State Fair (Parts I and I)

From the late, great and sadly-missed Lenore Levine (PhD)

11 Nov 1995

Part I

In this group, we've speculated about what might happen if space aliens used our species for food. According to Mr. Pigface, we would be penned and slaughtered like cattle. But with all due respect to our esteemed colleague, I doubt if that would be necessary...

--

In 1996, the monsters from outer space arrive. Their saucers land on the United Nations' roof. Inside, they meet with our world's greatest leaders. They present their plan: they want to eat us. But only those of us they can persuade freely. After all, they're not savages.

Boutros Boutros-Ghalli temporizes. His sad brown eyes become sadder. "We'll have to go over your proposal very carefully," he replies.

One of the aliens opens his mouth, and wiggles his forked tongue with an almost sexual ecstasy. He spits on the Secretary-General. The liquid falls on Boutros, and where it falls, his flesh steams and sizzles. His brain literally cooks inside his skull; and as it cooks, the alien tears off gobbets of his flesh and chews them.

The screams don't last long.

The other creatures make a hissing noise. Maybe they're laughing.

For a moment, the humans are silent. Then one speaks.

"I think you'll find that I'm a team player," says President Clinton.

--

Within weeks, the aliens have hired the best advertising talent our world has to offer. These people have been rewarded so lavishly that their wages, in and of themselves, have triggered a planetwide economic boom.

Soon scaled extraterrestrials, the color of engorged flesh, are prominently featured on the news media. They smile, and voice happy platitudes. By special order of Earth's new masters, these programs are particularly directed at children. Before long, every child on the planet is wearing the image of a purple reptile somewhere on his person.

In a generation, these children have begun to move into positions of responsibility. The aliens are still depicted as cute and friendly, but the massive slaughter is in full swing. In two generations, only the old remember when we lived without our scaly friends.

So -- what is our world like, fifty years later?

--

Relationships Between the Sexes.
Under the direction of their Terran mentors, the aliens have learned how important gender identity is to our species. Women -- at least most of them -- want to be a wanton, desirable hussy like Catherine the Great. And men, most men, want to be a rompin' stompin' guy like -- well, like Peter the Great.

With inhuman cleverness, the monsters have made these longings the keynote of their advertising campaigns. They've told their eager listeners that Masculinity and Femininity are Good Things. And that these Good Things, these primary indicators of one's worth as a person, can be achieved simply by allowing oneself to be eaten.

How does this work? For example, consider prime-time television. Yes, there's the obvious. There are commercials which show attractive young people signing up to be slaughtered. (NO, that's right NO, payback required for *Ten Whole Years*!) Yes, babes fall all over the guy who commands the highest price.

Beyond that, however, there are the programs themselves. All our dramas and comedies reflect the alien-generated assumptions. No, nobody comes out and states them. The people on the tube just act like they're true. Just about all television shows feature perky, charming folks who want nothing more than to be butchered.

Feminism.
The reptilian masters of Terra also give money to people who call themselves "feminists." No, they don't ask these people to speak out in favor of the use of our species as food. They ask them to be against it.

That is, the aliens pick the most humorless, graceless petty tyrants they can dig up, and fund these harridans to speak their minds. As you may guess, MacKinnon and her ilk don't disappoint 'em. What do they say? That masculinity and femininity are mere illusions, that we should live in a completely androgynous world -- and that, for these reasons, people do not need to be eaten.

Naturally, these "feminists" become popular figures of fun. But believe it or not, they are also scorned by the Cultural Elite, too. How is this accomplished? In part, by the work of a brash and clever Women's Studies major named Camille Gutbezahl-Levine. This woman starts out criticizing the "feminists" for being cranky, insular grouches. Her words attract media attention, and a major publishing house gives her a book contract. Suddenly, her tune changes...well, just a little. She says that it's OK to be masculine, or feminine -- and that, for these reasons, people ought to be eaten.

Soon, Hollywood megastars are quoting the first page of everything she writes.

Old Age.
As is well known, the flesh of humans is inedible after age fifty. Therefore, the aliens want people to sell their bodies well before that date. To that end, our reptilian mentors turn our culture into a society that worships youth. They teach us that the old are unhappy, unhealthy and pathetic, and not sexually attractive, even to each other. As advertisers, they refuse to pay for programs which feature "mature" characters. These programs vanish from the tube, to be replaced by those that appeal to the "delectable" 18-45 year-old age group.

Teenagers, on the other hand, have many years left to sign a "Yum-Yum" contract. Because of this, they're considered really hot stuff. On the tube, in the movies, and in what passes for their literature, they're taught they're so cute they have the right to dump on everyone else. Packs of adolescents roam our public transportation systems. They're loud, they're rude, and they indulge in false and sleazy sexual displays. And if anyone tries to shut them up, the other passengers look at them as if they're crazy.

Oh, alien advertising is in the textbooks, too. After all, the purple saurians have contributed massively to our public schools. Yes, of course they're given honorary degrees for this.

Looks.
These creatures like their man-flesh meaty, but not too well-marbled. Think Mae West. Or Lech Walesa. Or Oprah Winfrey, before.

People who don't meet these standards are considered ugly. Fraternity boys hover outside college classrooms and "rate" the coeds by their looks. If a woman looks like the young Sharon Stone, they bark at her and call her a dog. If they unearth pictures of the young Sharon Stone, they laugh at them.

A romance writer writes a historical novel about a 22-year-old virgin. In the year 1995, this woman accepts a job as governess to the children of a mysterious widower who lives on a dark, stormy moor. The woman is "ugly" by 1995 standards; that is, she looks exactly like what's fashionable when the story was written.

Samoans are still too fat. And they still don't give a shit.

Ethnicity.
Vietnamese do not make as good a meal as the individuals of other races. The problem is that once you've eaten one, you want to eat another an hour later.

Now, the Vietnamese culture is achievement-oriented, and these people want to be successful at everything they do. Thus, these culinary deficiencies cause them a great deal of psychic pain. Wealthy Vietnamese men assuage this pain by marrying big blondes, usually from Wisconsin. Vietnamese professional women have a hard time finding husbands.

Many Vietnamese deal with this angst by becoming comedians. In particular, one of the most popular comic actors of the generation is a reedy, bespectacled nerd named Woody Nguyen. Woody achieves this popularity by making mean jokes about his mother.

After becoming a zillionaire, Woody takes up with a blonde Anglo actress. They have a child. In a few years, however, Woody runs away with the woman's Jewish adopted daughter.

Commerce_.
With characteristic boldness, the alien reptiles bring a revolutionary new excitement to American advertising. They use many daring, innovative ideas to get the public to sign "Yum-Yum" contracts.

Their first clever stroke is the "Friends and Family" plan. Under this plan, any human who signs a "Yum-Yum" contract gives the aliens the names of ten members of his social circle. For each of these folks who sign up, the owner of the original contract gets his prize increased by ten percent.

Then, for those who have no friends, the aliens introduce the "Big Bucks" plan. Under this one, when the future fricassee signs his contract, he gets a scratcher card. On this card, there are six places to scratch. If the numbers under any two places match, he wins that amount in cash.

Finally, they create the "You May Have Already Won" promotion. Instead of a scratcher card, every signer of a "Yum-Yum" contract gets an individually numbered entry form. If he signs this form and sends it in, he is eligible for valuable prizes, including a red fusion-powered sports car available only through the aliens. This promotion turns out to be the most popular of all.

Meanwhile, in the third world, special "Mmm-mmm Good" contracts are being offered for fifty bucks and all you can eat for the rest of your life.

--

It's now September, 2047. The aliens have been in power for more than fifty years. Bill Clinton has been the Secretary General of the United Nations since 1998. In the United States, presidential candidates are already gearing up for the spring primaries. All major contenders are in the pay of the aliens. The Republican candidates are making an issue of "welfare cheats" who default on their "Yum-Yum" contracts by committing suicide. The incumbent president, a Democrat, has promised to install ansibles in the public schools so the kiddies can talk to their extraterrestrial friends.

The population of the Earth has stabilized at three billion.


Part II

Meanwhile, summer is the season for State Fairs. Humans, like any other livestock, are judged by their edibility. Contests for good breeding stock are conducted in all fifty states, and blue-ribbon winners are sent on to the national competitions.

The national contest for young women is called the "Miss America Pageant." Entrants are evaluated on talent and charitable contributions, as well as their delectability and suitability for propagation. These latter qualities are determined by competitions in which the girls' naked bodies are pinched and prodded by the judges. Their pelvises are examined, and their clitorises are stimulated to determine the amount and quality of their vaginal juices. (The aliens, like all gourmets, like a good gravy.)

Yes, this is done on prime-time television. After all it's not about sex; it's about marital fitness.

--

It's Saturday night. All evening you, an American householder, have been watching the Miss America contest on your room-size holographic entertainment set. Now the critical hour approaches. In front of you, fifty contestants stand amassed, naked except for their earrings and sashes. Behind them sit the judges. Included among them, as he has been for the past twenty years, is the Secretary-General for Life of the United Nations and Grand Satrap of Earth, William S. Clinton.

Miss Congeniality is announced, then the third, second and first runners-up. The drums roll. The master of ceremonies, a large tyrannosaur in white tie and tails, seems to gibber in silent ecstasy. The room stills. The wind dies down. Even the sparrows outside your window stop singing.

A servitor hands the emcee a sealed envelope. He opens it and smiles, obviously pleased with the results. "We now present to you," he booms cheerfully, "Miss America 2048, Miss Illinois, Louise O'Morphy!"

The audience cheers. Almost in spite of yourself, you find that you are joining in. Naked as the day she was born, Miss America steps forward to receive her crown from the emcee. (No, she does not receive it from her predecessor. That part of the ceremony has been changed.)

Louise O'Morphy is not what would be considered most beautiful, in 1995. But she is lovely. Fourteen, just above the age of consent, she is pink, white and plump. She looks like an R. Crumb schoolgirl, or the younger sister of a Rubens gal. Yes, Louise is edible, like cotton candy. She walks up to center stage, and she jiggles as she walks.

The camera focuses on her little-girl face. She is flushed; flushed with happiness, no doubt. But a tear runs down her cheek.

To deafening applause, the tyrannosaur crowns her. For a moment, we see the beams of her proud parents. Then the camera turns again to the master of ceremonies. Another servitor brings out the chopping block.

Miss America walks over to this block. She kneels down and lays her head on it, right cheek down. Then she spreads her legs wide. You, a member of the audience, watch intensely as perfect holovision shows you her pink, protruding labia. Vaginal juices run down her thighs.

The purple master of ceremonies undoes his pants. He strokes his cloaca. Suddenly, his scaled hemipenes break turgidly free and stretch towards the kneeling child. Your state-of-the-art digital system picks up her soft whimpers, but you cannot tell whether they indicate fear or ecstasy. Maybe she doesn't know herself.

In full view of the camera, the emcee inserts his twin reptilehood into the moist girl. Faster and faster he presses, as the music grows more and more insistent. Unconsciously, almost against your will, you find yourself stroking your genitals.

Miss America wiggles her pink, bubbly behind. Yours wiggles too. The music is almost unbearable.

Suddenly, the orchestra stops. The tyrannosaur withdraws his hemipenes from the almost-virginal opening, and spurts ropy gleet over Miss America's back. He moans, sounding more like a catamount than a sapient being. At the same time, a servitor hands him an axe. In one stroke, before she has time to make a sound, he cuts off Louise O'Morphy's pretty head. He lifts it high into the air, and as he holds it above the cheering audience, he sings, "There she is, Miss America..."

The crowd goes wild. The reptilian master finishes his song. He waves the girl's head around by the hair. You get one more glimpse of her sweet face, and her soft, surprised mouth. Then the purple tyrannosaur pulls out his orange lizard-tongue, and draws the head into his pointed teeth. He crunches her skull.

As he eats, a human voiceover announces that the heirs of Louise O'Morphy have received ninety million dollars -- the largest "Yum-Yum" contract ever awarded.

The television stays on, but you don't hear any more. Even though this event is not about sex, you are masturbating. You are almost unbearably excited. As you come, you do not know whether you are identifying with the girl or the alien...

--

Coda.
Dick Clark has just celebrated his 115th birthday, but everyone tells him he doesn't look a day over eighty. Speaking at a special "golden oldies" revival of American Bandstand, he reminds his fans that some things never change. "I've been in this business more than ninety years," he tells them, "and wholesome family values were the same then as they are now. It's just a matter of knowing what's right and doing it."

Copyright 1995
Lenore Levine

--
"To a studio executive, you're dinner." -- Terrence Rafferty