Puppet Killer

 

by Daniel Guy

Three puppeteers carry the wooden crate from Seb’s van, into the rehearsal space. It’s a large old warehouse that Seb has visited many times before. The main hall is cluttered with puppets, costumes and props and there’s a space in the middle, where the puppeteers have been rehearsing shows for many years. 

Thomas, the oldest of the three puppeteers, lifts off the canvass sheet draped over the top of the crate, and the head of Seb’s puppet is revealed. Seb stands watching nervously. He’s spent months making this puppet and now he’s hoping these experienced performers will be able to bring it to life. Thomas slips his right hand into the small hole at the back of the puppet’s head, and then slowly makes it turn from side to side, as if the puppet is looking around at his new surroundings. Thomas reaches into the box with his other hand, and slowly reveals the puppet’s hand and then his arm. This puppet is not manipulated by strings, but by the synchronised manipulation by the puppeteers.  Alan steps forward, reaches in and locates the small handle at the base of the puppet’s back. Together they manipulate the puppet so it appears to be pulling itself out of the box. Alan now operates the other hand and soon the puppet is raised up to stand upright in the box. It’s almost as tall as Thomas. Seb is overjoyed. Already the puppet appears already to have a life of it’s own. The puppeteers are in dark clothing and Seb’s puppet is dressed in white shorts and tee-shirt and his smooth latex skin is a soft light brown, so he stands out well from the puppeteers. Harriet steps forward. She grips two sticks, attached to the backs of the puppet’s feet. The puppet steps out of the box and instantly starts to walk around the room, Thomas and Alan standing either side, operating the head, arms and pelvis, while Harriet is behind them, operating the legs. 

The director of the theatre company steps forward and stands beside Seppy and together they watch the puppet moving around the room. As the puppeteers gain confidence and complicity, they get more adventurous, making the puppet dance and even fly through the air.  

‘He’s perfect, Seb. Thank you. You have done a fantastic job. It’s just what we want for the show.’

‘Thank you. I’m not sure about his face. Does he not look a little too, naive, too innocent?’

The puppet is made to stand still and pose. Thomas starts to speak the puppet’s voice, and move it’s lips in sequence. 

‘Too innocent?’ says the puppet, in a voice that is soft, and slightly effeminate.

The director laughs, and Seb’s heart again misses a beat.  

The voice is perfect. The puppet is convincing in every way. He wonders if it is the most perfect puppet he has ever made.. 

‘What is he to be called?’ asks the director

‘Artemis,’ says Seb. 

‘Artemis…’ repeats the director approvingly, ‘such a beautiful young man…’

Seb returns to his house late at night. He is exhausted. It has been a very long day. 

He’s an old man, living on his own. His wife and kids dumped him years ago, fed up with him preferring to spend his time locked away in his workshop with his puppets. He drags the trunk into the workshop, pulls out Artemis and sits him gently in a high-backed armchair, made of steel and especially designed so Seb can work around it. He arranges the puppet’s head so it rests upright with the face looking out. He balances it’s arms on the arms of the chair and straightens out the feet.  He sits in another chair, rolls a thin cigarette, leans back and examines once again his latest creation. 

The day was good. The puppeteers spent many hours working the puppet, making it walk and run and carry out complex tasks. Then for the rest of the day they all sat around it, discussing adjustments and alterations, costumes and hair colouring.  An ankle joint was a little stiff. Seb knows how to fix that. And Thomas had asked if Seb could look at the mechanics of the mouth, which was a little hard to close. Seb is confident he can do all that tomorrow. Seb focusses on the puppet’s face. It took many weeks of modelling and shaping before he arrived at this particular expression.  But he’s thinking again that the mouth should not be quite so open, and the lips perhaps a little less full and pouting. The eyes are however, perfect. They look so real, and make the puppet’s gaze almost haunting.

Then for no reason at all the puppet’s left arm slips down and it’s hand falls onto it’s groin. 

Seb startles at the sudden and unexpected movement. for a second it seemed like the puppet was alive. Seb smiles when he realises the arm had just dropped down. He gets up, goes over the puppet, gently puts the arm back in place. Then without thinking he reaches out and touches the puppet’s cheek, the soft smooth latex skin, the perfectly shaped ear-lobes. He runs his fingers through it’s mop of thick blond hair. He turns the head upward so it’s gaze meets his. Something in the expression rouses Seb, sends a shiver down his spine and fills him up with burning lust. 

‘You are a dangerous young man.’ he whispers softly to the puppet. 

For the first time in many years, he is aroused. An image flashes into his head of the puppet on it’s knees in front of him with it’s soft pink sensuous mouth open and inviting..

Now, for some reason he feels a strong desire to put his cock in the puppet’s mouth. 

He steps away, goes to the window, looks out at the night sky. His heart is racing fast. His mouth is dry. This must stop. He’s tired. He will go to bed. Tomorrow he will change the puppet’s face. He will make a face that is less sensuous and innocent. The puppeteers want the puppet back, so he will have to work fast. 

He goes to bed, agitated, aroused and confused. It’s just a puppet, and yet those eyes, that innocent stare of contentment and resignation continues to haunt him. He cannot sleep. He tosses and turns in his bed, he cannot get the image of the puppet’s face out of his mind. He’s aroused and erect and doesn’t know what to do. He tries to read a book, but cannot concentrate. So he gets up, puts on his dressing down and walks through the house, and out to the workshop at the back. He switches on the bare light bulb, hanging in the centre of the room and there is the puppet, sitting in the chair, staring at him, with his enticing eyes. 

Seb approaches slowly, unable to turn away from the puppet’s inviting gaze. He reaches down, picks up the puppet’s hand and moves it so the back of it rubs gently across the hard lump of his cock. 

‘Artemis, you are a wicked boy,’ he whispers. 

He lifts the puppet off the chair and onto it’s knees in front of him. He opens his dressing gown and his aching cock bounces out.  He grips the puppet head in his hands and makes it look up at him. 

‘Yes, you.’ 

He edges the tip of his cock closer to the soft pink mouth of the puppet….

His cock becomes harder and more erect than he has ever experienced before in his life. 

He pushes it gently into the soft rubbery mouth. He gently moves the head backwards and forwards, so his cock slides in and out. He gasps with uncontrollable delight.  Soon he is thrusting hard into the soft rubber mouth and the sensation in divine.  And those eyes, staring up at him, innocent and unperturbed. Before he knows it, he starts to ejaculate. He pulls out quick and his semen splashes over the puppet’s face, and drips down onto the puppet’s white shorts and tee-shirt. 

He freezes for a moment, horrified by what he has done. He picks the puppet up and drops it brusquely back in the chair. He collapses into another chair, waits for his heartbeat to slow, waits for his breathing to steady, then finds a cloth to wipe the sperm from his hands. He can hardly bear to look at the puppet. He feels ashamed. He realises what he has done. He has tarnished it, cursed it, soiled it, destroyed it’s innocence. He can never look at that puppet again without imagining it on it’s knees with cock in it’s mouth. 

He becomes angry. It is Artemis who tempted him. He cannot look at its sweet innocent face again, because those frozen eyes tell him to do it again. He looks round the workshop, sees a large shiny black plastic trash bag on the desk. He goes over and empties out the contents and then pulls it over the puppet’s head. He finds a piece of rope and ties it around the puppet’s head, as if to suffocate it. He’s shaking. He’s enraged. He doesn’t know quite what he’s doing. It’s mad, to think it’s anything more than an object made of wood and rubber. He stares at the puppet. Its covered head has flopped down to one side. Its eyes can no longer be seen. 

Seb leans forward, points a shaking finger at it, and says solemnly, 

 ‘First thing Tomorrow, I am going to cut off that head and make a different one.’

This will be enough he thinks. This will stop the thoughts. He leaves the workshop and goes to bed. This time he manages to sleep. 

What happens after that, is a bit of a mystery. Three days later the three puppeteers break into his house. Seb had been expected to bring Artemis back to them the following day. They try calling him and become concerned when he doesn’t call back. They eventually decide to go round to his house. They force their way in through a window, and start to wander through the house, calling out his name. Finally they find their way through to the workshop at the back. 

Artemis, the puppet is sitting it his chair, his face as radiant as ever, gazing up at the puppeteers standing in the doorway.  Moments later they notice the body of Seb, lying in the corner of the room, with a shiny black plastic bag tied around his head. 

The police are called. There is no evidence of anyone else breaking into the house, so was it suicide?  No-one seems to have any idea.  Ah, poor Seb, they said. A sweet old man who spent his life making beautiful puppets. 

Daniel Guy