-unh. Not me."</p> + +<p>She started to cry. "I thought you <i>wanted</i> us to get together!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Feeling like a louse, I turned to look down at Willy. "She says I've got +to kill you."</p> + +<p>"How?"</p> + +<p>Red had come to the edge of the drawing desk. "What does it matter, +how?" she said sternly. "You know perfectly well that the only way to +get rid of the body you're in is to die." She looked back at me. "What +are you waiting for?"</p> + +<p>I rubbed my head. "Somehow it doesn't seem—"</p> + +<p>She sat back and wailed. Willy jumped from the floor and cupped her +tenderly in his hands. "Don't cry, sweet. After all, it <i>is</i> asking a +lot of Jim."</p> + +<p>"He gave us the solution," she cried, "and now he's backing out of his +part in it!"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Willy, "he wasn't expected to know he'd have to kill me—"</p> + +<p>"How <i>else</i> can you leave the body you're in?" she sobbed. "What did he +expect you'd do? Occupy two bodies at the same time?"</p> + +<p>Willy looked at me. I shrugged. "Have to confess I hadn't thought of +it," I muttered, only half aware that they had me over a barrel. I was +half tempted to ask Willy to fill my rye glass with pastels again, but +it seemed an imposition at the moment.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what the hell," I said committingly. "I'm not the kind of guy to +let a friend down over a technicality!"</p> + +<p>Red leapt to my lap and clambered up my shirtfront. "I <i>knew</i> you +wouldn't let us down!" she said happily, and bussed my chin. Before I +could be modest about it she had bounded to the desk-top and was +stretching herself out beside Willy's drawing of himself. Willy and I +stared from her to each other.</p> + +<p>"Well," Willy said. "Let's get to it."</p> + +<p>I won't elaborate on the details on my act of friendship. I killed Willy +in as gentle a manner as possible, and when I turned back to the layout +pad they were sitting there embracing. Willy-the-Figment stood up +proudly and extended his hand, the one Red wasn't clinging to.</p> + +<p>"Thanks, Jim," he said, when I had shaken it warmly with my finger-tip. +"I knew when I phoned you tonight that you were just the one who would +come up with an unselfish, practical solution to my dilemma. I'd like to +say—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, come on, come on, Willy," Red said impatiently, pulling him back to +the pad. "Jim knows how much we appreciate his help. Come <i>on</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, very well," said Willy, winking at me. I winked back. "Lucky sti—" +I began, but then remembered Willy's corpse. That brought a nagging +thought to my mind, but Willy and Red were lying side-by-side, half +submerged in their second dimension, and Red was beckoning impatiently, +pointing to the dough rubber beside her.</p> + +<p>"Hurry up," she said. "Rub us out."</p> + +<p>I rubbed them out.</p> + +<p>Willy's body vanished from the floor as I dropped the eraser. And just +as suddenly I was sober. Cold, shaking sober.</p> + +<p>Where was Willy? I looked around the room. Nobody but me. Me and my +delirium tremens.</p> + +<p>I got out of that apartment fast and headed for a long line of drinks. I +had a big case of murder to wash away. Or did I?...</p> + +<p>... So you see, that's how it is. Willy's gone, and nobody knows where. +Nobody but me. And I don't know either. I keep thinking of what Red said +about her "fourth dimension" world. I think about it a lot.</p> + +<p>I've given up my job at the agency. My apartment too. I got a new one. +Willy's. It's just as it was that night. Right down to the last pastel +and brush. It's going to stay that way too. Everything just as it was. +Every gadget that Willy used in his work.</p> + +<p>I've got a use for everything in that apartment. I've got to <i>know</i> what +happened. And there's only one real way to find out.</p> + +<p>I spend my days thinking about my ideal woman. Each day she gets more +vivid in my mind.</p> + +<p>My evenings are spent at Art School. I'm learning fast....</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Animated Pinup, by Lewis Parker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANIMATED PINUP *** + +***** This file should be named 32345-h.htm or 32345-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/4/32345/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Animated Pinup + +Author: Lewis Parker + +Release Date: May 12, 2010 [EBook #32345] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANIMATED PINUP *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + The Animated Pinup + + By Lewis Parker + +[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of +Science and Fantasy July 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any +evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] + + +[Sidenote: You're not expected to believe this story since it's the kind +of thing that science calls impossible. But anyway, she happened. Who? +Why--] + + +To make it clear how normal everything was when the evening started out, +I'll let you in at the time Willy phoned me. I was in my apartment with +a lady from down the hall.... + +I had asked her what she liked and she'd purred, "You." I had asked her +with soda or gingerale and she'd said, "Straight," so I'd obliged and +poured myself a triple too and sank into the sofa beside her. + +The phone rang. + +"Oh damn," she said. + +"Your earlobes--" I began. + +"The phone, James." + +"Your shoulders--" + +"James? Don't you think you'd better answer it?" + +So I sighed and handed her the glass and told her not to hold it till I +got back or she'd melt the ice. I crossed the room to the telephone. + +"City morgue," I said. + +"Uh--unh--" + +"Hullo Willy," I said, recognizing the stammer. + +While he gulped and stuttered a couple more times I threw a kiss to the +lady. She failed to throw it back because she was placing a bet with +herself that Willy was short for Wilhelmina. + +Willy straightened his tongue out. "Jim, I've got to see you." + +Now Willy was a nervous little guy from faulty thyroid but neurotic in a +bearable way. He sounded even more upset than he usually did. I didn't +particularly like him, but he was a topflight illustrator and I liked +the way he drew women, and besides I'd been trying for a year to tag him +for our agency. All the slicker art agencies were after him, that's how +good he was. We'd made the highest bid for him but he still had this bug +in his noodle for free-lancing, which showed he had more business sense +than the rest of his ilk but which wasn't doing my position at the +agency any good. I'd been joed to bag him. + +Which was why I hesitated and reconsidered the impulse to brush him off. +This was the first time he had definitely asked to see me. Sunday +midnight is one hell of a time to suddenly decide to see a dogging +agent, but like I said Willy was neurotic. So I just tested the impulse. + +"Well, Willy," I said, "I'm pretty busy at the moment looking after the +interests of the agency artists. They always come first, you know. Could +it wait--" + +"Jim, I've got to see you. It's--It's driving me nuts trying to figure +out what to do." + +"Tax trouble? Or maybe one of your models?" + +"No, nothing like that. Listen. Will you come over tonight?" + +I let my instincts juggle the stress between pleasure and business. Both +were practical, well-balanced personal interests. The thunderous night +was young and the lady had nice earlobes and my apartment had that +feeling about it. On the other hand the little fair-haired artist was in +a jam and if I played fairy godmom bigger and better apartments and +earlobes were in the offing from the agency. + +So I made the mistake of my life. + +I said, "I'll be there in half an hour," and hung up. + +"_Jim_-mee," the lady said. She was pouting, so I pinched her earlobe +and patted her shoulders and bemoaned the tyranny of the business world +and helped her into her coat. She went back to her own apartment. I +tidied up the place, stacked the etchings in their corner, and took a +cab outside. + + * * * * * + +I tossed that part of it in to make it clear that on the face and the +underneath of it I could be readily classed as a normal, practical sort +of a guy. + +I am. I shun unnatural, illogical things, like mysteries, or falsies, or +counterfeit bills. Or fourth dimensions. I like an item right on the +table where I can eye it and touch it and say, "That's a spade," or, +"That's a buck." If there's water on Mars I'll believe it when I drink +it, but until then I'll say, "So what's with Mars? It's one hell of a +long way off." + +You see what I'm driving at? With me, James Gilbert Crisp, things are +either down to earth or they're nowhere. I'd never admit messing around +with something I couldn't put my hands on. If I touch it, I accept it, +and if it's willing I'm able. + +"Jim!" said Willy, grabbing my hat. "Come in, come in!" + +I grinned at the little guy assuringly and shook the rain from my coat +and tossed it on an easel. He shunted a chair at me and seated himself +nervously, rubbing his neck, on the other side of a monster coffee table +loaded with paints, bottles and oil-stained cartons. I was familiar with +this studio, the working half of Willy's ranch-style chalet. The studio +itself was as big as a barn and had more windows than walls; rain pecked +at the glass in the northerly-exposed roof. + +Willy was tidy for an artist. Most of the boys on the agency's hook have +la Boheme delusions that class them apart from us hucksters; their +studios, which we see in spite of ourselves, _look_ like barns. But +Willy's neuroses, although conventional, were bearable because in a lot +of ways he was practical. He kept things where he could put his hands on +them. Like the cigarettes he now fished from a box on the coffee table +labeled 'caseins'. + +I shifted uncomfortably; these new-fangled chairs they twist out of wire +will never replace the Morris. Willy drew furiously on the fag he had +forgotten to offer me. It was taking him longer than usual to warm up to +his subject. I shifted again. + +"What's the problem, Willy?" I asked. + +He jumped, then looked at me with his scared-spaniel eyes, butted his +smoke and reached for another. Just watching him was giving me the +heebies, but I flashed my old fairy godmom smile. + +"Jim," he said finally, "I called you because, well, you're a practical +guy and can face things in a practical way. I've got to tell _somebody_ +about it. I'm--it's driving me crazy, Jim." + +I stifled a yawn and fixed my smile and found my mind wandering back to +the lady's earlobes. Now I'm not against a guy letting down his hair, +but I was sure that with Willy it couldn't possibly amount to anymore +than another fruitless crush on a model. He had them frequently, but +they always fizzled out before the girl got around to compromising him. +He was always a foot short of them, but he had money; the usual solution +was little more than another illo assignment which required a horsey +model of another color. I'd begun to suspect that the cause of neuroses +in little artists like Willy was too many here-now gone-tomorrow +beautiful babes. Transference, or something like that. It makes them so +dizzy they forget which is the real entity--the canvas reproduction or +the model. This and other things like a pithless pituitary loosens the +screws, and then they make from Bohemia. I don't pretend to be a +psychologist, but that's the way it adds up. + + * * * * * + +So I was half-thinking of getting the lady at the apartment to give +Willy a real down-to-earth tumble when he started his spiel. I must have +missed a few paragraphs of his monologue, because when I caught up to +the subject I was away off base. + +"... so I've got to give it up, Jim. If I don't there's no telling what +it would lead to. You could--help me, with your drag at the agency you +represent. I could do account execking, or maybe be a consultant art +director-without-portfolio, anything--" + +"Whoa down, Willy," I said, startled. "Give up illustrating? Just +because of a dame--" + +Willy shook his head sadly. "She's got nothing to do with anything +_else_ I draw. She isn't at all like the models. Oh, I know what a goop +I've been about them, but Red has cured me." He paused and looked at me +quizzically, shaking his head. "I knew you had a level head, Jim--that's +exactly why I've told you this. But even so, your reaction--" He +frowned. His hurt-dog eyes narrowed resentfully. "You don't believe me." + +I cursed myself inwardly for not having paid more attention to him, but +his voice was the kind that would put a sympathetic Father Confessor to +sleep if he concentrated too hard on it. I'd been prepared to let him +get it off his skinny chest, pat him on the back and tell him to leave +everything to old Jim Fixit. But the quitting business was a looper. He +was too canvas-happy to give it up without a fight. + +"Look," I said to cover up the fact that my ears had been closed, "what +you told me may seem unusual to you, but to me it's just one of those +things that aren't quite what they seem. Now, uh--go over it again in +detail and I'll apply myself to it completely from your angle this time. +Tell me _exactly_ where Red fits in, and where the--uh--trouble +started." + +Willy slapped his knees and looked even more forlorn, reaching for a +smoke while he still had one in his mouth. "Sorry I doubted you, Jim, +but you can understand how I feel about it. Look--" + +He stood up, butted the fresh fag, and walked across the room to the +drawing desk where he did his layouts. + +"The best thing to do is simply show you," he said. I sighed and dragged +my chair over and sat to one side of him. He pulled out a layout pad, +opened his pastels and arranged them deliberately beside it. I wondered +how he could show me his love-troubles this way, unless it was by +diagrams. + +"Nothing happens," he said, waving a pastel stick under my nose, "until +I've used the three basic colors and signed the illo. If there isn't a +balance of the three basics it's no good. That's why I arranged the +pastels that way." + +He naturally assumed I knew what he was talking about. It meant nothing +more to me than a freak technique he'd developed. That signature +business sounded--neurotic. + + * * * * * + +Now this part of my story is important. Until he finished that sketch I +was the normal, practical guy I was telling you about. Nothing fizzed on +me unless it added up to four and I could feel the two and two of it. A +buck was a buck, a girl was a girl-- + +His grey pastel flew over the paper and as usual I marvelled at how +these guys could do it. Like the saying goes, all I can draw is flies +and rubber checks, and frequently a blank. I've seen a lot of artists do +their stuff, but none of them come up to Willy. You've seen his illos in +most of the big slicks--you know, the guy and gal in all angles on the +yellow beach under a pink sky, and the story title reads "When Will You +Come Back, Dearest?", or the cola series on the back cover where the +girl swigs and the guy gawks at her bathing suit, that sort of stuff. +The fat accounts, they all came running for Willy. With him on the +payroll the agency could have made a fortune. + +I was considering ways to broach this subject so it would tie in with +the poor guy's dilemma when he started working the third color into the +sketch. Naturally it was a dame; he could draw them with his eyes shut. +The third color went into the bathing suit. He smudged chalk on his +finger and touched the sketch with quick strokes, moulding the form, and +what a form. I leaned forward, and half stood over his chair, marvelling +at the way he did it. Then, applying a dough rubber to pick out +highlights and stray smudges, he leaned back and reached for a pencil. +Noticing how tensed he was, I sank back into my chair and lit a +cigarette. + +"There," he whispered, his hand poised with the pencil at the bottom +left-hand corner. + +"So now what gives?" I asked. "Is she the--" + +"So now I sign it." He looked around at me, spaniel-eyed. I gathered +that he was reluctant to sign it. I wanted him to get on with it and +explain how it tied in. I must have looked impatient. + +"So go ahead," I said. "Sign it." + +He signed it. + +The girl got up off the paper and brushed herself off. + + * * * * * + +I felt the cigarette smoke burning my eyes, but was too frozen to close +them. I must have gone as white as the paper the girl got up off of. +Willy touched my shoulder. I looked blearily at his spaniel eyes, which +were puzzled. + +"Didn't you believe me?" he asked. + +[Illustration] + +I made a noise in my throat, and suddenly wanted desperately to be back +in my apartment. Anywhere. But I knew that if I stood up my legs would +fold. So I just stared at the girl while my heart flopped like a beached +fish. + +She smiled at me, then turned to Willy. + +"Who's your friend?" she asked in a voice proportionate to her size, +which was about a foot. + +Willy looked at his hands. "Just a friend." Turning to me he said +imploringly, "You _did_ believe me, didn't you, Jim?" + +I felt like asking him what the hell difference it made whether or not +I'd believed him, but I merely swallowed and cleared my throat. I worked +my jaws. I took the cigarette from my mouth and looking at it, then at +my hand, moving it back and forth to adjust the focus. I didn't want to +do any thinking about it because I knew I'd be scared senseless by the +conclusions. So I made my mind a throbbing blank and to the cigarette +said the first thing that popped into my head. + +"She's pretty." + +The girl smiled coyly and seated herself on the blank layout pad. + +"Of course I'm pretty," she said. "I'm Willy's ideal. He wouldn't have +drawn me if I weren't." She blinked her eyes demurely. + +Willy just sat there looking woebegone, so I went along with it. + +"What's your name?" + +"Red." + +It fitted. The first basic had gone into her hair. I felt myself +beginning to twitch. The reaction was setting in again. I found myself +wishing that Willy would do something, and not just sit there with his +jaw drooping to the floor. I wondered if he could erase her with his +dough rubber. I clung to that thought because it seemed funny. I started +to laugh. The girl pouted. Willy looked up at me and frowned. + +"What's so funny," Red asked. + +I took a deep breath and gritted my teeth, but the shakes were coming +and this time they wouldn't be deferred. I wheeled from the chair and +charged for the door. Willy was up and grabbing at my arm. + +"Don't go, Jim! Please! I've only started to--" + +I swung around at him and threw his hand off, panic making my actions +loose. Then I saw his spaniel eyes, sad, pleading. I glowered at him and +ran my hand through my hair. Looking back at the pint-sized beauty I +socked my fist into my hand and stalked back to the drawing desk. I +reached out for her. She squeaked and cowered away. + +Willy let out a holler that just about scared the pants off both of us, +and was tugging at my arm again. + +"I just want to _touch_ her," I roared. "I won't kill her." + +"You touch her like that and you _will_ kill her," Willy cried. "Sit +down, will you? Listen to me--" + +"If I can feel her with my hands," I said, still whoozy but cooling +down, "I'll believe she's there. Otherwise I go home and sleep it off." +I rubbed my forehead. "This kind of stuff isn't for me, kid. You keep +your bloody mirages--" + +"Please, Jim." + + * * * * * + +I scowled and dropped into the chair. Willy fumbled for his cigarettes +and offered one to me and then in his nervousness proffered one to the +redhead, who had held her palms pressed to her ears while we shouted at +each other. Red shook her head, smiling. Willy chuckled his +embarrassment and sat down in the other chair. We were both facing the +desk but I couldn't bring myself to look at the girl. + +Suddenly she leapt from the desk and was standing in my lap. While I +groaned and held my breath she stretched her arm out. + +"You may touch me, if it will make you feel better." + +I glanced at Willy, who nodded, and touched the point of my finger to +her palm. She was there all right. I drew my hand away quickly, and she +laughed. It sounded precisely like the voice of a full-length girl +coming from another room. I studied her with my chin resting on my fist, +and saw that she was indeed a beautiful creature. Full-size, she'd be a +knockout; I'd be falling, as the saying goes, all over her. But a foot +high! + +Then I remembered that Willy had sketched her. She was a drawing. +Tri-dimensional, but nonetheless a figment of Willy's imagination. Yet +she was solid. I was getting confused again, trying to tie it, so to +fend off a return of the shakes I forced another blank into my mind. It +was easier, this time. The whole thing was so ridiculous it was +intriguing. + +"Who is she, Willy?" I asked. It was easier to talk to him. + +"Like I told you. Red. My dream girl." + +I looked at him. "Yeah. M-hmm." I looked down at Red. She was sitting on +my kneecap, combing her hair. "So just what seems to be the problem?" + +His eyes were pathetic. "Again, like I told you. I'm too big for her." + +"Yeah," I said. "Uh-huh." It had to be as simple as that. Something +practical-like; for Willy, like I said, was basically a practical guy. +Or practically a basic guy. I frowned at him, for the answer was also a +simple one. + +"Then why don't you draw her full size?" I asked. + +Willy looked miserable. "I do." + +I said, "Mmm?" + +"I _do_ draw her full-size. That's Red's full size. Twelve inches." + +I nodded, following his lips. + +"Once," he continued, "I drew her a little larger." + +From her perch on my kneecap Red said, coolly, "Don't you dare try +_that_ again." + +"No, dear," Willy said, sadly. + +I rubbed my head. To Willy I said, "You can't--project her?" + +Willy started to answer, but Red interrupted. She looked piqued. + +"Of course he can't project me. That would be a distortion of myself. It +wouldn't," she yawned, ruffling her red locks, "be me." + +I rubbed my head again. I couldn't think of anything to say. + +Willy shifted. "I can draw her smaller," he said. "But that would make +it even worse, of course." + +I nodded. "Of course." Because it seemed practical to say it, I said it: +"But wouldn't that be a distortion too?" + +"Of course not," Red said, and I had the fleeting impression of being +faced by a school teacher in the minute end of a telescope. "Minimized +elements are true elements, merely condensed. Maximized elements are +bloated, therefore distorted." She sniffed. "Any figment knows that." + +I tossed it around in my floundering mind, but it still came out the way +it sounded. There was another silence. I could see that the two of them +were losing faith in my godmaternal fairyhood. So just to keep the +conversation jogging, I tried another tack. To Willy I said: + +"If Red's a figment of your imagination, why didn't you imagine her a +more practical size in the first place?" + + * * * * * + +Willy chewed on it for a couple minutes. Red turned away in disgust to +leap from my kneecap to Willy's. She seated herself primly and began +fussing with her infinitesimal nails. Willy said, "After all, she does +have a mind of her own, Jim. She wanted to be imagined the size she is, +so--" He looked at me and shrugged. + +"Why," demanded the little woman, "should I go up to him? Why can't he +come down to me?" + +I was getting riled. "You love him, don't you?" + +She frowned. "He loves me, doesn't he?" + +This had a familiar feminine ring to it which balked pursuit of _that_ +subject. I wouldn't have believed that Willy possessed such a dogmatic +objective imagination. If _I_ wanted to conjure up a babe I'd make sure +beforehand that she came out the way I whimmed her. Red had a mind of +her own, which was the negative, or feminine, part of Willy's mind. + +All these thoughts popped up in my head because I had to keep this in a +practical light to insure against a return of the shakes. If I started +considering the _impractical_ side of it I'd recognize it in its true +light, which was unmitigated madness. + +Willy and Red remained silent, inferring that I was to carry the ball. + +"What I'm dim about, Willy, is how this ties in with your professional +livelihood. Why do you have to give up art?" + +"Isn't it obvious?" + +I shook my head meekly. Willy sighed and reached for a pastel stick. He +sketched quickly on the layout pad, first in greys, then filling in with +the three basics. It was a martini glass, and the first basic was the +cherry in it. Then he addressed his signature under the sketch. + +He picked up the martini glass and drained it. + +Looking apologetically at my ogle he picked up the pastels again and +said, "Sorry. Care for one?" + +I said sure. You have to go all the way or nowhere with these things. +Besides, a drink might stop the rumbling in my stomach. "Make it a rye," +I said. "Triple." + +He sketched it and signed it and handed it to me, and I said, "I see +what you mean. Everything you sketch, huh?" The rye was good. + +Willy sighed morosely. "Anything in color. And I made my name in color +work. I can't do a black and white for beans." + +"Why don't you--" + +"Leave off my signature?" He smiled wanly. "You know better than that, +Jim." + +I did. He had a big name, and that, as is the way of commerce, is what +the buyers paid for. Things looked hopeless for Willy. We sat. Red got +up and stretched, then adjusted her halter, into which Willy had put too +much imagination. She jumped from Willy's knee to the drawing desk, and +stretched out on the pad. Willy looked at her hungrily, and she smiled +warmly back at him. I was beginning to get that "third party" +feeling--and then it hit me. + +I leaned forward excitedly. "We will make a million!" I roared. + +They stared at me. Coolly. I went to the back of the chair again. After +a few minutes their contemptuous stares got my neck. + +"Okay, okay," I muttered. "We _won't_ make a million." + +They waited expectantly for a compatible solution. To show that I was +still working on it I started talking again. + +"Let's sum up. You and Red want to get together. Which is only right, +because you literally belong to each other. Check. But you can't, +because Red's too small and you're too tall." + +"Check," they said simultaneously. I stumbled on. + +"Okay." I addressed Red. "Let's take you first. You are +your--uh--natural size. You are satisfied with it. You cannot be +projected up because it would distort you." + +Red nodded. "I would consider it indecent." + +"And anyway, you are satisfied with your element. You prefer it to +Willy's." + +"Immensely more. So would Willy." + +"And what is your element?" I asked. + +"Willy's mind." + + * * * * * + +I ignored that because it led to the shakes department. I turned to +Willy. I was getting excited. + +"Now, Willy. You are your natural size. You are unsatisfied with it, +because--uh--your peculiar talent is lousing up your profession. What is +more, Red's size and element is the preference manifested in your mind. +Her element is doubly preferred, then, as against your own, by both of +you, uh--" + +"Making the preference unanimous," Willy suggested. + +"Right," I said, pushing the thing out of my mind now that I'd stumbled +through it. I spread my arms and gave what I hoped was a confident +smile. + +"There's your answer," I said. + +I got blank looks. + +"It's obvious!" I said to Willy. "You go to Red's element!" + +Willy's meager features were perplexed, but Red caught the idea. She +jumped excitedly back on her beau's lap. "Don't you see what he means, +Willy? Draw yourself to my size!" + +That is a verbatim report of what led up to Willy propping a full-length +mirror in an easel and making a twelve-and-a-half inch full-length +portrait of himself, with me drinking triple ryes while Red directed +which of Willy's features should manifest the most prominence. It was a +very good likeness of himself as he might have looked had he been the +physical Adonis his mind pictured him as, which was only right, +considering the element he was journeying to. Red insisted he wear a +bathing suit that more or less matched her own. + +When he was finished, he stepped back, naturally, to admire it. + +"That's terrific!" I said, clapping him on the back. + +"Watch on whom you're spilling the rye," Red flared. I apologized, and +in my philanthropic state stooped to kiss her. She backed away. + +"A kiss for the bride," I said, pouting. "That's all." + +She laughed. "You'd swallow me." But she approached and stood up on +tip-toe and bussed my nose. + +"Break it up," Willy said, a new authority in his voice. "I've got to +put my signature to the sketch." He tapped impatiently. "Red. Lie down +beside the sketch." + +Red flushed and placed her hands on her hips. "Now look here, Willy. +Don't you go getting too big for your boots!" + +I guffawed. "It's the other way 'round! He'll be too _small_ for his +boots." + +This diverted the quarrel enough for Willy to give me final +instructions, which he did from a prone position on the floor. "Is Red +lying down beside the sketch, Jim?" + +"Yup," I said, squinting at the once-again two-dimensioned Red-head. + +"Now I'll transfer my mind to the sketch. I'll move an arm when I'm +there." + +He closed his eyes, and a straining expression twisted his features. + +"Am I there yet?" + +"Nope," I said, bringing my eyes to focus three inches from the sketch. + +A few grunting moments passed. "Am I there yet?" + +"Nope," I said, stifling a yawn. + +"Something's wrong," he said. I turned to look down at him. His +straining expression was now from thought. I turned back to the layout +pad, and jumped. + +"What's taking him so long?" Red demanded, sitting up. + +"He can't transfer," I said. + +She gave me the schoolmarm expression, hands on hips. "Haven't you +killed him yet?" + +"Mmm?" I asked. + +"You've got to _kill_ him, silly!" + +I shook my head. "Unh-unh. Not me." + +She started to cry. "I thought you _wanted_ us to get together!" + + * * * * * + +Feeling like a louse, I turned to look down at Willy. "She says I've got +to kill you." + +"How?" + +Red had come to the edge of the drawing desk. "What does it matter, +how?" she said sternly. "You know perfectly well that the only way to +get rid of the body you're in is to die." She looked back at me. "What +are you waiting for?" + +I rubbed my head. "Somehow it doesn't seem--" + +She sat back and wailed. Willy jumped from the floor and cupped her +tenderly in his hands. "Don't cry, sweet. After all, it _is_ asking a +lot of Jim." + +"He gave us the solution," she cried, "and now he's backing out of his +part in it!" + +"Well," said Willy, "he wasn't expected to know he'd have to kill me--" + +"How _else_ can you leave the body you're in?" she sobbed. "What did he +expect you'd do? Occupy two bodies at the same time?" + +Willy looked at me. I shrugged. "Have to confess I hadn't thought of +it," I muttered, only half aware that they had me over a barrel. I was +half tempted to ask Willy to fill my rye glass with pastels again, but +it seemed an imposition at the moment. + +"Oh, what the hell," I said committingly. "I'm not the kind of guy to +let a friend down over a technicality!" + +Red leapt to my lap and clambered up my shirtfront. "I _knew_ you +wouldn't let us down!" she said happily, and bussed my chin. Before I +could be modest about it she had bounded to the desk-top and was +stretching herself out beside Willy's drawing of himself. Willy and I +stared from her to each other. + +"Well," Willy said. "Let's get to it." + +I won't elaborate on the details on my act of friendship. I killed Willy +in as gentle a manner as possible, and when I turned back to the layout +pad they were sitting there embracing. Willy-the-Figment stood up +proudly and extended his hand, the one Red wasn't clinging to. + +"Thanks, Jim," he said, when I had shaken it warmly with my finger-tip. +"I knew when I phoned you tonight that you were just the one who would +come up with an unselfish, practical solution to my dilemma. I'd like to +say--" + +"Oh, come on, come on, Willy," Red said impatiently, pulling him back to +the pad. "Jim knows how much we appreciate his help. Come _on_!" + +"Oh, very well," said Willy, winking at me. I winked back. "Lucky sti--" +I began, but then remembered Willy's corpse. That brought a nagging +thought to my mind, but Willy and Red were lying side-by-side, half +submerged in their second dimension, and Red was beckoning impatiently, +pointing to the dough rubber beside her. + +"Hurry up," she said. "Rub us out." + +I rubbed them out. + +Willy's body vanished from the floor as I dropped the eraser. And just +as suddenly I was sober. Cold, shaking sober. + +Where was Willy? I looked around the room. Nobody but me. Me and my +delirium tremens. + +I got out of that apartment fast and headed for a long line of drinks. I +had a big case of murder to wash away. Or did I?... + +... So you see, that's how it is. Willy's gone, and nobody knows where. +Nobody but me. And I don't know either. I keep thinking of what Red said +about her "fourth dimension" world. I think about it a lot. + +I've given up my job at the agency. My apartment too. I got a new one. +Willy's. It's just as it was that night. Right down to the last pastel +and brush. It's going to stay that way too. Everything just as it was. +Every gadget that Willy used in his work. + +I've got a use for everything in that apartment. I've got to _know_ what +happened. And there's only one real way to find out. + +I spend my days thinking about my ideal woman. Each day she gets more +vivid in my mind. + +My evenings are spent at Art School. I'm learning fast.... + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Animated Pinup, by Lewis Parker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANIMATED PINUP *** + +***** This file should be named 32345.txt or 32345.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/4/32345/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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