Spider Kiss

Author’s Note

This is a work of fiction. It is intended, however, to convey a reasonably accurate impression of a segment of contemporary life as it existed during the period 1950-1960; a segment of show business based on the reality of the time.

To convey a feeling of verisimilitude, I have employed the names of real persons, places, organizations, and events. Any such use, however, is intended strictly for story-value, and it should be understood that any part they play in this fiction is a product of literary license employing figures whose public images are clearly in the public domain, and in no way implies any actual participation in reality. Of the fictional characters, woven from the whole cloth of the imagination, there may be those who seem to have counterparts in real life. Anyone attempting to “rip aside the masks” to discern the “real” people underneath, should be advised they’re wasting their time. Stag Preston and all the others are composites, a chunk from here, a hand movement from there, a mannerism from somewhere else. He is many people and he is no one: he is a symbol, if you have to have labels. I have tried to tag a type.

Types have no names. Or, to quote from Mark Twain:

“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted: persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished: persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”

It is a fable; who can be offended by a fable?

Harlan Ellison