Sergei was in the mood for love. It had been minutes since he downed his last paper cupful of strawberry Arbor Mist, and gazed longingly at the pixelated image of Tootie from The Facts of Life on the screen of his Apple Quadra. If only it didn't have that watermarked copyright notice across her face! Nevertheless, it was enough to put Sergei on the prowl.
"Yes," he thought. "Tonight the prey becomes the prey, and I shall be the Feral Invasive Species of Love."
While Sergei's primary construction project was still the completion of a giant velvet portrait of Stevie Nicks, visible from space, he had ordered additional work to be done on the palace. Primary among these secondary works was what Sergei tastefully referred to as the "Vroom Vroom Room," a dual NASCAR and dinosaur themed love nest featuring racecar beds and thick artificial foliage covering the ceiling. Animatronic pterodactyls would gasp in pre-programmed awe at the spectacle of his lovemaking, and when the lights were turned off, phosphorescent velociraptors glowed against the walls in erotic poses. Just the thought of flipping off the light switch and watching a tyrannosaurus get it on with a triceratops made him giggle like an overweight, furry-backed schoolgirl with male genitals. His dandruff stood out on the black furry sheets under the blacklights.
Although there were still some finishing touches to be completed- the real racecars used as beds posed a serious carbon monoxide threat- Sergei deemed it satisfactorily done, enough to christen it in an unholy and drippy manner. "Tonight," he assured himself, "tonight the pills will work, the itching will subside, and Eleni will learn a new lesson in how to lay silently, hum, and think of baseball!"
By and by he went about preparing himself in the usual manner. He donned his authentic Fred Flintstone animal-pattern muu-muu, and regreased his mustache with crude petroleum. He placed kernals of corn over his few unstained teeth, to give them all a uniform glean of yellow from a distance. He sang "Aqualung" while flexing his muscles in the mirror, satisfied that the hair on his arms ebbed and flowed in unison, as a single manly wave of hirsute blackness rippling from shoulder to fingertip. He wept tenderly.
Finally, it was time to summon Eleni for her sexing-up. Sliding down the fireman's pole through the floor, he arrived in the midst of her yoga class.
"Sergei!" she yelped. "Is it that time of the month again?"
"Aye, it is," he assured her, forgetting that he was dressed as a caveman, and deciding instead to be a pirate for the evening. "You'll be the booty I plunder on me poop deck tonight," he continued, not even sure what that meant, although he desperately wanted it to involve butt sex.
"Shiver me timbers!" he exclaimed, hurling Eleni over his shoulder with a popping of his joints, and lurching across the parquet floor towards the ballroom exit. "Avast! Me kidneys," he moaned under her weight and that of his mustache. Twenty agonizing paces and ten minutes later, he finally reached the door. Around this point he decided it was best that she carry him instead. They took the elevator up, she propping him up and wiping the sweat from his brow and chins.
Inside the be-leafed walls of the Vroom Vroom Room, Sergei splayed Eleni out as much as one could be splayed upon a twin-size racecar bed with an awkwardly-located stick-shift. A toy airplane circled above her on a string. Nearby on the nightstand, the head of Mr. T bobbled enthusiastically to the vibrations of Sergei's vain efforts to struggle his way out of his muu-muu. He cursed whoever designed it, and their children, pets, pet rocks, and garden gnomes. "May they never suffocate by inhaling their own virile, tangled mustache hair," he cried, for this was the most noble and honorable death he could envision for a warrior stud such as himself, that which every man, woman and child should aspire to experience.
It would not come off. His arms were stuck inside, and all he could see was darkness. It was like staring at his own matted chest hair.
Unable to free his arms himself, he began to panic. As he ran in circles around the bed, hitting his shins against the tires and becoming tied up in vines, Eleni could not assist, for she had fallen asleep. Sergei needed to remember in the future that it was unnecessary to drug her since she had already been willing to entertain his predilections.
Exhausted, he sat down in the center of the floor, surrounded by the very Lincoln Logs which he had used to design his pleasure chamber. He weighed his options, from sobbing bitterly, to ringing the help, to spending the rest of his days within the confines of his leopard muu-muu and building a new civilization inside with only his tongue.
"Arrgh," he said aloud, beginning a torturous monologue in pirate speech. "I hoisted me mainsail and aimed for the shores o' her briny depths, but ran aground on the reef of frustration." He thought a moment, and considered whether her "briny depths" could or should have a shoreline. "Aw, nuts, can I start over?" he asked no one.
No, he decided. He could not. He would just have to wait until he was freed, and then pay someone to write the speech for him. Then he would restage the entire night exactly, only this time, he'd know what to say in response to his troubles.
And damn, it would be profound.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
Chapter 27: You Are The Weakest Evolutionary Link (Goodbye!)
I was accepted to participate on Senseless Reality Show #214 quite handily. Having paid the requisite $1.99 fee to text message my application to the "Fun Line," and then signing away all ancillary rights to my likeness, future children, kidneys, so on and so forth to Sony BMG Music, I was ready to compete. Soon I would earn the million-dollar prize, and Sergei would feel the heat of a million soldiers each paid a single dollar to take my nation back from his sweaty, soiled clutches.
I could envision Sergei at that very moment, re-greasing his mustache in my personal bathroom, clogging up the drains with his thick, masculine clumps of tangled oily nose hairs. And then there were the citizens! Well, I was quite sure he was doing something to them. But still, my drains!
We were divided into tribes, Team Loser and Team Winner. Team Winner had the benefits of a good shelter, the millionaire's favor, food, and vaccinations. My tribe, Team Loser, was told that a serial killer had secretly been placed among us, and that much humor would come from attempts to ferret him out before we were all strangled with our own hosiery. Luckily, I quickly discerned his identity, thanks to his habit of screaming, "I'll fucking kill you!" and jumping up and down on the beach with bloody pantyhose. Having fingered him, I then identified him and claimed my reward: A new, bloodthirstier serial killer embedded among us. Needless to say, the tribe could barely sleep with their excitement that night. If only we had been able to guess it was the new guy, who joined us moments after the host said, "A new bloodthirstier serial killer will join your tribe."
As the days went on, we engaged in a variety of contests to win the millionaire's favor, while eliminating our rivals. There were matches of wits, and of jello wrestling. We were required to stage a production of Cats, while dressed as dogs. There was a swimsuit competition, and we had to issue a top-40 hit record ("Scurvy is a Word I Don' Wanna Hear No More" later earned two nominations in the Reggae Grammy Awards). Still, I felt as thought I was losing sight of my main mission in life: protecting my drains from the ever-increasing amount of body hair Sergei was surely sending down them, provided he showered regularly.
On day 472, we were sent to Final Council. At Final Council, we would vote for representatives who would narrow down a field of electors, who promised to vote for the candidate we chose in a popular vote, but were not technically bound to do so. Should three-fifths of the electors choose the same contestant to expel from the game, and there not be a veto from the host's manager, then that contestant's corpse would be mailed home via FedEx in a wine cask. (And all ancillary rights to likeness, children, kidneys, ancestral homes, alimony, etc. retained by Sony BMG.)
Alas, I was chosen by popular vote, simply because none of my fellow tribe members could bear my persona. My many attempts to hump their faces and ferment alcohol from rotten mangoes had resulted only in repeated attempts to send me to Exile Peninsula, also known as Florida. I could take a hint. My main hint being their refusal to let me hump their faces. As each of them approached the camera in the Chamber of Reckoning and inscribed my name in Sharpie on the Tablet of Foreboding, they explained their reasons for choosing me to leave the game. Number one on their lists: "She won't stop trying to hump my damn face." Number seven: "She has cooties."
Thus another plan to reconquer my homeland had gang aft agley. Informed by their legal team that FedEx would not accept wine casks stuffed with corpses, I was instead dumped unceremoniously on the side of Interstate 40 somewhere between the Carolinas and California. I also received a copy of Senseless Reality Show #214: The Home Game, in which I was forced to vote myself out in an exact recreation of the game I had just played. Hearing all the comments from myself about myself, and being forced to refuse to hump my own face, really stung.
Then, I saw the light. The light being the lone headlight still functional on the speeding tour bus that was about to run me over. After a sudden screeching of tires, a cloud of dust, and a three-car pileup, the bus opened its door in front of me. "Come toward the light, Katrina," a voice said. I then realized it was my own voice. I stepped aboard, slightly embarrassed.
"Where you headed?" the driver asked.
"To get my country back," I answered.
"Us too," he said. "Hop in."
And with that, I joined the Christian Evangelical Order of Brethren on their cross-country trip to forcibly overthrow Congress with pitchforks and the wrath of God.
I could envision Sergei at that very moment, re-greasing his mustache in my personal bathroom, clogging up the drains with his thick, masculine clumps of tangled oily nose hairs. And then there were the citizens! Well, I was quite sure he was doing something to them. But still, my drains!
We were divided into tribes, Team Loser and Team Winner. Team Winner had the benefits of a good shelter, the millionaire's favor, food, and vaccinations. My tribe, Team Loser, was told that a serial killer had secretly been placed among us, and that much humor would come from attempts to ferret him out before we were all strangled with our own hosiery. Luckily, I quickly discerned his identity, thanks to his habit of screaming, "I'll fucking kill you!" and jumping up and down on the beach with bloody pantyhose. Having fingered him, I then identified him and claimed my reward: A new, bloodthirstier serial killer embedded among us. Needless to say, the tribe could barely sleep with their excitement that night. If only we had been able to guess it was the new guy, who joined us moments after the host said, "A new bloodthirstier serial killer will join your tribe."
As the days went on, we engaged in a variety of contests to win the millionaire's favor, while eliminating our rivals. There were matches of wits, and of jello wrestling. We were required to stage a production of Cats, while dressed as dogs. There was a swimsuit competition, and we had to issue a top-40 hit record ("Scurvy is a Word I Don' Wanna Hear No More" later earned two nominations in the Reggae Grammy Awards). Still, I felt as thought I was losing sight of my main mission in life: protecting my drains from the ever-increasing amount of body hair Sergei was surely sending down them, provided he showered regularly.
On day 472, we were sent to Final Council. At Final Council, we would vote for representatives who would narrow down a field of electors, who promised to vote for the candidate we chose in a popular vote, but were not technically bound to do so. Should three-fifths of the electors choose the same contestant to expel from the game, and there not be a veto from the host's manager, then that contestant's corpse would be mailed home via FedEx in a wine cask. (And all ancillary rights to likeness, children, kidneys, ancestral homes, alimony, etc. retained by Sony BMG.)
Alas, I was chosen by popular vote, simply because none of my fellow tribe members could bear my persona. My many attempts to hump their faces and ferment alcohol from rotten mangoes had resulted only in repeated attempts to send me to Exile Peninsula, also known as Florida. I could take a hint. My main hint being their refusal to let me hump their faces. As each of them approached the camera in the Chamber of Reckoning and inscribed my name in Sharpie on the Tablet of Foreboding, they explained their reasons for choosing me to leave the game. Number one on their lists: "She won't stop trying to hump my damn face." Number seven: "She has cooties."
Thus another plan to reconquer my homeland had gang aft agley. Informed by their legal team that FedEx would not accept wine casks stuffed with corpses, I was instead dumped unceremoniously on the side of Interstate 40 somewhere between the Carolinas and California. I also received a copy of Senseless Reality Show #214: The Home Game, in which I was forced to vote myself out in an exact recreation of the game I had just played. Hearing all the comments from myself about myself, and being forced to refuse to hump my own face, really stung.
Then, I saw the light. The light being the lone headlight still functional on the speeding tour bus that was about to run me over. After a sudden screeching of tires, a cloud of dust, and a three-car pileup, the bus opened its door in front of me. "Come toward the light, Katrina," a voice said. I then realized it was my own voice. I stepped aboard, slightly embarrassed.
"Where you headed?" the driver asked.
"To get my country back," I answered.
"Us too," he said. "Hop in."
And with that, I joined the Christian Evangelical Order of Brethren on their cross-country trip to forcibly overthrow Congress with pitchforks and the wrath of God.
Chapter 26: A Good Day for Rat Meat.
It came to pass that I was required to flee Miss Spankpenny's school, primarily due to my murdering a rival student with a croquet mallet in a bitter dispute involving buttered toast and vengeance. Again I found myself alone in the world, sober, and forced to fend for myself. And fend I did, for I was becoming quite capable in my exile. A chance encounter with the King of the Hobos led to my accumulation of thousands of years of free Hobo Wisdom, from how to urinate in a Yoohoo bottle, to where to curl up and die without leaving an annoying stench.
"You'll want a box. A cardboard box. Those'll hold up real nice, until it rains. Then get a new box," he explained. "Ain't nothin' beats a new box, unless it's a tin-foil hat to keep the CIA from reading your brain waves."
"The CIA, they read your mind?" I asked, incredulous.
"What else they gonna read, Newsweek?" he answered. Then he showed me how to construct my own hat, and together we made love, knowing the CIA saw nothing but static and maybe a breast here and there.
I missed the Hobo King. He still haunted my dreams, and it was most unfortunate that he had to return to his homeland of Hobovania to fight the usurper Toothless Joe, who had challenged him in the Arena of Agony. As he packed his rat pelts to leave, the Hobo King told me he lamented ever having built an Arena of Agony, but that it had seemed a good idea at the time. It did not matter now, when challenged to a death match, one does not shirk away. That's the way the corn cracks, and I for one do not care.
"What's with the Arena of Agony? Does every nut I come across have to have some sort of stage built for ritual slaughter? It's just getting quite predictable, when something like that should really be special, like a figging or being on America's Most Wanted," I complained.
"Goodbye, Katrina," he said, as he mounted his imaginary steed. "I'll be back, I promise, and then we can film those snuff movies for the internet we talked about. Good times, they'll be. Good times." And then he trotted off, making horsey noises through the city streets, oblivious to oncoming traffic.
I read the news the next day, oh boy. About an unlucky hobo who made the grave. The King was killed ten seconds into his death challenge, when his own bindle was snatched from his grasp, then stabbed through one ear and out the other. But I will always remember him when I try unsuccessfully to wash his odor out of my clothing and hair. I will remember him as he was, face-down in a pool of his own blood, a stick jutting from each ear. He was a great man, a great, unwashed man, and he was granted a state funeral- tossed into a recycling bins behind the state capital and given a 21-bum salute. Even the flies paid homage, silencing their buzzing around him for a few moments before laying their eggs in his corpse.
While rummaging through another dumpster behind what turned out to be a broadcast network's headquarters, I met a man named Dave, who stood out because he was skinning a rat in a completely improper and wasteful manner. I showed him the correct way to perform the task, which leaves the remainder as a whole lump of meat which can be fried up as a nugget or slid onto a bun (or not, if you're on Atkins). I asked if he was a "Newbo," new to the hobo lifestyle, and he told me that he was, and had only recently been let go from a reality show being filmed within that very building.
A real self-made millionaire (not one of those pretend-millionaires you try to marry on Fox) had charged a group of eager go-getters with performing ridiculously demeaning tasks for his amusement, in no way related to potential business success. He was then to arbitrarily pick his favorite candidate to repeat this duty forever. Dave was not his favorite, in fact he was his least, and thus had been dismissed with the millionaire's signature catchphrase, "Get yo' skank-ass worthless visage outta me face! Arrggghhhhh!" before being tossed from the 17th floor window into a pile of refuse and contestants from the previous season. (The "arrggghhhhh" coincided with the throwing.)
Dave explained that he did it for the prize money, although he had lost more by quitting his job to compete than it had been worth. Despite begging and kidnapping the company's president, he was unable to return to his old position. Probably due to the restraining order, I guessed.
A plot began to hatch in my mind, much like the larvae that hatched from the Hobo King's egg-infested head 48 hours after his death. I would make acquaintance with this millionaire, apply a generous (but not heaping) helping of woo, and use his influence to raise and fund an army to recapture my throne. It was either that or using my own funds, and I've got shoes to buy, dammit.
"You'll want a box. A cardboard box. Those'll hold up real nice, until it rains. Then get a new box," he explained. "Ain't nothin' beats a new box, unless it's a tin-foil hat to keep the CIA from reading your brain waves."
"The CIA, they read your mind?" I asked, incredulous.
"What else they gonna read, Newsweek?" he answered. Then he showed me how to construct my own hat, and together we made love, knowing the CIA saw nothing but static and maybe a breast here and there.
I missed the Hobo King. He still haunted my dreams, and it was most unfortunate that he had to return to his homeland of Hobovania to fight the usurper Toothless Joe, who had challenged him in the Arena of Agony. As he packed his rat pelts to leave, the Hobo King told me he lamented ever having built an Arena of Agony, but that it had seemed a good idea at the time. It did not matter now, when challenged to a death match, one does not shirk away. That's the way the corn cracks, and I for one do not care.
"What's with the Arena of Agony? Does every nut I come across have to have some sort of stage built for ritual slaughter? It's just getting quite predictable, when something like that should really be special, like a figging or being on America's Most Wanted," I complained.
"Goodbye, Katrina," he said, as he mounted his imaginary steed. "I'll be back, I promise, and then we can film those snuff movies for the internet we talked about. Good times, they'll be. Good times." And then he trotted off, making horsey noises through the city streets, oblivious to oncoming traffic.
I read the news the next day, oh boy. About an unlucky hobo who made the grave. The King was killed ten seconds into his death challenge, when his own bindle was snatched from his grasp, then stabbed through one ear and out the other. But I will always remember him when I try unsuccessfully to wash his odor out of my clothing and hair. I will remember him as he was, face-down in a pool of his own blood, a stick jutting from each ear. He was a great man, a great, unwashed man, and he was granted a state funeral- tossed into a recycling bins behind the state capital and given a 21-bum salute. Even the flies paid homage, silencing their buzzing around him for a few moments before laying their eggs in his corpse.
While rummaging through another dumpster behind what turned out to be a broadcast network's headquarters, I met a man named Dave, who stood out because he was skinning a rat in a completely improper and wasteful manner. I showed him the correct way to perform the task, which leaves the remainder as a whole lump of meat which can be fried up as a nugget or slid onto a bun (or not, if you're on Atkins). I asked if he was a "Newbo," new to the hobo lifestyle, and he told me that he was, and had only recently been let go from a reality show being filmed within that very building.
A real self-made millionaire (not one of those pretend-millionaires you try to marry on Fox) had charged a group of eager go-getters with performing ridiculously demeaning tasks for his amusement, in no way related to potential business success. He was then to arbitrarily pick his favorite candidate to repeat this duty forever. Dave was not his favorite, in fact he was his least, and thus had been dismissed with the millionaire's signature catchphrase, "Get yo' skank-ass worthless visage outta me face! Arrggghhhhh!" before being tossed from the 17th floor window into a pile of refuse and contestants from the previous season. (The "arrggghhhhh" coincided with the throwing.)
Dave explained that he did it for the prize money, although he had lost more by quitting his job to compete than it had been worth. Despite begging and kidnapping the company's president, he was unable to return to his old position. Probably due to the restraining order, I guessed.
A plot began to hatch in my mind, much like the larvae that hatched from the Hobo King's egg-infested head 48 hours after his death. I would make acquaintance with this millionaire, apply a generous (but not heaping) helping of woo, and use his influence to raise and fund an army to recapture my throne. It was either that or using my own funds, and I've got shoes to buy, dammit.
Chapter 25: We All Want Some Figgy Pudding.
Upon my arrival back on earth, I found my space capsule entangled in the canopy of an exquisite specimen of Victorian architecture, on a tree-lined street in what I took to be either London or the sound stage of a Disney musical. By and by I freed myself from the awnings and climbed down to examine my surroundings and shag someone senseless.
The sign outside the premises declared the building to be the admissions office of Miss Spankpenny's School for Wayward Ladies, dedicated to the twin propositions that 1890 never ended and that all problems could be resolved satisfactorily with a sound caning. Intrigued and slightly drunk, I wandered inside to sign up, for I would need lodging anyway, and a sound caning might help sobriety arrive more quickly.
Miss Spankpenny was delighted to have a new student, especially one carrying rolls of large denomination West Belgian currency in her underthings. She asserted that I was to be her master project, proof that if I could be made a proper lady, anyone could. Opposing her in this idea was the esteemed Dr. Mycroft von Doohickey, who ran the prep school down the road and wagered a balloon trip around the world that she would fail miserably and that I would die of tuberculosis in a gutter by the end of the fortnight, or be disemboweled by the serial killer who preyed upon the student body as a mischievous prank. I myself placed several thousand West Belgian EuroPesos on the good doctor being correct.
And so my training in becoming a proper lady began. I was instructed in the finer art of balancing books upon my head while descending staircases and holding a ginger root in my anal cavity, a sport known as "figging". Proper ladies, after all, frequently hold objects in their anus for sport and leisure. After high tea with the queen, who was also figged up, we played croquet with flamingo mallets (plastic, for we are not barbarians, after all) and planned an invasion of the Falkland Islands. In all, my first day was quite productive and I felt myself becoming more of a lady with each passing moment. I celebrated by shaving my pits.
Beginning with day two, my ambitions seemed to be thwarted on every level. It all started when the class was assigned to come up with our own Spice Girl names. I wanted ever so much to be "Posh" but the other girls insisted upon labeling me as "Bitter Ho-Bag Spice". For this, I ripped out wads of their hair and smashed a Grecian urn upside their heads. As punishment for my naughty deeds, I was to be drawn and quartered, but a last-minute reprieve came from an international human rights agency and the sentence was reduced to a figging and and appearing as a contestent on "The Weakest Link." I was the winner, earning two pounds, the largest payout ever.
But it seemed I would never become a true lady. I had too many ribs, my fainting needed work, and when faced with an employment application I persisted in checking off "male" on the paperwork, probably due to my gross illiteracy. Miss Spankpenny took me aside and tried to console me, in the manner that only she could.
"Now now, Katrina. Tish tosh. Steak and kidney pie. Tut tut tut. What's all this about now, then," she asked. I had no idea what she was saying, for my English was not as good as hers. "Stiff upper lip, remember that, Katrina," she continued, slightly clearer. "I'm sure someday you'll get your wish to become a real lady, but for now, just keep up at it then. What say we have ourselves a caning, followed by a paddling and some branding after that, no?" And I smiled. She proceeded to chase me back and forth across the campus, wielding a branding iron and balancing books upon her head. Sometimes she let me chase her, or we both let a gorilla and some police officers chase us. It was all very fun, if quite confusing.
That night, in the infirmary for severe burn wounds, I was visited by the Good Fairy, who turned me into a real lady. Later, I was told I had also been hospitalized for an acute wormwood overdose from downing seven quaffs of absinthe in ten minutes, and the latter part of my recollection may have been a hallucination or near-death experience.
Dr. von Doohickey, having lost his wager, took the the air in a hot-air balloon, determined to travel the world as he promised on condition of his loss. He ran out of luminiferous ether at the 10,000 foot mark and plummeted back to earth, spattering his earthly remnants across the county, where the larger portions were collected and turned into some kind of disgusting English pie. Those people made me quite sick with their backwards customs, but it was damn good pie. I found a timepiece in my slice.
The sign outside the premises declared the building to be the admissions office of Miss Spankpenny's School for Wayward Ladies, dedicated to the twin propositions that 1890 never ended and that all problems could be resolved satisfactorily with a sound caning. Intrigued and slightly drunk, I wandered inside to sign up, for I would need lodging anyway, and a sound caning might help sobriety arrive more quickly.
Miss Spankpenny was delighted to have a new student, especially one carrying rolls of large denomination West Belgian currency in her underthings. She asserted that I was to be her master project, proof that if I could be made a proper lady, anyone could. Opposing her in this idea was the esteemed Dr. Mycroft von Doohickey, who ran the prep school down the road and wagered a balloon trip around the world that she would fail miserably and that I would die of tuberculosis in a gutter by the end of the fortnight, or be disemboweled by the serial killer who preyed upon the student body as a mischievous prank. I myself placed several thousand West Belgian EuroPesos on the good doctor being correct.
And so my training in becoming a proper lady began. I was instructed in the finer art of balancing books upon my head while descending staircases and holding a ginger root in my anal cavity, a sport known as "figging". Proper ladies, after all, frequently hold objects in their anus for sport and leisure. After high tea with the queen, who was also figged up, we played croquet with flamingo mallets (plastic, for we are not barbarians, after all) and planned an invasion of the Falkland Islands. In all, my first day was quite productive and I felt myself becoming more of a lady with each passing moment. I celebrated by shaving my pits.
Beginning with day two, my ambitions seemed to be thwarted on every level. It all started when the class was assigned to come up with our own Spice Girl names. I wanted ever so much to be "Posh" but the other girls insisted upon labeling me as "Bitter Ho-Bag Spice". For this, I ripped out wads of their hair and smashed a Grecian urn upside their heads. As punishment for my naughty deeds, I was to be drawn and quartered, but a last-minute reprieve came from an international human rights agency and the sentence was reduced to a figging and and appearing as a contestent on "The Weakest Link." I was the winner, earning two pounds, the largest payout ever.
But it seemed I would never become a true lady. I had too many ribs, my fainting needed work, and when faced with an employment application I persisted in checking off "male" on the paperwork, probably due to my gross illiteracy. Miss Spankpenny took me aside and tried to console me, in the manner that only she could.
"Now now, Katrina. Tish tosh. Steak and kidney pie. Tut tut tut. What's all this about now, then," she asked. I had no idea what she was saying, for my English was not as good as hers. "Stiff upper lip, remember that, Katrina," she continued, slightly clearer. "I'm sure someday you'll get your wish to become a real lady, but for now, just keep up at it then. What say we have ourselves a caning, followed by a paddling and some branding after that, no?" And I smiled. She proceeded to chase me back and forth across the campus, wielding a branding iron and balancing books upon her head. Sometimes she let me chase her, or we both let a gorilla and some police officers chase us. It was all very fun, if quite confusing.
That night, in the infirmary for severe burn wounds, I was visited by the Good Fairy, who turned me into a real lady. Later, I was told I had also been hospitalized for an acute wormwood overdose from downing seven quaffs of absinthe in ten minutes, and the latter part of my recollection may have been a hallucination or near-death experience.
Dr. von Doohickey, having lost his wager, took the the air in a hot-air balloon, determined to travel the world as he promised on condition of his loss. He ran out of luminiferous ether at the 10,000 foot mark and plummeted back to earth, spattering his earthly remnants across the county, where the larger portions were collected and turned into some kind of disgusting English pie. Those people made me quite sick with their backwards customs, but it was damn good pie. I found a timepiece in my slice.
Chapter 24: On a Clear Day You Can See Through the Plot Holes.
Howard Leeds surveyed his enormous orbital death station, remembering his struggle to save up for the down payment, and his anxiety when he first heard from the building inspector that there was a slight defect in the foundation that he may have to hire someone to patch. Those days were long behind him now. A few trips to Home Depot, some potted plants, and an army of android prepubescent servant wenches dressed like maids and programmed to compete in gladiatorial combat had changed everything.
Beneath his observation box, in the greased stainless steel, concave Pit of Reckoning, his robots rollerskated in circles around the perimeter, flashing their weaponry and occasionally their boobs. Yes, this was the life. He'd have something to watch, at least until the next celebrity trial. Damn, he got a kick out of those, too.
In the locker room adjacent to the arena, I was informed that I would be armed only with a toothpick, chewing gum, and a piece of zinc. The battle would be a MacGyver Challenge, where I had to destroy twelve killer droids wearing plastic Vicki the Robot faces and wielding jagged blades that would be the wet dream of any Highlander fan. Asked if I had any final requests before meeting my fate, I said yes, and requested not to fight and instead to be freed immediately. The guards looked at each other in confusion. Apparently no one had asked this before.
"Well, it is her last request, so I guess we do have to honor it," one said.
"But if we honor it, then she lives and it isn't her last request, so we don't have to honor it," the other argued.
"But maybe she'll live anyway and defeat the robots. Then it wouldn't have been her final request, either!"
"Then it's safe to ignore! The only way we'd be in trouble for not granting it would be if she died in the arena."
"But that's the most likely outcome!"
It was decided that we would arrange for arbitration, but we couldn't agree on the number of arbitrators, their nicknames, their sexual orientation, the type of sandwiches they could eat while discussing the case, and whether or not to televise the proceedings as part of a pay-per-view package. The deliberations lasted for several weeks, during which time I was sequestered aboard the station, living down the hall from Howard and sharing a communal bathroom with him. Showering with the man who ordered my ritual execution for his own spectacle was awkward at best, although who can resist shower sex? Not I.
"Oh Katrina," moaned Howard, about halfway through the act, "you've really got me in a lather!"
"That was horrible," I told him. "Really, you've totally killed the mood and my Stockholm Syndrome." I pushed him aside and began to rinse.
"Sorry," he said. "It's just that I don't get many living women up here and I don't get a chance to practice my dirty talk. Not that I need to! I can swear like a sailor after I've had a couple boxes of Cracker Jacks... What are you looking at? I'm not impotent!"
Three appeals later, I left Outpost Omicron a free woman. On the way out, I bought a little stuffed Vicki from the gift shop. One-Eyed Jack, happy with his new position as color commentator for the jousts, opted to stay aboard and have wacky hijinks. I suspect he secretly hoped for his own spin-off series of novels, but this was not to be the case.
"Goodbye, Jack," I said. "I wish I could stay here and take Howard hostage, using him as bait to draw out his wicked master Sergio and finally stage the showdown that will win me back my kingdom from his evil clutches, but then what would I do afterwards? Knit?"
"Girl, you got an ass that won't quit," Jack said, oblivious to the conversation.
"Live for an acceptable amount of time, and be financially sound," I told him, and entered the escape pod, sealing the door tightly with caulk and letting it cure for ten to fifteen minutes. Then I turned the ignition key. The engine stalled. Jack pushed on the pod for a while before offering me a jump.
As Outpost Omicron, the Big O, grew smaller in the pod window and spiraled out of sight, I looked back upon my adventures there. "Damn, that was anticlimactic," I thought to myself. But nevermind. New, bolder, saucier exploits awaited me as soon as I arrived on my home planet. I wondered if I had paid my cable bill for this month, and remembered I had dry cleaning to pick up down at the Laundromat. Yes, bold, saucy adventures indeed!
Beneath his observation box, in the greased stainless steel, concave Pit of Reckoning, his robots rollerskated in circles around the perimeter, flashing their weaponry and occasionally their boobs. Yes, this was the life. He'd have something to watch, at least until the next celebrity trial. Damn, he got a kick out of those, too.
In the locker room adjacent to the arena, I was informed that I would be armed only with a toothpick, chewing gum, and a piece of zinc. The battle would be a MacGyver Challenge, where I had to destroy twelve killer droids wearing plastic Vicki the Robot faces and wielding jagged blades that would be the wet dream of any Highlander fan. Asked if I had any final requests before meeting my fate, I said yes, and requested not to fight and instead to be freed immediately. The guards looked at each other in confusion. Apparently no one had asked this before.
"Well, it is her last request, so I guess we do have to honor it," one said.
"But if we honor it, then she lives and it isn't her last request, so we don't have to honor it," the other argued.
"But maybe she'll live anyway and defeat the robots. Then it wouldn't have been her final request, either!"
"Then it's safe to ignore! The only way we'd be in trouble for not granting it would be if she died in the arena."
"But that's the most likely outcome!"
It was decided that we would arrange for arbitration, but we couldn't agree on the number of arbitrators, their nicknames, their sexual orientation, the type of sandwiches they could eat while discussing the case, and whether or not to televise the proceedings as part of a pay-per-view package. The deliberations lasted for several weeks, during which time I was sequestered aboard the station, living down the hall from Howard and sharing a communal bathroom with him. Showering with the man who ordered my ritual execution for his own spectacle was awkward at best, although who can resist shower sex? Not I.
"Oh Katrina," moaned Howard, about halfway through the act, "you've really got me in a lather!"
"That was horrible," I told him. "Really, you've totally killed the mood and my Stockholm Syndrome." I pushed him aside and began to rinse.
"Sorry," he said. "It's just that I don't get many living women up here and I don't get a chance to practice my dirty talk. Not that I need to! I can swear like a sailor after I've had a couple boxes of Cracker Jacks... What are you looking at? I'm not impotent!"
Three appeals later, I left Outpost Omicron a free woman. On the way out, I bought a little stuffed Vicki from the gift shop. One-Eyed Jack, happy with his new position as color commentator for the jousts, opted to stay aboard and have wacky hijinks. I suspect he secretly hoped for his own spin-off series of novels, but this was not to be the case.
"Goodbye, Jack," I said. "I wish I could stay here and take Howard hostage, using him as bait to draw out his wicked master Sergio and finally stage the showdown that will win me back my kingdom from his evil clutches, but then what would I do afterwards? Knit?"
"Girl, you got an ass that won't quit," Jack said, oblivious to the conversation.
"Live for an acceptable amount of time, and be financially sound," I told him, and entered the escape pod, sealing the door tightly with caulk and letting it cure for ten to fifteen minutes. Then I turned the ignition key. The engine stalled. Jack pushed on the pod for a while before offering me a jump.
As Outpost Omicron, the Big O, grew smaller in the pod window and spiraled out of sight, I looked back upon my adventures there. "Damn, that was anticlimactic," I thought to myself. But nevermind. New, bolder, saucier exploits awaited me as soon as I arrived on my home planet. I wondered if I had paid my cable bill for this month, and remembered I had dry cleaning to pick up down at the Laundromat. Yes, bold, saucy adventures indeed!
Chapter 23: Fear and Loathing in Outer Space.
One-Eyed Jack and I emerged from the airlock, cautiously optimistic about the chances of having intergalactic sweaty green alien sex with any number of the station's inhabitants. A red-shirted squad of security personnel quickly surrounded us, and took us to the outpost's commander. We were rudely tossed to the ground before him, and offered only some stale airline peanuts and recycled urine to sate our hunger and thirst. The urine left something to be desired.
"Sit," the commander said, his rugged torso straining against the confines of his spandex jumpsuit, which was at least two sizes too small. He sat upon a metallic chair covered in glowing buttons. Sadly, these were merely decorative, and did not perform any useful functions like vibrating or vibrating harder. The man's white hair and muttonchops glistened like white hair and muttonshops in the mood lighting. He reminded me of Santa Claus, only looking and sounding like Marlon Brando and without the beard.
"I am Howard Leeds, commanding officer of Outpost Omicron, or as we like to call it, 'The Big O'. Out here, beyond the controls of any government, I've constructed a menacing superstation to rival even TBS, dedicated to the proposition of every man for himself, a woman for every man, and an oiled woman to wrestle every other woman." He smacked his lips in the dry artificial air. "See, here at the Big O, it's all about the O. My O!" He proceeded to feel himself through the spandex and drool profusely.
I was naturally aroused, and wondering where I could get my own tight jumpsuit, but he continued.
"They thought I was mad. Mad! Back on your surface world, I was once a powerful Hollywood producer." He handed us each a copy of his autobiography, "Howard Leeds: Big Shot Hollywood Producer," and continued.
"In 1985, I came up with an idea that revolutionized the entertainment industry. Once in a lifetime, lightening strikes. For me, that bolt of genius took the form of a sitcom about a sassy android servant girl, who lived in her teen brother's closet, possessed superhuman strength, and wore a short dress. I called it Small Wonder, and it was the absolute greatest thing any mortal had dared to conceive!" He stroked his chin, almost wishing he had whiskers. "But you fools refused to watch it. They canceled the show and my dream of using it for global domination! For years I struggled to regain my footing in Hollywood. But no one would answer my calls, not even the girl who played VICI!" He had a portrait of her on the wall, alongside a framed restraining order from her, asking him to cease and desist the sale of her purported undergarments online.
"I proposed bringing it back and spicing it up a little with some oiled naked android maid wrestling, but not even Fox television would dare air it. It was then I knew that I had to take revenge on the species that refused my gift and denied me the endless thanks due to me. Humankind has squandered its only path to salvation- my talent! It was after that final rejection that I began construction of the ultimate weapon in the galaxy to destroy them!"
Jack excused himself at this point, asking where the men's room was and if he should beware of any alien species with unusually-located genitals or propensity to probe humanoids for sport. My own mind wandered and I started to pay more attention to the dozens of small video panels throughout the room, each carrying a different episode of Small Wonder. I was disappointed in the quality of the special effects. Howard continued, unphased. I caught him mid-phrase.
"-and that's when my good friend and investor Sergei Sergenstein stepped in to help me build this orbital death observatory. Only from here could he see his massive velvet portrait of Stevie Nicks as it was truly meant to be seen, and only here could I build my army of indestructible death droids and train them to obliterate mankind!"
"Sergei? You know Sergei?" I asked. After all this time, I was finally reminded of the man who stole my crown, cast me out of West Belgium, and began my many adventures. Now he was back in the picture, like an arch villain trotted out during mythology episodes of popular programs during sweeps week.
"Yes, Sergei and I go way back, Katrina. He said to pass his condolences on to you for the loss of your country and crown. And to kill you. Of course, here at the Big O we expect to get the maximum amount of perverted sexual pleasure from your demise." He picked up a small green frog from a bowl of goo next to him and gulped it down in a single slurp. Then he vomited, not liking the taste of space frogs. The guards returned and manhandled me, a small break in an otherwise bad day. They held me upright in front of Leeds, who continued to spit frog bits on the floor.
"What was that about a picture of Stevie Nicks?" I asked, having not caught that the first time around.
"Oh, yes. West Belgium has been covered over with an enormous velvet painting of Stevie Nicks riding a unicorn. So large it can only be seen from space." He wiped the remaining vomit from his chin. "Not really my thing, but for Sergei it was reason enough to take control of your puny surface nation. Too bad it'll be blown up with the rest of the planet once I finish having my way with you."
I shuddered at the thought of such a tacky display blocking the view of my own hot-pink home, Castle Barbie. I had those ponies dyed bright orange for a reason, and now no one could see them.
"What way is that?" I asked.
"You will be stripped, oiled, put in roller skates, and forced to compete to the death in the Circle of Death, where death is most assuredly assured. There, you will learn a new definition of death, as you fight against my army of girlish death droids, programmed to slash your oiled form or force you into a vat of deadly Galactic Acid in the center of the arena. Your only defenses will be a crude metal blade, your wits, and Deus ex Machina. Of course, I'll be taping the whole thing to pitch to Fox one last time for kicks, and feeling myself through my jumpsuit. I just wish I had put a zipper in this thing!"
"What about Jack?" I asked, wondering why he was taking so long in the bathroom. He didn't even bring any porn with him.
"Jack? Oh, I'll show you what has become of him. Enter, Jack!" he yelled. "Show her what cruel fate you have suffered!"
Jack ran in, apparently fine.
"See? Here's Jack!" He waited for a moment, trying to measure the impact of his statement. "Yes, this is Jack. Indeed. Yep." We stood silent for several minutes before I realized it was my turn to speak.
"But what will happen to him?"
"Well, I guess he can watch your grisly demise." He turned to Jack. "Can you do color commentary? Do you have any broadcast sports experience? If not I have manuals and some tapes you can watch to get a feel for it."
Jack responded, "Well, I did some play-by-play in college for the softball team."
"Excellent," Leeds replied. "Then let the games begin. Those who are about to be greased and disemboweled, I salute you!" He then had Jack fitted for a sport coat and toupee, and the guards dragged me away.
"Sit," the commander said, his rugged torso straining against the confines of his spandex jumpsuit, which was at least two sizes too small. He sat upon a metallic chair covered in glowing buttons. Sadly, these were merely decorative, and did not perform any useful functions like vibrating or vibrating harder. The man's white hair and muttonchops glistened like white hair and muttonshops in the mood lighting. He reminded me of Santa Claus, only looking and sounding like Marlon Brando and without the beard.
"I am Howard Leeds, commanding officer of Outpost Omicron, or as we like to call it, 'The Big O'. Out here, beyond the controls of any government, I've constructed a menacing superstation to rival even TBS, dedicated to the proposition of every man for himself, a woman for every man, and an oiled woman to wrestle every other woman." He smacked his lips in the dry artificial air. "See, here at the Big O, it's all about the O. My O!" He proceeded to feel himself through the spandex and drool profusely.
I was naturally aroused, and wondering where I could get my own tight jumpsuit, but he continued.
"They thought I was mad. Mad! Back on your surface world, I was once a powerful Hollywood producer." He handed us each a copy of his autobiography, "Howard Leeds: Big Shot Hollywood Producer," and continued.
"In 1985, I came up with an idea that revolutionized the entertainment industry. Once in a lifetime, lightening strikes. For me, that bolt of genius took the form of a sitcom about a sassy android servant girl, who lived in her teen brother's closet, possessed superhuman strength, and wore a short dress. I called it Small Wonder, and it was the absolute greatest thing any mortal had dared to conceive!" He stroked his chin, almost wishing he had whiskers. "But you fools refused to watch it. They canceled the show and my dream of using it for global domination! For years I struggled to regain my footing in Hollywood. But no one would answer my calls, not even the girl who played VICI!" He had a portrait of her on the wall, alongside a framed restraining order from her, asking him to cease and desist the sale of her purported undergarments online.
"I proposed bringing it back and spicing it up a little with some oiled naked android maid wrestling, but not even Fox television would dare air it. It was then I knew that I had to take revenge on the species that refused my gift and denied me the endless thanks due to me. Humankind has squandered its only path to salvation- my talent! It was after that final rejection that I began construction of the ultimate weapon in the galaxy to destroy them!"
Jack excused himself at this point, asking where the men's room was and if he should beware of any alien species with unusually-located genitals or propensity to probe humanoids for sport. My own mind wandered and I started to pay more attention to the dozens of small video panels throughout the room, each carrying a different episode of Small Wonder. I was disappointed in the quality of the special effects. Howard continued, unphased. I caught him mid-phrase.
"-and that's when my good friend and investor Sergei Sergenstein stepped in to help me build this orbital death observatory. Only from here could he see his massive velvet portrait of Stevie Nicks as it was truly meant to be seen, and only here could I build my army of indestructible death droids and train them to obliterate mankind!"
"Sergei? You know Sergei?" I asked. After all this time, I was finally reminded of the man who stole my crown, cast me out of West Belgium, and began my many adventures. Now he was back in the picture, like an arch villain trotted out during mythology episodes of popular programs during sweeps week.
"Yes, Sergei and I go way back, Katrina. He said to pass his condolences on to you for the loss of your country and crown. And to kill you. Of course, here at the Big O we expect to get the maximum amount of perverted sexual pleasure from your demise." He picked up a small green frog from a bowl of goo next to him and gulped it down in a single slurp. Then he vomited, not liking the taste of space frogs. The guards returned and manhandled me, a small break in an otherwise bad day. They held me upright in front of Leeds, who continued to spit frog bits on the floor.
"What was that about a picture of Stevie Nicks?" I asked, having not caught that the first time around.
"Oh, yes. West Belgium has been covered over with an enormous velvet painting of Stevie Nicks riding a unicorn. So large it can only be seen from space." He wiped the remaining vomit from his chin. "Not really my thing, but for Sergei it was reason enough to take control of your puny surface nation. Too bad it'll be blown up with the rest of the planet once I finish having my way with you."
I shuddered at the thought of such a tacky display blocking the view of my own hot-pink home, Castle Barbie. I had those ponies dyed bright orange for a reason, and now no one could see them.
"What way is that?" I asked.
"You will be stripped, oiled, put in roller skates, and forced to compete to the death in the Circle of Death, where death is most assuredly assured. There, you will learn a new definition of death, as you fight against my army of girlish death droids, programmed to slash your oiled form or force you into a vat of deadly Galactic Acid in the center of the arena. Your only defenses will be a crude metal blade, your wits, and Deus ex Machina. Of course, I'll be taping the whole thing to pitch to Fox one last time for kicks, and feeling myself through my jumpsuit. I just wish I had put a zipper in this thing!"
"What about Jack?" I asked, wondering why he was taking so long in the bathroom. He didn't even bring any porn with him.
"Jack? Oh, I'll show you what has become of him. Enter, Jack!" he yelled. "Show her what cruel fate you have suffered!"
Jack ran in, apparently fine.
"See? Here's Jack!" He waited for a moment, trying to measure the impact of his statement. "Yes, this is Jack. Indeed. Yep." We stood silent for several minutes before I realized it was my turn to speak.
"But what will happen to him?"
"Well, I guess he can watch your grisly demise." He turned to Jack. "Can you do color commentary? Do you have any broadcast sports experience? If not I have manuals and some tapes you can watch to get a feel for it."
Jack responded, "Well, I did some play-by-play in college for the softball team."
"Excellent," Leeds replied. "Then let the games begin. Those who are about to be greased and disemboweled, I salute you!" He then had Jack fitted for a sport coat and toupee, and the guards dragged me away.
Chapter 22: New Adventures in Farming.
I had little time to consider Jack's offer of forced prostitution, for at that moment federal agents swarmed on the Quanders homestead, demanding payment of the mortgage and the handover of a young Cuban refugee I had previously not been aware of, who had been put to work mining diamonds in the basement. "Oh hell," Jack yelled, cursing his unfortunate luck at being interrupted yet again. "I curse my unfortunate luck at being interrupted once again!"
Sleevus and the colonel took rifles in hand and threatened to shoot down any United Nations helicopters that may invade the farm's airspace. It seemed they did not recognize the authority of either the international organization (which was not even involved in the dispute) or the state of Kentucky, which they deemed traitorous based on an ongoing feud over an obscure whiskey aging process. Confused as I was, I admit to being somewhat intrigued by the fabled "quadruple-malt" scotch that Roberta recalled being suckled with as an infant.
"Come out with your hands up!" yelled a federal marshal. Sleevus objected and asked them to come in with their hands up. "Not without a written invitation and permission to court your sister," the marshal insisted. It was a chess game of Cat and Mouse playing Chutes and Ladders. The only question was whose battleship would sink first. "I'm not makin' y'all tea," Sleevus countered, and he pointed out that the agents hadn't even had the courtesy to call ahead so the Quanders could tidy up.
While the family hunkered down for a drawn-out siege and began calling journalists for interviews, Jack and I snuck out the back of the house and waded into the overgrown pastures beyond. He said he knew a place, a secret place where he came to cry. It would be a good hiding spot until things blew over and we could repopulate the farm. And I trusted him, because he was older, wiser, and more experienced. Surely got that eye patch from some lesson learned. Or an admirable desire to model his life on the teachings of Bazooka Joe. At any rate, the feds had spotted us and were approaching as the farmhouse now burned with fiery intensity. I guessed that Quanders family was finally going to meet Granny in the great existential void that exists in the absence of biological processes. Or they'd survive and file a lawsuit, like they did with that spilled coffee. Whatever. I'm not a fortuneteller.
We came upon a fortified complex, where Jack pointed out a steel hatch half-buried in loose dirt built into a hillside. He dug out the doorway, all the while complaining about the time he'd spend later picking the dirt out from his nails. Finally, he dusted off an emblem etched in the door- United States Department of Defense. "Well, we've got somethin' to defend against," he said, fancying himself an action hero as he turned the hatch wheel and opened the chamber. The hatch opened with a loud creak and a girlish scream, as Jack dislocated his shoulder. He wouldn't be providing 7th-inning relief in the town's annual softball tournament now.
"Oh Jack, every moment with you feels like the last I'll live," I told him. "Oh Katrina," he spoke back, "I really want to butt sex you before they kill us."
Inside, we could hear the agents still in pursuit. He sealed the door, and asked if I might want to make faces at them through a window before he dragged me over a metal bridge across a gaping black chasm, to another large entryway platform. There was a keypad on it, and he claimed he knew the combination because he had tried for several years to guess it, and this was the last combination he hadn't used yet. It worked. We sealed ourselves within a room full of blinking lights and humming machinery, where the sounds of the soldiers were drowned out by ambient noise effects that let whoever operated this equipment know that it was not just any equipment, but the Equipment of the Future.
For a long time, nothing happened. I mean, Jack finally got uninterrupted butt sex and we spent a while trying to find a bathroom to clean up, but nothing of significant plot importance. He told me about the time he waited in line to see Lord of the Rings but had to leave because a deadly assassin tried to kill him with a belt-sander. I told him about my plans to publish my story someday when editorial standards laxed. Then there was a loud explosion and the missile it turns out we had holed ourselves inside of was rocketed into space. Yes, I do believe that was an important turning point, and so I will make mention of it. But aside from that, it was relaxing.
Through the porthole, I saw our small planet grow smaller, although Jack said it was merely a trick of perspective. I told him that with a single functioning eyeball, he wasn't one to talk about perspective, and that it was possible that we were now giants and the earth had shrunk. He countered that his observation of perspective was quite fine, it was his depth-perception that suffered, and that I was an ignorant bitch. We discussed it for some time, until the rocket eventually docked with a vast orbital death outpost beyond the control of international or moral law. I sincerely hoped they had a wet bar.
When the airlock opened, we stepped into a new techno-futile world, where people wore spandex and excessive foam padding. Where weak artifical gravity made me one-third of my earth weight. And where oiled naked gladiator women fought to the death with steel-bladed flesh-tearing weapons while rollerskating around a concave pit of fusion-powered hellfire for the amusement of intergalactic barons. This was Outpost Omicron- "The Big O", and this was my new home. For the next couple chapters, at least.
Sleevus and the colonel took rifles in hand and threatened to shoot down any United Nations helicopters that may invade the farm's airspace. It seemed they did not recognize the authority of either the international organization (which was not even involved in the dispute) or the state of Kentucky, which they deemed traitorous based on an ongoing feud over an obscure whiskey aging process. Confused as I was, I admit to being somewhat intrigued by the fabled "quadruple-malt" scotch that Roberta recalled being suckled with as an infant.
"Come out with your hands up!" yelled a federal marshal. Sleevus objected and asked them to come in with their hands up. "Not without a written invitation and permission to court your sister," the marshal insisted. It was a chess game of Cat and Mouse playing Chutes and Ladders. The only question was whose battleship would sink first. "I'm not makin' y'all tea," Sleevus countered, and he pointed out that the agents hadn't even had the courtesy to call ahead so the Quanders could tidy up.
While the family hunkered down for a drawn-out siege and began calling journalists for interviews, Jack and I snuck out the back of the house and waded into the overgrown pastures beyond. He said he knew a place, a secret place where he came to cry. It would be a good hiding spot until things blew over and we could repopulate the farm. And I trusted him, because he was older, wiser, and more experienced. Surely got that eye patch from some lesson learned. Or an admirable desire to model his life on the teachings of Bazooka Joe. At any rate, the feds had spotted us and were approaching as the farmhouse now burned with fiery intensity. I guessed that Quanders family was finally going to meet Granny in the great existential void that exists in the absence of biological processes. Or they'd survive and file a lawsuit, like they did with that spilled coffee. Whatever. I'm not a fortuneteller.
We came upon a fortified complex, where Jack pointed out a steel hatch half-buried in loose dirt built into a hillside. He dug out the doorway, all the while complaining about the time he'd spend later picking the dirt out from his nails. Finally, he dusted off an emblem etched in the door- United States Department of Defense. "Well, we've got somethin' to defend against," he said, fancying himself an action hero as he turned the hatch wheel and opened the chamber. The hatch opened with a loud creak and a girlish scream, as Jack dislocated his shoulder. He wouldn't be providing 7th-inning relief in the town's annual softball tournament now.
"Oh Jack, every moment with you feels like the last I'll live," I told him. "Oh Katrina," he spoke back, "I really want to butt sex you before they kill us."
Inside, we could hear the agents still in pursuit. He sealed the door, and asked if I might want to make faces at them through a window before he dragged me over a metal bridge across a gaping black chasm, to another large entryway platform. There was a keypad on it, and he claimed he knew the combination because he had tried for several years to guess it, and this was the last combination he hadn't used yet. It worked. We sealed ourselves within a room full of blinking lights and humming machinery, where the sounds of the soldiers were drowned out by ambient noise effects that let whoever operated this equipment know that it was not just any equipment, but the Equipment of the Future.
For a long time, nothing happened. I mean, Jack finally got uninterrupted butt sex and we spent a while trying to find a bathroom to clean up, but nothing of significant plot importance. He told me about the time he waited in line to see Lord of the Rings but had to leave because a deadly assassin tried to kill him with a belt-sander. I told him about my plans to publish my story someday when editorial standards laxed. Then there was a loud explosion and the missile it turns out we had holed ourselves inside of was rocketed into space. Yes, I do believe that was an important turning point, and so I will make mention of it. But aside from that, it was relaxing.
Through the porthole, I saw our small planet grow smaller, although Jack said it was merely a trick of perspective. I told him that with a single functioning eyeball, he wasn't one to talk about perspective, and that it was possible that we were now giants and the earth had shrunk. He countered that his observation of perspective was quite fine, it was his depth-perception that suffered, and that I was an ignorant bitch. We discussed it for some time, until the rocket eventually docked with a vast orbital death outpost beyond the control of international or moral law. I sincerely hoped they had a wet bar.
When the airlock opened, we stepped into a new techno-futile world, where people wore spandex and excessive foam padding. Where weak artifical gravity made me one-third of my earth weight. And where oiled naked gladiator women fought to the death with steel-bladed flesh-tearing weapons while rollerskating around a concave pit of fusion-powered hellfire for the amusement of intergalactic barons. This was Outpost Omicron- "The Big O", and this was my new home. For the next couple chapters, at least.
Chapter 21: Indecent Proposals.
After our marathon lovemaking, which we conducted by running twenty-six miles around the perimeter of the ranch joined at the crotch, we collapsed, spent as the federal government. "Jack," I asked, as he popped his glass eye back into its socket, "did the earth move for you, too?"
"Yes," he answered. "You see, the earth is always slowly rotating during the course of its twenty-four hour day. In addition, it also follows a circular orbit around the sun, which itself orbits our galactic center." He went on to explain that his brother had died tragically while operating a home-built time machine, since he materialized in a section of space where the earth no longer sat. I was alternately fascinated, confused, and drunk.
Colonel Quanders continued his efforts to drive me from the ranch, offering to take me into the woods and abandon me, or bury my mutilated corpse on the far end of the property, where the hogs feed. I politely declined his offers, and set about earning my keep on the farm to endear myself to him. Any thought of leaving and continuing my quest to reclaim the throne was being drowned out by my lust for One-Eyed Jack and his quivering muscles, which some speculated were caused by Parkinson's disease. I was going to stay there on the ranch and make a new life for myself. Land spreadin' out so far and wide! Keep West Belgium, just give me that countryside!
It was on day four of my stay that Sleevus pulled up in his powder-blue pickup truck, the windows covered in "Support the Troops" ribbons and the radio blaring Country 103.5 (America's Country, with Today's Best and Yesterday's Classics), and waved an important-looking letter in the air. He looked troubled and concerned, like the way I feel about PBS before changing the channel.
"They's takin' the ranch!" he yelled. "They's gonna foreclose on our mortgage!" I immediately realized he was talking about They Bank, the lenders who had financed his dream here on this dusty patch of Indian burial ground all those years ago. I interrupted my passionate coitus with Jack, much to his chagrin, and went to investigate further. Jack indicated that he'd be out in a few minutes, and fumbled under the mattress for something.
"Oh, Sleevus," Roberta wailed, "we can't lose the ranch! This is where our hopes, dreams, and chickens live! We done painted our name on the mailbox! Who's gonna pay for a new mailbox or for paintin' over the words on this one?"
"'Berta, I'm gonna fight this in court," Sleevus said, his eyes crossed with fury and poor genetics. "They ain't takin' our home from us. But we need money to fight back with, this ain't like our feud with the neighbors where we could just shoot 'em and plead illiteracy."
Their eyes slowly turned toward me, the wealthy European heiress in their midst. Since they were staring, I put my clothes back on. It had dawned on them that since I was imposing myself upon them and going through $170 in alcohol nightly, perhaps I should be willing to put up the money to save their home, and maybe pick up some McNuggets and a Biggie-Size fry on my way back.
I heard Jack scream from the other room, something about his mommy. But that didn't take their attention off of me.
"I'd love to help, really I would, but all of my cash is tied up right now in funding guerrilla revolutionaries to overthrow my arch-rival Sergio," I explained. They furrowed their unibrows at me. "What? They're expensive and the diamonds keep falling off their uniforms!" They remained unconvinced by my testimony. "Sure, I could make some phone calls, but think of the hefty long-distance rates you'd be stuck with! But I do have an idea. Colonel, get your shotguns. One for everyone. We'll meet up behind the barn in ten minutes."
My plan had been to have us all shoot randomly into the ground, until a bubblin' crude erupted forth, and then use the oil money to pay the mortgage and maybe that of the orphanage down the road. But the Colonel and company misunderstood, and assumed I was in favor of an armed standoff with the authorities. Oh well. If you're going to have any type of standoff with the authorities, an armed one is best.
I returned to the kitchen and sat at the table, next to Granny's mummified remains. I wasn't sure if Granny was going with us or if she was considered one of the fixtures. Outside, I could hear the family taking target practice against the massive propane storage tank. Eventually, Jack came sweatily out of the bedroom, much less impressive and turgid than when I last laid eyes and groin on him.
"Katrina," he muttered, toweling off his hands, "I... I think I might know a way to raise some money. When I first came to town I swore that I'd never bring up my sordid background of vice and Miami Vice, but these are unusual circumstances. Circumstances beyond my control. You see, before I came here I was known as Liquid Chocolate, or the Purple Dandy, and I was the most blinged-out mack daddy to ever smack a ho upside her bitch-ass head."
My eyes widened. "Liquid Chocolate?" I asked.
"There's a long story behind that name, and I'd rather not get into it except to vaguely suggest it involved Taco Bell and leave it to your overactive imagination. But anyway, Katrina, I think I could turn you out ten times a night and have the money we need in days. Nevermind that there are only a dozen adult men in the county, and three of them are flaming homosexuals."
"I don't know, Jack," I said. "This is an important decision that will affect our relationship, my feelings about staying, and my cooch." I paused and looked out the window at the rolling wheat fields and quaint covered bridges of the Covered Bridge Museum. "I need to have wild monkey sex on it."
And so we did, and I thought intently about the proposal during those three and a half minutes.
"Yes," he answered. "You see, the earth is always slowly rotating during the course of its twenty-four hour day. In addition, it also follows a circular orbit around the sun, which itself orbits our galactic center." He went on to explain that his brother had died tragically while operating a home-built time machine, since he materialized in a section of space where the earth no longer sat. I was alternately fascinated, confused, and drunk.
Colonel Quanders continued his efforts to drive me from the ranch, offering to take me into the woods and abandon me, or bury my mutilated corpse on the far end of the property, where the hogs feed. I politely declined his offers, and set about earning my keep on the farm to endear myself to him. Any thought of leaving and continuing my quest to reclaim the throne was being drowned out by my lust for One-Eyed Jack and his quivering muscles, which some speculated were caused by Parkinson's disease. I was going to stay there on the ranch and make a new life for myself. Land spreadin' out so far and wide! Keep West Belgium, just give me that countryside!
It was on day four of my stay that Sleevus pulled up in his powder-blue pickup truck, the windows covered in "Support the Troops" ribbons and the radio blaring Country 103.5 (America's Country, with Today's Best and Yesterday's Classics), and waved an important-looking letter in the air. He looked troubled and concerned, like the way I feel about PBS before changing the channel.
"They's takin' the ranch!" he yelled. "They's gonna foreclose on our mortgage!" I immediately realized he was talking about They Bank, the lenders who had financed his dream here on this dusty patch of Indian burial ground all those years ago. I interrupted my passionate coitus with Jack, much to his chagrin, and went to investigate further. Jack indicated that he'd be out in a few minutes, and fumbled under the mattress for something.
"Oh, Sleevus," Roberta wailed, "we can't lose the ranch! This is where our hopes, dreams, and chickens live! We done painted our name on the mailbox! Who's gonna pay for a new mailbox or for paintin' over the words on this one?"
"'Berta, I'm gonna fight this in court," Sleevus said, his eyes crossed with fury and poor genetics. "They ain't takin' our home from us. But we need money to fight back with, this ain't like our feud with the neighbors where we could just shoot 'em and plead illiteracy."
Their eyes slowly turned toward me, the wealthy European heiress in their midst. Since they were staring, I put my clothes back on. It had dawned on them that since I was imposing myself upon them and going through $170 in alcohol nightly, perhaps I should be willing to put up the money to save their home, and maybe pick up some McNuggets and a Biggie-Size fry on my way back.
I heard Jack scream from the other room, something about his mommy. But that didn't take their attention off of me.
"I'd love to help, really I would, but all of my cash is tied up right now in funding guerrilla revolutionaries to overthrow my arch-rival Sergio," I explained. They furrowed their unibrows at me. "What? They're expensive and the diamonds keep falling off their uniforms!" They remained unconvinced by my testimony. "Sure, I could make some phone calls, but think of the hefty long-distance rates you'd be stuck with! But I do have an idea. Colonel, get your shotguns. One for everyone. We'll meet up behind the barn in ten minutes."
My plan had been to have us all shoot randomly into the ground, until a bubblin' crude erupted forth, and then use the oil money to pay the mortgage and maybe that of the orphanage down the road. But the Colonel and company misunderstood, and assumed I was in favor of an armed standoff with the authorities. Oh well. If you're going to have any type of standoff with the authorities, an armed one is best.
I returned to the kitchen and sat at the table, next to Granny's mummified remains. I wasn't sure if Granny was going with us or if she was considered one of the fixtures. Outside, I could hear the family taking target practice against the massive propane storage tank. Eventually, Jack came sweatily out of the bedroom, much less impressive and turgid than when I last laid eyes and groin on him.
"Katrina," he muttered, toweling off his hands, "I... I think I might know a way to raise some money. When I first came to town I swore that I'd never bring up my sordid background of vice and Miami Vice, but these are unusual circumstances. Circumstances beyond my control. You see, before I came here I was known as Liquid Chocolate, or the Purple Dandy, and I was the most blinged-out mack daddy to ever smack a ho upside her bitch-ass head."
My eyes widened. "Liquid Chocolate?" I asked.
"There's a long story behind that name, and I'd rather not get into it except to vaguely suggest it involved Taco Bell and leave it to your overactive imagination. But anyway, Katrina, I think I could turn you out ten times a night and have the money we need in days. Nevermind that there are only a dozen adult men in the county, and three of them are flaming homosexuals."
"I don't know, Jack," I said. "This is an important decision that will affect our relationship, my feelings about staying, and my cooch." I paused and looked out the window at the rolling wheat fields and quaint covered bridges of the Covered Bridge Museum. "I need to have wild monkey sex on it."
And so we did, and I thought intently about the proposal during those three and a half minutes.
Chapter 20: Passion, Unbridled.
I wandered for days, following the road wherever it took me. Which happened to be a small horse ranch somewhere in the middle of a place I like to call Iowa. Whether or not it was actually Iowa I can't say, because I neither asked nor cared, but I'll call it Iowa for your benefit. And for Iowa's benefit as well, for I'm sure they'd like to erect a sign stating "Katrina von Pain Ate Here" at the spot along the interstate where I gnawed out the innards of a hedgehog I found lying alongside the road.
Hoping to find a hot meal and an endless happy hour, I approached a farmhouse I saw in the distance. There, I introduced myself to the strapping farmhand Sleevus, who I found wrestling a pig for wagering purposes. Sleevus, in turn, introduced me to his sister/wife Roberta, Granny, Colonel Quanders, and the mysterious One-Eyed Jack. Jack had come to town years earlier to pursue his twin passions of photographing historic bridges and having his way sexually with frustrated housewives. He seemed to have a keen eye for Roberta. His keen eye being the one good eye he had left, the other having been lost in what he vaguely referred to as, "The Pitchfork Incident."
It was the dinner hour, the hour when dinner was served. Therefore, we sat down to eat dinner. Which was a heaping spoonful of dinner, served with a side of dinner. Over dinner, the Colonel questioned me about whence I came and when I was going to get off the property.
"So," began the Colonel, wiping spilled scotch from his Scotchguarded white suit, "where ya come from, ya she-whore?" I objected, for I was in actuality a slut, not a whore, otherwise I'd have been far too wealthy to be dealing with a man now intermittently sucking spilled alcohol from his suit fibers.
"I said, where ya from, she-whore?" I answered back, "West Belgium." The colonel tipped his hat up a bit. "By golly, a real live Euro she-whore! Well, ya best be gettin' gone by sundown if ya know whats good fer ya. I'll be damned to let a damn foreign woman of sin be influencin' Granny with yer smutty ideas and notions of boxy yet efficient automobiles." Granny, it was obvious from the flies, had been dead for at least a year. She was propped up at the head of the table, her elbow nailed to the table and covered with a doily.
"Don't mind the Colonel," Roberta instructed me, pulling a piece of buckshot from her cornbread. "He's been cranky since the South lost the war." And by that, she was referring to South Vietnam. The colonel, I later learned, had been the one with the brilliant idea to start a land war in Asia, in hopes of meeting Asian women. After the war, he opened a restaurant and was immediately sued by Kentucky Fried Chicken over his similarity to their founder and mascot. As part of the settlement, he was legally barred from describing anything he touched as "extra-crispy" and had to reveal all eleven secret herbs and spices used in the preparation of his Kentucky Fried Turkey. Oddly, all eleven were barbiturates.
I excused myself from dinner, ignoring the colonel's musket and probing questions about the state of my hymen. In the field out back, I met a strong stallion called Raging Thunder, illegitimate nephew of the Triple Crown winner of that particular, undefined year. "Oh, Raging Thunder," I said, absent-mindedly stroking his muscular torso with vigor, "As a girl, I dreamed of riding a massive white steed such as yourself across the fields and meadows, gliding relentlessly in an up-and-down motion, passing through long tunnels and bursting forth through bales of hay." I patted the sweat from my cleavage.
Just then, One-Eyed Jack appeared from around the stable corner, ambling towards me. He looked like he had something to say, as he held a cue card in front of himself.
"Ma'am," he began, "you sure got a way with horses."
"Thank you. I used to have a horse myself. His name was White-Hot Semen, and he was my dearest friend until I had him turned into glue."
"You can't learn how to talk to a horse," he continued. "Ya either got it or you don't. And you've got it." He held the horse up close to his mouth and whispered into its ear, "Oh horse. Oh horsie horse horse."
"What does that do?" I asked.
"Sssh," he hushed me. "It makes them stay horses."
After much whispering and pleading to remain horses, lo and behold they did just that. Jack sure had a way with animals, for at his muted words the birds too listened, and refrained from falling from the sky. We talked about a great many things as we wandered the grounds, with the Colonel and his shotgun never far behind.
"You like bridges? There certainly are some beautiful ones in the area," I told him.
"Yes. I love the way they stand there, the craftsmanship that keeps them still as sturdy and functional as they were when they were built. They're so... bridgey."
His tender appreciation of fine engineering, and his command over all animals great and small made my loins light up with the fiery intensity of a blacksmith's glowing forge. "Kiss me, Jack," I said, grabbing him and pushing him hard into the side of one of the many beautiful covered bridges in the area. "Kiss me like a wild, untamed stallion."
And with that, he made a whinny noise, jumped atop me, poked me with his spurs, and nearly bit my lip off. The Colonel watched us intently, fondling his musket barrel.
Hoping to find a hot meal and an endless happy hour, I approached a farmhouse I saw in the distance. There, I introduced myself to the strapping farmhand Sleevus, who I found wrestling a pig for wagering purposes. Sleevus, in turn, introduced me to his sister/wife Roberta, Granny, Colonel Quanders, and the mysterious One-Eyed Jack. Jack had come to town years earlier to pursue his twin passions of photographing historic bridges and having his way sexually with frustrated housewives. He seemed to have a keen eye for Roberta. His keen eye being the one good eye he had left, the other having been lost in what he vaguely referred to as, "The Pitchfork Incident."
It was the dinner hour, the hour when dinner was served. Therefore, we sat down to eat dinner. Which was a heaping spoonful of dinner, served with a side of dinner. Over dinner, the Colonel questioned me about whence I came and when I was going to get off the property.
"So," began the Colonel, wiping spilled scotch from his Scotchguarded white suit, "where ya come from, ya she-whore?" I objected, for I was in actuality a slut, not a whore, otherwise I'd have been far too wealthy to be dealing with a man now intermittently sucking spilled alcohol from his suit fibers.
"I said, where ya from, she-whore?" I answered back, "West Belgium." The colonel tipped his hat up a bit. "By golly, a real live Euro she-whore! Well, ya best be gettin' gone by sundown if ya know whats good fer ya. I'll be damned to let a damn foreign woman of sin be influencin' Granny with yer smutty ideas and notions of boxy yet efficient automobiles." Granny, it was obvious from the flies, had been dead for at least a year. She was propped up at the head of the table, her elbow nailed to the table and covered with a doily.
"Don't mind the Colonel," Roberta instructed me, pulling a piece of buckshot from her cornbread. "He's been cranky since the South lost the war." And by that, she was referring to South Vietnam. The colonel, I later learned, had been the one with the brilliant idea to start a land war in Asia, in hopes of meeting Asian women. After the war, he opened a restaurant and was immediately sued by Kentucky Fried Chicken over his similarity to their founder and mascot. As part of the settlement, he was legally barred from describing anything he touched as "extra-crispy" and had to reveal all eleven secret herbs and spices used in the preparation of his Kentucky Fried Turkey. Oddly, all eleven were barbiturates.
I excused myself from dinner, ignoring the colonel's musket and probing questions about the state of my hymen. In the field out back, I met a strong stallion called Raging Thunder, illegitimate nephew of the Triple Crown winner of that particular, undefined year. "Oh, Raging Thunder," I said, absent-mindedly stroking his muscular torso with vigor, "As a girl, I dreamed of riding a massive white steed such as yourself across the fields and meadows, gliding relentlessly in an up-and-down motion, passing through long tunnels and bursting forth through bales of hay." I patted the sweat from my cleavage.
Just then, One-Eyed Jack appeared from around the stable corner, ambling towards me. He looked like he had something to say, as he held a cue card in front of himself.
"Ma'am," he began, "you sure got a way with horses."
"Thank you. I used to have a horse myself. His name was White-Hot Semen, and he was my dearest friend until I had him turned into glue."
"You can't learn how to talk to a horse," he continued. "Ya either got it or you don't. And you've got it." He held the horse up close to his mouth and whispered into its ear, "Oh horse. Oh horsie horse horse."
"What does that do?" I asked.
"Sssh," he hushed me. "It makes them stay horses."
After much whispering and pleading to remain horses, lo and behold they did just that. Jack sure had a way with animals, for at his muted words the birds too listened, and refrained from falling from the sky. We talked about a great many things as we wandered the grounds, with the Colonel and his shotgun never far behind.
"You like bridges? There certainly are some beautiful ones in the area," I told him.
"Yes. I love the way they stand there, the craftsmanship that keeps them still as sturdy and functional as they were when they were built. They're so... bridgey."
His tender appreciation of fine engineering, and his command over all animals great and small made my loins light up with the fiery intensity of a blacksmith's glowing forge. "Kiss me, Jack," I said, grabbing him and pushing him hard into the side of one of the many beautiful covered bridges in the area. "Kiss me like a wild, untamed stallion."
And with that, he made a whinny noise, jumped atop me, poked me with his spurs, and nearly bit my lip off. The Colonel watched us intently, fondling his musket barrel.
Chapter 19: A Tearful Goodbye.
My recovery was going splendidly, except for developing cirrhosis from drinking so much rubbing alcohol. Dr. Hardbeef assured me that, "pain is the cleanser" and that, "cleanser is even more the cleanser," handing me a bottle of Liquid Plumber to imbibe. "That oughtta flush the evil gnomes right out of you, who I'm positive have taken up residence in your liver and are poking it with their little gnomey hats," he explained.
Dr. Hardbeef had a unique outlook on the field of medicine, one built on years of gritty urban trauma room experience, and the voodoo teachings of the tribe who found him suckling from a she-wolf and taught him their rituals. He had spent three months at the Jamaican Rastafarian School of Interesting Medicine before deciding that he would learn more by cutting up the living instead of the training cadavers. After all, the living could tell him things like, "Ouch!" and "Put that back."
He had briefly played a doctor on television in the Mexican Soap, "Salsa con Queso," appearing in two of its six episodes, and then wore the scrubs to his interview at Fort Lauderdale Presbyterian. They were so impressed that he came dressed and ready to work, they hired him on the spot. They were a very, very bad hospital.
My roommate, having failed in her efforts to transfer to a licensed medical facility, continued to whine and moan about her terminal state. Blah, blah cancer, blah blah constant agony. Sure, she may have been the one with a tumor the size of a European car, but I was the one truly suffering. Dr. Edwards failed to amuse her with his antics, and over time a part of him died. The part that gave a damn and tried to help cheer patients, and the part that took showers. By and by he appeared in our room without his clown nose, and after Dr. Hardbeef dismounted me and went about his rounds, I listened in on their conversation.
"Dr. Edwards," she began, completely refusing to call him "Hawkeye" despite his pleadings, "I've decided to end my life, and I want you to help me." Dr. Edwards looked perplexed at first, and then asked if she preferred to be smothered with her pillow or have an anvil dropped upon her from a great height. Before she could finish her little spiel about saying goodbye to loved ones and amending her will, the kindly doctor tired of waiting and pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, wasting her with a shot straight into the face. "Oh no," he muttered to himself, contemplating the mess, "it's just like Pittsburgh General all over again! Oh why, why must I always give in to the sweet, beckoning siren song of the voices?"
Dr. Edwards turned and looked at me. He was panicking. Surely he wouldn't be getting the paid time off he had been looking forward to. "My home planet will never take me back now," he lamented, still in disbelief at his latest failure of control. He then scurried out of the room, screaming the word "Jumanji" over and over again.
Dr. Hardbeef ran in, having heard both the shot and the screaming. "Damn," he said, looking at the bloody fragments of skull and bedpan that littered the room. "He always goes and does this when I'm down in radiology. I always miss out on the fun!" He swiped his gloved finger along a bloody smudge on the wall and then tasted it. "Yep, just as I suspected. Brains."
"But anyway," he said, turning to me, "your insurance has refused to cover your treatment here, and you're being discharged. So I guess this is goodbye." His eyes filled with tears, tears of not getting to screw me silly anymore. He reached into his jacket pocket. "Here, have a handful of loose unpackaged pills. I'm not sure what they all do, but they're all sorts of different shapes and sizes, and I think the blue ones will make you erect for hours." He closed my fist around them, and they felt nice and pill-ish in my grasp.
"Please, Katrina, don't say any more. I want to remember you like this, in a skimpy paper nightgown soaked with pieces of someone else's cranium, reeking of lye-based drain cleaner and the combined genetic material of all the interns who have visited your bedside. And I want you to remember me like I am, a ripe specimen of physical perfection. Goodbye."
But I couldn't leave, I desperately wanted to stay and continue my therapy, or at least take some rubbing alcohol to go. "Damn West Belgium Blue Cross / Purple Horseshoe! I know this is the work of my archnemesis Sergei, for his dream for years has been to increase premiums and copays! Damn them to hell!" I burst into tears and grabbed Dr. Hardbeef by the lapels, smearing half-crushed pills across his milk white coat. "Surely there's some way I can pay for my treatment," I suggested, pulling his face between my breasts and dry-humping his knee.
"Yes, there is," he answered. "Your wages, should you ever have any, will be garnished to cover the cost plus interest." And with those words, he composed himself, smoothed his hair back, leaving little pill bits flecked across his oily mane, and straightened his tie. "Goodbye, Katrina, and no matter what anyone tells you, I'm not the father."
And so I found myself on the curb outside, in a gown that left my ass exposed and with nary an idea what to do next. I was farther than ever from reclaiming my throne, since they generally don't let you have your ass exposed during inaugurations. Pants... Pants were my new mission. But first some rubbing alcohol. All that begging had made me thirsty and sober.
Dr. Hardbeef had a unique outlook on the field of medicine, one built on years of gritty urban trauma room experience, and the voodoo teachings of the tribe who found him suckling from a she-wolf and taught him their rituals. He had spent three months at the Jamaican Rastafarian School of Interesting Medicine before deciding that he would learn more by cutting up the living instead of the training cadavers. After all, the living could tell him things like, "Ouch!" and "Put that back."
He had briefly played a doctor on television in the Mexican Soap, "Salsa con Queso," appearing in two of its six episodes, and then wore the scrubs to his interview at Fort Lauderdale Presbyterian. They were so impressed that he came dressed and ready to work, they hired him on the spot. They were a very, very bad hospital.
My roommate, having failed in her efforts to transfer to a licensed medical facility, continued to whine and moan about her terminal state. Blah, blah cancer, blah blah constant agony. Sure, she may have been the one with a tumor the size of a European car, but I was the one truly suffering. Dr. Edwards failed to amuse her with his antics, and over time a part of him died. The part that gave a damn and tried to help cheer patients, and the part that took showers. By and by he appeared in our room without his clown nose, and after Dr. Hardbeef dismounted me and went about his rounds, I listened in on their conversation.
"Dr. Edwards," she began, completely refusing to call him "Hawkeye" despite his pleadings, "I've decided to end my life, and I want you to help me." Dr. Edwards looked perplexed at first, and then asked if she preferred to be smothered with her pillow or have an anvil dropped upon her from a great height. Before she could finish her little spiel about saying goodbye to loved ones and amending her will, the kindly doctor tired of waiting and pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, wasting her with a shot straight into the face. "Oh no," he muttered to himself, contemplating the mess, "it's just like Pittsburgh General all over again! Oh why, why must I always give in to the sweet, beckoning siren song of the voices?"
Dr. Edwards turned and looked at me. He was panicking. Surely he wouldn't be getting the paid time off he had been looking forward to. "My home planet will never take me back now," he lamented, still in disbelief at his latest failure of control. He then scurried out of the room, screaming the word "Jumanji" over and over again.
Dr. Hardbeef ran in, having heard both the shot and the screaming. "Damn," he said, looking at the bloody fragments of skull and bedpan that littered the room. "He always goes and does this when I'm down in radiology. I always miss out on the fun!" He swiped his gloved finger along a bloody smudge on the wall and then tasted it. "Yep, just as I suspected. Brains."
"But anyway," he said, turning to me, "your insurance has refused to cover your treatment here, and you're being discharged. So I guess this is goodbye." His eyes filled with tears, tears of not getting to screw me silly anymore. He reached into his jacket pocket. "Here, have a handful of loose unpackaged pills. I'm not sure what they all do, but they're all sorts of different shapes and sizes, and I think the blue ones will make you erect for hours." He closed my fist around them, and they felt nice and pill-ish in my grasp.
"Please, Katrina, don't say any more. I want to remember you like this, in a skimpy paper nightgown soaked with pieces of someone else's cranium, reeking of lye-based drain cleaner and the combined genetic material of all the interns who have visited your bedside. And I want you to remember me like I am, a ripe specimen of physical perfection. Goodbye."
But I couldn't leave, I desperately wanted to stay and continue my therapy, or at least take some rubbing alcohol to go. "Damn West Belgium Blue Cross / Purple Horseshoe! I know this is the work of my archnemesis Sergei, for his dream for years has been to increase premiums and copays! Damn them to hell!" I burst into tears and grabbed Dr. Hardbeef by the lapels, smearing half-crushed pills across his milk white coat. "Surely there's some way I can pay for my treatment," I suggested, pulling his face between my breasts and dry-humping his knee.
"Yes, there is," he answered. "Your wages, should you ever have any, will be garnished to cover the cost plus interest." And with those words, he composed himself, smoothed his hair back, leaving little pill bits flecked across his oily mane, and straightened his tie. "Goodbye, Katrina, and no matter what anyone tells you, I'm not the father."
And so I found myself on the curb outside, in a gown that left my ass exposed and with nary an idea what to do next. I was farther than ever from reclaiming my throne, since they generally don't let you have your ass exposed during inaugurations. Pants... Pants were my new mission. But first some rubbing alcohol. All that begging had made me thirsty and sober.
Chapter 18: Paging Doctor Feelgood.
Eleni's trip to the North Pole was short-lived. For starters, she was illiterate, and unable to discern that the letter 'N' on her compass marked the way north, despite it having been the letter of the day on Sesame Street that morning. She reluctantly returned to West Belgium, where Sergei and Coronado were tightening their grip on the kingdom, like one of those nutcracker dolls that winds up messily spitting the cracked shells everywhere and dropping the nut anyway.
Had she been able to read the newspaper during her travels, she would have read how astronauts in orbit had spotted the massive velvet portrait of Stevie Nicks that Coronado had commissioned. The same painting which was now blocking all sunlight from the kingdom. Although it did help the booming rat population, hide the anatomically-exaggerated statues of Sergei which had been erected (in every sense of the word) throughout the capital, and provide a topic of conversation. All in all, the citizens had determined it a net gain. But across the sea, in the blood-spattered mansion of rock star Rendol Van Carthing, I, former crown princess Katrina von Pain, was sure that I would make a much better unelected despot.
The nastiness of Johnny's demise behind me, I decided to end my association with Rendol, after fulfilling a contractual obligation to film one final video with him and letting him hit me upside the head with a whiskey bottle for old times' sake. I was determined to continue my quest for the crown, and after I was done playing "Kings Quest VI," I also vowed to try to regain my own crown.
While I aimlessly wandered the streets reeking of whiskey, I wished I was possessed of the talent held by the small boy in the circular laughing-drawing I had observed lining Rendol's birdcage, wherein the boy was able to leave behind him a dotted trail marking where he had roamed. I acknowledged myself as lucky, however, that I was haunted neither by the ghosts of my ancestors nor or the dreaded demon "Ida Know." It was at that moment, while ambling down the center of the street, that fate intervened like American soldiers in middle eastern politics.
It may be more accurate to say that fate intervened like a speeding school bus, because that would happen to be the form it took. A speeding school bus that rammed into me with all the force of group sex with the Dallas Cowboys. Once again, I found myself in a hospital bed, although this time it had nothing to do with roleplaying, a botched assassination attempt, or the after-effects of group sex with the Dallas Cowboys. Standing over me was a strapping young lad fresh out of med school, Doctor Rex Hardbeef. Dr. Hardbeef looked like he had been chiseled out of pure Angus chuck, but he explained his condition away, saying he had been out in the sun too long the other day.
"Doctor," I asked, "is there any hope for me? Will I ever walk, or talk, or play the piano again?"
"Well," he answered, "you're talking now, your permanent record shows you failed all your childhood piano lessons, and the jury is still out on your walking. You've suffered severe leg failure, and there's only one known treatment. It's experimental, and not for everyone, but something tells me you might be able to handle it."
"What is it, doctor? I'll do anything to walk! I have to recover, I have important matters of vengeance to attend to! And would it be possible to get an I.V. of pure rubbing alcohol while we're at it?"
"That's the spirit," he said. "Rubbing alcohol is my favorite thing to drink too, especially early in the morning before I drive to work. But back to the treatment. I think, in my professional medical opinion, that the only thing that will comfort you is a high-quality dose of 'Vitamin S', administered by me, Doctor Rex Hardbeef, gigolo physician."
And with that, he pulled the curtain around my bed.
"Oh, Doctor Hardbeef!"
"That's my name. Now say it louder, I want the whole floor to hear!" He presented a pair of stirrups, some clamps, and his burly, three-nippled chest. "The extra nipple means extra lovin'," he said, before swigging some of my rubbing alcohol. But we were rudely interrupted. For into the room strode his colleague, Doctor Swatch Edwards, without the consideration of a knock or a honk of his clown nose. Dr. Edwards, I discovered, helped ease the pain of terminally ill young patients, like my roommate, by teaching them that this life is full of scary-ass clowns and that they're better off dead.
Oh yes, my roommate. She had been studying the goings-on behind the curtain, and for an eight-year old she sure had a lot of questions. Dr. Edwards made a lame joke about us "playing doctor" and "playing alcoholic man-whore adulterer," then proceeded to try and distract her by pulling a dove out of his pocket. When that didn't work, he read her the speech he had written to defend himself to the hospital's crusty old governing board, making cloying use of the untimely murder of his girlfriend and exploiting it for his own smug ego. The girl gave him two thumbs down and told him to choose his material better. Then she asked to transfer to a better hospital. Thus was thwarted his plan to force her to swim laps in a giant wading pool full of pasta, which future court testimony would reveal was his lifelong obsession.
But we barely noticed, so enraptured were we by the physical therapy process. "Oh, Doctor Hardbeef," I exclaimed, "you really do have the prescription for massive blunt-force trauma!" He cracked my cast into a more convenient position for himself before he gasped, "Ditto," which made little sense but showed he cared. I rang the bell for the nurse, and asked for some more rubbing alcohol.
Had she been able to read the newspaper during her travels, she would have read how astronauts in orbit had spotted the massive velvet portrait of Stevie Nicks that Coronado had commissioned. The same painting which was now blocking all sunlight from the kingdom. Although it did help the booming rat population, hide the anatomically-exaggerated statues of Sergei which had been erected (in every sense of the word) throughout the capital, and provide a topic of conversation. All in all, the citizens had determined it a net gain. But across the sea, in the blood-spattered mansion of rock star Rendol Van Carthing, I, former crown princess Katrina von Pain, was sure that I would make a much better unelected despot.
The nastiness of Johnny's demise behind me, I decided to end my association with Rendol, after fulfilling a contractual obligation to film one final video with him and letting him hit me upside the head with a whiskey bottle for old times' sake. I was determined to continue my quest for the crown, and after I was done playing "Kings Quest VI," I also vowed to try to regain my own crown.
While I aimlessly wandered the streets reeking of whiskey, I wished I was possessed of the talent held by the small boy in the circular laughing-drawing I had observed lining Rendol's birdcage, wherein the boy was able to leave behind him a dotted trail marking where he had roamed. I acknowledged myself as lucky, however, that I was haunted neither by the ghosts of my ancestors nor or the dreaded demon "Ida Know." It was at that moment, while ambling down the center of the street, that fate intervened like American soldiers in middle eastern politics.
It may be more accurate to say that fate intervened like a speeding school bus, because that would happen to be the form it took. A speeding school bus that rammed into me with all the force of group sex with the Dallas Cowboys. Once again, I found myself in a hospital bed, although this time it had nothing to do with roleplaying, a botched assassination attempt, or the after-effects of group sex with the Dallas Cowboys. Standing over me was a strapping young lad fresh out of med school, Doctor Rex Hardbeef. Dr. Hardbeef looked like he had been chiseled out of pure Angus chuck, but he explained his condition away, saying he had been out in the sun too long the other day.
"Doctor," I asked, "is there any hope for me? Will I ever walk, or talk, or play the piano again?"
"Well," he answered, "you're talking now, your permanent record shows you failed all your childhood piano lessons, and the jury is still out on your walking. You've suffered severe leg failure, and there's only one known treatment. It's experimental, and not for everyone, but something tells me you might be able to handle it."
"What is it, doctor? I'll do anything to walk! I have to recover, I have important matters of vengeance to attend to! And would it be possible to get an I.V. of pure rubbing alcohol while we're at it?"
"That's the spirit," he said. "Rubbing alcohol is my favorite thing to drink too, especially early in the morning before I drive to work. But back to the treatment. I think, in my professional medical opinion, that the only thing that will comfort you is a high-quality dose of 'Vitamin S', administered by me, Doctor Rex Hardbeef, gigolo physician."
And with that, he pulled the curtain around my bed.
"Oh, Doctor Hardbeef!"
"That's my name. Now say it louder, I want the whole floor to hear!" He presented a pair of stirrups, some clamps, and his burly, three-nippled chest. "The extra nipple means extra lovin'," he said, before swigging some of my rubbing alcohol. But we were rudely interrupted. For into the room strode his colleague, Doctor Swatch Edwards, without the consideration of a knock or a honk of his clown nose. Dr. Edwards, I discovered, helped ease the pain of terminally ill young patients, like my roommate, by teaching them that this life is full of scary-ass clowns and that they're better off dead.
Oh yes, my roommate. She had been studying the goings-on behind the curtain, and for an eight-year old she sure had a lot of questions. Dr. Edwards made a lame joke about us "playing doctor" and "playing alcoholic man-whore adulterer," then proceeded to try and distract her by pulling a dove out of his pocket. When that didn't work, he read her the speech he had written to defend himself to the hospital's crusty old governing board, making cloying use of the untimely murder of his girlfriend and exploiting it for his own smug ego. The girl gave him two thumbs down and told him to choose his material better. Then she asked to transfer to a better hospital. Thus was thwarted his plan to force her to swim laps in a giant wading pool full of pasta, which future court testimony would reveal was his lifelong obsession.
But we barely noticed, so enraptured were we by the physical therapy process. "Oh, Doctor Hardbeef," I exclaimed, "you really do have the prescription for massive blunt-force trauma!" He cracked my cast into a more convenient position for himself before he gasped, "Ditto," which made little sense but showed he cared. I rang the bell for the nurse, and asked for some more rubbing alcohol.
Chapter 17: Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye.
I became accustomed to life at Farthing Farthwest, as Rendol called his complex, and spent many an hour watching Tiddleybox-Upon-Entertainment Center, or "television" as you and I know it. Rendol had a pet name for everything, including his pet. Sir Drummond Alexander Crustmuffin, a basset hound, was better known as Captain Horatio Sanchez Ruffintuffin among the band.
By and by I became aware of an incredible homoerotic attraction between Rendol and Long Johnny, the bassist known throughout the world for his immense genetalia, which Rendol had given the pet name of Little Johnny Floofy-Poo. The two shared a sexual energy strong enough to power a small transistor radio for several seconds, or give one a good, sturdy shock if one was wearing wool and standing in water. Entranced by the possibility that hot man-on-man action might break out at any moment, even during breakfast or while vomiting the previous night's whiskey (Often, the two went hand-in-hand, as did Rendol and Johnny), I kept a careful eye on the two. My other eye was to continue facing forward.
It was during a particularly intense episode of Jeopardy! that tensions came to a head. Rendol was quite insistent that, "What is your mother?" was the correct question for every answer given by Mr. Trebek. Long Johnny, on the other hand, would counter with the argument that "less filling" was the way to go. They exchanged heated words, followed by heated nacho cheese. Quickly, things escalated, and by the time Double Jeopardy had started, the two were naked and as contorted and twisted as the argument for war in Iraq.
Clearly this was Rendol's first time with a man, as he wasn't quite sure what to do until I intervened with a helpful diagram of an anatomically-correct bird putting the moves on an anatomically-incorrect gay bee. Johnny was also most instructional, explaining, "Some people call it a he-hole". Rendol nodded, shoved his tongue down Johnny's throat, and then smacked him upside the head with a whiskey bottle. It was touching. And they were touching. Well, Rendol was, at any rate, as Johnny took an inopportune nap soon after the blow from the bottle.
Rendol, crying out the name of his sister, eventually collapsed into a crumpled, sticky fetal position, having spent himself and perhaps even gone into debt. "Oy!" he exclaimed. He had truly not known he-hole until that moment. But Johnny clearly wasn't enjoying himself on the same level, as he had stopped breathing and lost most of his blood through the large gash across his head. Bits of broken glass mingled in the crimson pool next to him, and momentarily I considered that perchance the glass bits were also getting it on. But this was no time for pornographic thoughts about inanimate silicate shards! A man was dying, or dead, or something. And Rendol was in no shape to towel up and invent an alibi involving a wood chipper and pig farming.
Once again, I found myself charged with saving the day. I explained to Rendol that now might be a good time to urinate, then went about finding the necessary equipment to ensure that the long arm of the law would come up empty-handed in investigating the afternoon's unpleasantness. Long Johnny, you see, was never here at all. Oh no. This, I would later tell federal agents, was Long Johnny's brother, um, Other Long Johnny. I drew a mustache and goatee on the corpse, and scrawled the word "OTHER" across his forehead to make it more obvious. With that out of the way, I went about disposing of the body the best way I knew how: setting the house on fire and killing seventeen more people. Although I acted most bravely in the face of danger, they were the true heroes. They died the way they lived, screaming in anguish. It had always been a rather noisy household.
Rendol later wanted to refer to the events as, "the day the music died." I told him the phrase had been copyrighted, and he decided instead to christen it Saint Paddington Gloucestershire Kidneypie Day and never speak of it again.
By and by I became aware of an incredible homoerotic attraction between Rendol and Long Johnny, the bassist known throughout the world for his immense genetalia, which Rendol had given the pet name of Little Johnny Floofy-Poo. The two shared a sexual energy strong enough to power a small transistor radio for several seconds, or give one a good, sturdy shock if one was wearing wool and standing in water. Entranced by the possibility that hot man-on-man action might break out at any moment, even during breakfast or while vomiting the previous night's whiskey (Often, the two went hand-in-hand, as did Rendol and Johnny), I kept a careful eye on the two. My other eye was to continue facing forward.
It was during a particularly intense episode of Jeopardy! that tensions came to a head. Rendol was quite insistent that, "What is your mother?" was the correct question for every answer given by Mr. Trebek. Long Johnny, on the other hand, would counter with the argument that "less filling" was the way to go. They exchanged heated words, followed by heated nacho cheese. Quickly, things escalated, and by the time Double Jeopardy had started, the two were naked and as contorted and twisted as the argument for war in Iraq.
Clearly this was Rendol's first time with a man, as he wasn't quite sure what to do until I intervened with a helpful diagram of an anatomically-correct bird putting the moves on an anatomically-incorrect gay bee. Johnny was also most instructional, explaining, "Some people call it a he-hole". Rendol nodded, shoved his tongue down Johnny's throat, and then smacked him upside the head with a whiskey bottle. It was touching. And they were touching. Well, Rendol was, at any rate, as Johnny took an inopportune nap soon after the blow from the bottle.
Rendol, crying out the name of his sister, eventually collapsed into a crumpled, sticky fetal position, having spent himself and perhaps even gone into debt. "Oy!" he exclaimed. He had truly not known he-hole until that moment. But Johnny clearly wasn't enjoying himself on the same level, as he had stopped breathing and lost most of his blood through the large gash across his head. Bits of broken glass mingled in the crimson pool next to him, and momentarily I considered that perchance the glass bits were also getting it on. But this was no time for pornographic thoughts about inanimate silicate shards! A man was dying, or dead, or something. And Rendol was in no shape to towel up and invent an alibi involving a wood chipper and pig farming.
Once again, I found myself charged with saving the day. I explained to Rendol that now might be a good time to urinate, then went about finding the necessary equipment to ensure that the long arm of the law would come up empty-handed in investigating the afternoon's unpleasantness. Long Johnny, you see, was never here at all. Oh no. This, I would later tell federal agents, was Long Johnny's brother, um, Other Long Johnny. I drew a mustache and goatee on the corpse, and scrawled the word "OTHER" across his forehead to make it more obvious. With that out of the way, I went about disposing of the body the best way I knew how: setting the house on fire and killing seventeen more people. Although I acted most bravely in the face of danger, they were the true heroes. They died the way they lived, screaming in anguish. It had always been a rather noisy household.
Rendol later wanted to refer to the events as, "the day the music died." I told him the phrase had been copyrighted, and he decided instead to christen it Saint Paddington Gloucestershire Kidneypie Day and never speak of it again.
Chapter 16: The Miracle of Christmas.
Eleni sat alone, rocking back and forth on the floor of the bedroom suite she shared with Sergei in the Royal West Belgian palace. Sergei and Coronado had departed to attend the grand unveiling of Sergei's pet project, the enormous, space-visible velvet painting of Stevie Nicks he had wanted since he was a little girl. The project hardly needed unveiling, since most of the citizenry was well-aware of its completion, having not seen the sun in several weeks. They did, however, get a lovely view of Stevie Nicks where it used to be.
Eventually, Sergei would return, covered in confetti and reeking of lemon Pledge, his favorite sexual condiment. They would make "love" for several minutes, and then she would settle down to hear his speech about how much of a man he was, and how this had never happened before. During the course of their brief affair, she had noticed it had become so rote that he no longer had to read it off of his index cards. Where was the heart in his performance? Sure, he had memorized the lines, but sometimes she didn't believe him as an impotent middle-aged strongman masturbating his ego.
But this all had to wait. Sergei had a full roster of public events that morning, from unveiling his painting to stealing Christmas. For Christmastime it was, and Sergei had issued orders to Coronado, his newly-crowned puppet king, to settle an old score once and for all with Kris Kringle, who he blamed for a lifetime of letdowns. Sergei arranged for weapons of mass destruction to be planted at the geographic north pole, and asked Coronado to publicly call for sanctions and a possible invasion. The public laughed nervously, then stopped when they realized he was serious. Then they built bomb shelters and stocked up on duct tape.
Yes, Sergei hated Santa with a passion that burned like jock itch in a volcano. His parents had failed to inform him of the fictionality of Santa Claus. Probably because he executed them on his fifth birthday, when he didn't get an "OB-GYN Elmo" doll like he had asked for in a notarized document. When Santa mysteriously failed to show up that Christmas, or any subsequent year, Sergei added him to his List of Enemies, which at various points included the Dalai Lama and half the cast of "Petticoat Junction," who he felt had belittled the important subject of petticoats. He hated them for this injustice, with a passion that burned like acid reflux from a disgruntled wildebeest.
In any event, chemical weapons were now buried somewhere in Greenland, and Inuit hunters would be digging them up any moment and arming themselves for sweet, sweet freedom from the Danes. This has no bearing on our plot, but is something for you to chew on.
But back we go to Eleni, still rocking on the floor like a Romanian orphan on speed, although she was actually on crystal meth. Eleni had one thing on her list that year- an official Red Ryder carbine-action air rifle with a compass in the stock and this... thing... that tells time. She had put it onto her Amazon Wish List, only to be told that it was out of stock, and she'd shoot her eye out. If she was to get anything this year, it would have to come from a Christmas miracle, or grand larceny.
And so, under the cover of the giant velvet painting that had plunged West Belgium into eternal darkness, she wielded a sawed-off shotgun and took a Humvee from a local dealership. "This was the best Christmas ever," she thought to herself, and as she drove off the lot and realized her heart had grown to three times its former size, she also realized that perhaps Sergei was right; Santa and the elves were a threat to democracy.
That night, Sergei was visited by three ghosts, who taught him the error of his ways. When he awoke to tell Eleni that he was converting to Judaism, he found her gone. Eleni had taken her Hummer and left for the North Pole. If the UN was going to keep laughing at the global threat posed by that jolly old elf, she was going to have to act unilaterally.
Eventually, Sergei would return, covered in confetti and reeking of lemon Pledge, his favorite sexual condiment. They would make "love" for several minutes, and then she would settle down to hear his speech about how much of a man he was, and how this had never happened before. During the course of their brief affair, she had noticed it had become so rote that he no longer had to read it off of his index cards. Where was the heart in his performance? Sure, he had memorized the lines, but sometimes she didn't believe him as an impotent middle-aged strongman masturbating his ego.
But this all had to wait. Sergei had a full roster of public events that morning, from unveiling his painting to stealing Christmas. For Christmastime it was, and Sergei had issued orders to Coronado, his newly-crowned puppet king, to settle an old score once and for all with Kris Kringle, who he blamed for a lifetime of letdowns. Sergei arranged for weapons of mass destruction to be planted at the geographic north pole, and asked Coronado to publicly call for sanctions and a possible invasion. The public laughed nervously, then stopped when they realized he was serious. Then they built bomb shelters and stocked up on duct tape.
Yes, Sergei hated Santa with a passion that burned like jock itch in a volcano. His parents had failed to inform him of the fictionality of Santa Claus. Probably because he executed them on his fifth birthday, when he didn't get an "OB-GYN Elmo" doll like he had asked for in a notarized document. When Santa mysteriously failed to show up that Christmas, or any subsequent year, Sergei added him to his List of Enemies, which at various points included the Dalai Lama and half the cast of "Petticoat Junction," who he felt had belittled the important subject of petticoats. He hated them for this injustice, with a passion that burned like acid reflux from a disgruntled wildebeest.
In any event, chemical weapons were now buried somewhere in Greenland, and Inuit hunters would be digging them up any moment and arming themselves for sweet, sweet freedom from the Danes. This has no bearing on our plot, but is something for you to chew on.
But back we go to Eleni, still rocking on the floor like a Romanian orphan on speed, although she was actually on crystal meth. Eleni had one thing on her list that year- an official Red Ryder carbine-action air rifle with a compass in the stock and this... thing... that tells time. She had put it onto her Amazon Wish List, only to be told that it was out of stock, and she'd shoot her eye out. If she was to get anything this year, it would have to come from a Christmas miracle, or grand larceny.
And so, under the cover of the giant velvet painting that had plunged West Belgium into eternal darkness, she wielded a sawed-off shotgun and took a Humvee from a local dealership. "This was the best Christmas ever," she thought to herself, and as she drove off the lot and realized her heart had grown to three times its former size, she also realized that perhaps Sergei was right; Santa and the elves were a threat to democracy.
That night, Sergei was visited by three ghosts, who taught him the error of his ways. When he awoke to tell Eleni that he was converting to Judaism, he found her gone. Eleni had taken her Hummer and left for the North Pole. If the UN was going to keep laughing at the global threat posed by that jolly old elf, she was going to have to act unilaterally.
Chapter 15: Getting Whiskey Wit It.
By and by, I left the intensive care unit and was driven to Rendol's luxurious estate, which was surrounded by a statuary featuring sculptures of naked polo players chasing overmuscled panthers. As we approached, I studied the interior of the limo, which was upholstered tastefully in hot pink leopard print. It reminded me of my brief teenage stint as a taxidermist. Everything had been pink that year because my eye was infected.
My role in the Kïllfũck music video was simple. I was to squirm and contort myself across the hood of a moving sport utility vehicle, which was completely encrusted in Teflon, while draped tastefully in thin gauze. At the band's whimsy, buckets of dove blood would be sprayed at me from the wiper wells. It was a song about life, caring, and above all, the eternal merciful torment offered by Satan and his minions of the night. Rolling Stone had already labeled the track "distasteful" and "puerile" based on a leaked MP3 on Kazaa. Eminem had commented to the press that it made him ashamed to be an American.
I was greeted by Rendol at the door. "Oy," Rendol exclaimed. That was it. He was a man of few words. Rendol's bandmate, "Long Johnny," instructed me to strip and quizzed me on my knowledge of insurance claim filing. I carefully explained, to the best of my ability, the necessity to maintain HIPAA compliance during the process and to bill only for services rendered and documented. Long Johnny stood quietly, absorbing this information, and then smashed a whiskey bottle across my temple.
I awoke strapped to the hood of Rendol's SUV, which I estimated was doing about 90 down the interstate. In front of us was a minivan with a camera aimed at me. Rendol was lip-synching, and I wondered how viewers could realistically accept his playing an unplugged electric guitar in the passenger seat with a safety belt on.
Rendol had a way with lip-synched words that few men do. Between the close calls with the pavement and the fumes, I was able to make out a poetic line lamenting globalization and calling for the purification of something or other. It was really quite catchy, much like my gauze wrap was catching on the wheels and strangling me.
"Writhe harder!" the director yelled. "Show me more unbridled lust! Make me want to violate you!"
I had been under the impression I was doing that very thing, but apparently I was not. The spray of bugs against my forehead was distracting, and the tire pressure on the driver's front side was low, both of which affected my performance and his gas mileage. Not to mention the rude interruption supplied by a highway patrolman who pulled us over for not having a writhing license.
"But Officer," I protested, I'm but an innocent simple noblewoman, adrift in a world I didn't make, and I have these," clutching at my rack and shoving it towards him. I jiggled for effect. "I'm sure Mr. Van Carthing will gladly pay any fees and we can forget this ever happened." Then I jiggled again.
"Oh, okay," said the officer. "You're lucky I'm high on opiates today." And with that he left. Rendol became suddenly more appreciative of my charms. "Hey, bitch," he said, rubbing some portion of himself against my leg. I couldn't tell. "How'd ya like to unstuff me codpiece?" And with that, he smashed a whiskey bottle against my temple and everything went black.
My role in the Kïllfũck music video was simple. I was to squirm and contort myself across the hood of a moving sport utility vehicle, which was completely encrusted in Teflon, while draped tastefully in thin gauze. At the band's whimsy, buckets of dove blood would be sprayed at me from the wiper wells. It was a song about life, caring, and above all, the eternal merciful torment offered by Satan and his minions of the night. Rolling Stone had already labeled the track "distasteful" and "puerile" based on a leaked MP3 on Kazaa. Eminem had commented to the press that it made him ashamed to be an American.
I was greeted by Rendol at the door. "Oy," Rendol exclaimed. That was it. He was a man of few words. Rendol's bandmate, "Long Johnny," instructed me to strip and quizzed me on my knowledge of insurance claim filing. I carefully explained, to the best of my ability, the necessity to maintain HIPAA compliance during the process and to bill only for services rendered and documented. Long Johnny stood quietly, absorbing this information, and then smashed a whiskey bottle across my temple.
I awoke strapped to the hood of Rendol's SUV, which I estimated was doing about 90 down the interstate. In front of us was a minivan with a camera aimed at me. Rendol was lip-synching, and I wondered how viewers could realistically accept his playing an unplugged electric guitar in the passenger seat with a safety belt on.
Rendol had a way with lip-synched words that few men do. Between the close calls with the pavement and the fumes, I was able to make out a poetic line lamenting globalization and calling for the purification of something or other. It was really quite catchy, much like my gauze wrap was catching on the wheels and strangling me.
"Writhe harder!" the director yelled. "Show me more unbridled lust! Make me want to violate you!"
I had been under the impression I was doing that very thing, but apparently I was not. The spray of bugs against my forehead was distracting, and the tire pressure on the driver's front side was low, both of which affected my performance and his gas mileage. Not to mention the rude interruption supplied by a highway patrolman who pulled us over for not having a writhing license.
"But Officer," I protested, I'm but an innocent simple noblewoman, adrift in a world I didn't make, and I have these," clutching at my rack and shoving it towards him. I jiggled for effect. "I'm sure Mr. Van Carthing will gladly pay any fees and we can forget this ever happened." Then I jiggled again.
"Oh, okay," said the officer. "You're lucky I'm high on opiates today." And with that he left. Rendol became suddenly more appreciative of my charms. "Hey, bitch," he said, rubbing some portion of himself against my leg. I couldn't tell. "How'd ya like to unstuff me codpiece?" And with that, he smashed a whiskey bottle against my temple and everything went black.
Chapter 14: Here I Go Again on My Own.
I began my day's work at dawn, but found customers scarce in the open sunlight. Perhaps this was owing to the lack of cover that the darkness so eagerly provided at night, like that curtain over the door to the adult section of the video store. Or maybe it was that, in the harsh solar glare, my festering sores were visible. Whatever the case, clearly my back-alley stripping career was off to a tepid start. I practiced for a gang of hobos who I felt were overly critical considering their own physical condition. They also made a mathematical mistake in calculating the degree of difficulty.
By and by, I decided that perchance I needed a shower to attract superior clientele. Throughout my adventuring, I had been at my cleanest and most desirable during my incarceration. The daily forced showers and fire-hose spraydowns made me moist with water. But the good old days of prison life and its alternating beatings and intimate cleansings were far behind me, and I had scarcely an ATM card, a handful of jewels, and written letters of credit from six international banks to my name now.
Then, from across the street, inspiration struck like a mob of angry union members on "Sell Your Daughter to the Factory Day". There it was- glowing with a mosquito-zapping tubular neon aura and dripping with the polluted runoff of a thousand muscle cars- a self-serve car wash. The big, bold, and brassy letters practically shouted the name: "Pay N' Spray." This was fate, surely, for "pay n' spray" was the slogan for my childhood prostitution ring. I was going to get myself cleaner than I'd ever been before, or have sex trying.
Finding some quarters in the pocket of a nearby murder victim, I carefully inserted each one into the slot, while thinking vulgar thoughts about putting things into slots. The array of options at my disposal took me aback, for I had not one but three waxes to choose from alone. Yes, I needed waxed, I decided, as my hand slid downtown. I selected a soap, wax, and spray force, then took the brush to my head and pulled the trigger. Fruity, oozing goodness in the form of pinkish foam squirted forth with a volume I had scarcely seen outside of the annual West Belgium Japanese Film Festival. Oddly, it did not taste like I imagined.
Having achieved a good lather all over, I moved to take hold of the high-pressure rinse gun, when a hot pink limousine screeched into the bay and slammed into me, bruising my body like Paris Hilton after a fight with her boyfriend. I vaguely recall writhing and moaning atop the hood, half-naked, soaked and sudsy, struggling to focus on the face of the man standing above me.
"Oy! That's her! That's our star!" he yelled to his driver, who was attempting to dislodge me from the windshield by running the wipers.
He handed me a backstage pass. "Oy! Name's Rendol Van Carthing, and I'm the lead singer for the death-metal band Kïllfũck!" He paused to power-spray the blood from my lip. "And I want you to be our new hood ornament girl in our video for Disembowel Her Slowly! If you live."
"Katrina von Pain, crown princess of the House of Pain," I answered back, coughing up some blood.
"You look fucked!" he offered. And with that, he slagged off into the corner of the garage and urinated. "Oy! That burns!" he yelled.
Things were looking up.
By and by, I decided that perchance I needed a shower to attract superior clientele. Throughout my adventuring, I had been at my cleanest and most desirable during my incarceration. The daily forced showers and fire-hose spraydowns made me moist with water. But the good old days of prison life and its alternating beatings and intimate cleansings were far behind me, and I had scarcely an ATM card, a handful of jewels, and written letters of credit from six international banks to my name now.
Then, from across the street, inspiration struck like a mob of angry union members on "Sell Your Daughter to the Factory Day". There it was- glowing with a mosquito-zapping tubular neon aura and dripping with the polluted runoff of a thousand muscle cars- a self-serve car wash. The big, bold, and brassy letters practically shouted the name: "Pay N' Spray." This was fate, surely, for "pay n' spray" was the slogan for my childhood prostitution ring. I was going to get myself cleaner than I'd ever been before, or have sex trying.
Finding some quarters in the pocket of a nearby murder victim, I carefully inserted each one into the slot, while thinking vulgar thoughts about putting things into slots. The array of options at my disposal took me aback, for I had not one but three waxes to choose from alone. Yes, I needed waxed, I decided, as my hand slid downtown. I selected a soap, wax, and spray force, then took the brush to my head and pulled the trigger. Fruity, oozing goodness in the form of pinkish foam squirted forth with a volume I had scarcely seen outside of the annual West Belgium Japanese Film Festival. Oddly, it did not taste like I imagined.
Having achieved a good lather all over, I moved to take hold of the high-pressure rinse gun, when a hot pink limousine screeched into the bay and slammed into me, bruising my body like Paris Hilton after a fight with her boyfriend. I vaguely recall writhing and moaning atop the hood, half-naked, soaked and sudsy, struggling to focus on the face of the man standing above me.
"Oy! That's her! That's our star!" he yelled to his driver, who was attempting to dislodge me from the windshield by running the wipers.
He handed me a backstage pass. "Oy! Name's Rendol Van Carthing, and I'm the lead singer for the death-metal band Kïllfũck!" He paused to power-spray the blood from my lip. "And I want you to be our new hood ornament girl in our video for Disembowel Her Slowly! If you live."
"Katrina von Pain, crown princess of the House of Pain," I answered back, coughing up some blood.
"You look fucked!" he offered. And with that, he slagged off into the corner of the garage and urinated. "Oy! That burns!" he yelled.
Things were looking up.
Chapter 13: A Little to the Left.
Freshly arrived in West Belgium, Coronado watched as his workers hastily assembled the framework for his masterpiece, a crushed-velvet portrait of Stevie Nicks, visible from outer-space. Asides from beckoning to whatever intelligent observers may gaze upon it, it also served to advertise his arrival among the populace. Few would miss the complete blockage of the sun by the enormous canvas, and Coronado felt they would appreciate his fine taste as much as they would come to swoon over his masculine ardor.
"A little to the left!" he yelled, gesturing to his left, which was their right. "There! That's perfect! Start blasting!" The workers looked at each other in confusion, for no explosives were required, and the painting's frame was now crooked, with a corner smashed through the bedroom window of the Royal Palace to boot. Coronado smiled with satisfaction at his skills as a foreman, then retired to his chambers for the day, where he was thwarted in his effort to close the shades. This was likely due to the large portion of picture framing intruding through his window. Regardless of the problem's source, it foiled his furious masturbation plans for the afternoon.
. . .
Back in what I later determined to be Florida, I found myself penniless, soggy, and utterly unsexed. Even worse, I was sober, against the Surgeon General of West Belgium's recommendation of constant intoxication. I consulted the "Booze Pyramid" pamphlet he had given me prior to his departing to tour with Phish. I had missed more than one serving of crank, the core basis of the Pills Group! This being a capitalist nation, only by finding a dedicated charity could I hope to be given free alcohol.
It was clear that if I was to return to West Belgium and regain my rightful crown, I would be paying my own way. A glowing sign marked "Girls Girls Girls" caught my eye as I wandered the streets of Miami. "What a coincidence! I'm a girl!" I thought to myself aloud, so loudly so that it was really probably spoken, or even screamed. I ambled in to inquire about employment opportunities. I was also interested in healthcare benefits, for I desperately needed any number of random prescription drugs covered immediately, and West Belgium was quite stingy with its paid medical leave.
The proprietress informed me, rudely, that as an illegal alien, I was unqualified to take off my clothing for money here. I would instead be relegated to taking off my clothing for cash in the alley outback, and I would be forced to keep everything I earned instead of giving part of it over to the American government. Such is the travesty of the nationless refugee. I thanked the woman for her time, and proceeded to kick her in the balls, which she surprisingly possessed.
. . .
My rival for the crown, Francezka, was meanwhile scheming to rob Coronado of his illegitimate title. She would raise an army and launch a coup, marching any and all forces she could recruit against him. Unfortunately, she could only muster one soldier, her loyal manservant Javier. It was an excellent chance to practice her newfangled neoconservative military stratagem, which held that the nation could be taken and occupied by a single soldier armed with a butter-knife and a Brillo pad. The grateful natives would surrender on the spot and elevate her to a goddess in thanks for their liberation! She had to call her college pal Condi and thank her for letting her borrow her notes.
. . .
At that moment, Coronado gave up trying to close the damn window and resigned himself to doing his business in the bathroom. The next day, he ordered the Stevie Nicks Project, or "Velvetron," moved six feet west and called Home Depot. It would take six weeks for the West Belgian Antiquity Society to approve the historically-accurate replacement panes, and he wanted to start the process as soon as possible. He sat down to watch television, but the knob broke off. "Well, that settles it," he thought aloud. "Spankings all around!" A program of statewide caning would shape the country up! Or at least be profitable when filmed and sold on pay-per-view.
"A little to the left!" he yelled, gesturing to his left, which was their right. "There! That's perfect! Start blasting!" The workers looked at each other in confusion, for no explosives were required, and the painting's frame was now crooked, with a corner smashed through the bedroom window of the Royal Palace to boot. Coronado smiled with satisfaction at his skills as a foreman, then retired to his chambers for the day, where he was thwarted in his effort to close the shades. This was likely due to the large portion of picture framing intruding through his window. Regardless of the problem's source, it foiled his furious masturbation plans for the afternoon.
. . .
Back in what I later determined to be Florida, I found myself penniless, soggy, and utterly unsexed. Even worse, I was sober, against the Surgeon General of West Belgium's recommendation of constant intoxication. I consulted the "Booze Pyramid" pamphlet he had given me prior to his departing to tour with Phish. I had missed more than one serving of crank, the core basis of the Pills Group! This being a capitalist nation, only by finding a dedicated charity could I hope to be given free alcohol.
It was clear that if I was to return to West Belgium and regain my rightful crown, I would be paying my own way. A glowing sign marked "Girls Girls Girls" caught my eye as I wandered the streets of Miami. "What a coincidence! I'm a girl!" I thought to myself aloud, so loudly so that it was really probably spoken, or even screamed. I ambled in to inquire about employment opportunities. I was also interested in healthcare benefits, for I desperately needed any number of random prescription drugs covered immediately, and West Belgium was quite stingy with its paid medical leave.
The proprietress informed me, rudely, that as an illegal alien, I was unqualified to take off my clothing for money here. I would instead be relegated to taking off my clothing for cash in the alley outback, and I would be forced to keep everything I earned instead of giving part of it over to the American government. Such is the travesty of the nationless refugee. I thanked the woman for her time, and proceeded to kick her in the balls, which she surprisingly possessed.
. . .
My rival for the crown, Francezka, was meanwhile scheming to rob Coronado of his illegitimate title. She would raise an army and launch a coup, marching any and all forces she could recruit against him. Unfortunately, she could only muster one soldier, her loyal manservant Javier. It was an excellent chance to practice her newfangled neoconservative military stratagem, which held that the nation could be taken and occupied by a single soldier armed with a butter-knife and a Brillo pad. The grateful natives would surrender on the spot and elevate her to a goddess in thanks for their liberation! She had to call her college pal Condi and thank her for letting her borrow her notes.
. . .
At that moment, Coronado gave up trying to close the damn window and resigned himself to doing his business in the bathroom. The next day, he ordered the Stevie Nicks Project, or "Velvetron," moved six feet west and called Home Depot. It would take six weeks for the West Belgian Antiquity Society to approve the historically-accurate replacement panes, and he wanted to start the process as soon as possible. He sat down to watch television, but the knob broke off. "Well, that settles it," he thought aloud. "Spankings all around!" A program of statewide caning would shape the country up! Or at least be profitable when filmed and sold on pay-per-view.
Chapter 12: What Was I Saying?
It was with weary anger that Francezka closed her laptop. Why, of why did things of this particular and humiliating nature always happen to her? "I am worthless." She thought aloud. "I am unable even to win my crown through an internet auction site! Specifically eBay! If only I could remember exactly how I came to lose my crown, and my kingdom! The Kingdom of West Belgium!"
No, Francezka wouldn't be doing any remembering any time soon... Every time she tried to have the least little flashback, even to whether she had used underarm deodorant that morning, she was prevented. A searing headache, obviously the end result of the work of some fiendish and easily bribed scientist, who was helping whomever (she always prided herself on using the word "whomever"), yes, whomever wanted to prevent her from taking her rightful place as Crown Princess of West Belgium! Possibly that tart who'd been taking up so many valuable chapters. If only the people knew! If only her darling Eleni hadn't left her, to pursue a Life of Evil(tm) , she would be able to remember. She would be able to reclaim her throne.
Her main obstacle, other than her inability to even recall if she'd remembered to insert the tampon when she'd gone to relieve herself, was Javier. Javier was a loyal and glistening man of the male persuasion, who happened to be her jailor. He imprisoned her with his concern, his thoughtfulness, and his ability to give oral sex for thirteen straight hours without coming up for air.
Yes... it would be impossible to go away and leave Javier....
Sometimes, Francezka worried that she was under a delusion, that, perhaps, she was not the crown princess of West Belgium at all, but merely a lunatic suffering some lunacy which made her erroneously believe that she was something she was not!
A... session... with Javier was often the only way she could extract herself from these dark fancies.
But, how was she going to handle this? Her PayPal was slow, and her internet connection was abominable. Really, it was no one's fault but AOL that she had, yet again, lost her crown!!!
She sighed, a sigh of surpassing self-pity. "Oh, why am I on dial-up???" She moaned breathily. "Why can I not have a cable modem!!!"
"My dear Francezka..." the gentle voice that drifted, much like snow, or dandruff, to her ears belonged to her darling Javier.
"Why do you torment yourself? Why do you sit here, day after day and humiliate yourself? For what, darling? If you need humiliation so, I still have that mask on the top shelf in your boudoir. You have been a bad girl, no? You need to be punished..."
"Oh, Javier, nothing will help me now... Well, perhaps the mask wouldn't be entirely remiss."
"I'll fetch it at once, Dearest!"
Francezka blinked. She peered at the monitor before her, then at Javier, who was standing, chest heaving and eyes glittering with love and absolute arousal.
"Fetch what, Javier? Wait. Did that little cyber-geek just outbid me on my crown??? Dammit all to Hell!"
And so, Javier knew, the cycle would begin again. It was the third time in half an hour that he had offered to get the mask. Perhaps the trick was to get a set of restraints... and a gag.
"My poor amnesiac Princess..." he soothed. "We need to get you some gingko biloba..."
Javier owed his rugged, carved form to his previous employment as a blacksmith. That is to say, he used to be a black man with the name of Smith. He wrote poetry under the pen name of "Alan Smithee," and his hobbies included sweating profusely in the glowing heat of the forge, whispering heavy-breathed nothings in a baritone voice, and parasailing. He was practiced in the warrior art of KOMBATO, being the first westerner to learn the dangerous skill and use it in the Kumite.
Francezka! The name blew through his ears like a suicidal gunman's final bullet, sounding eerily like "Fresca," his favorite beverage. They had first met on a reality show, "Who Wants to Steal the Crown of West Belgium?" Francezka's whiny performance threatened to get her catapulted off the island, but Javier stood up and cast his deciding vote for Gary Coleman. As the screaming midget was flung into the sky, robbed of his prize and any remaining dignity, the two made out like a couple of randy seventh-graders reading the encyclopedia entry for "sex". Javier brought Francezka to his abode when it became apparent she was unable to remember auditioning for the series, or what her own name was. As time went on, she attributed this memory flaw to the efforts of a wizard, or an unscrupulous mad scientist. Only Javier, and seventeen million viewers, knew the truth- that she had been pelted with an anvil to the face after choosing to go with Door #3 in the lightning round.
"Javier," she said, wresting him from his narrated flashback, "I know who took the crown. I know that screen name, for I had it tattooed upon my thigh! Because, you know, the wizard and everything." Javier appeared puzzled. "Coronado!" she exclaimed. "The guy who won the reality show!"
It was true. Coronado, as victor, had once been within moments of claiming the West Belgian crown, only to be told by the producers that the crown was not actually available for awarding. The producers, in their shame, fired themselves. But this was no consolation to Coronado, although the two tickets to Miami and the "Who Wants to Steal the Crown of West Belgium?" home game certainly was.
Francezka, unable to remember the game's outcome, had vowed revenge. A vow she repeated for at least three years before getting the idea to cover herself in memory-aiding tattoos, after watching a film whose title eluded her. For this reason, she was also covered in grocery lists, and sported a heart tattoo with Larry King's name on it, a memento of their seven marriages.
Chapter 11: Coronado Rides Again.
Luck was not on Sergei's side when it came to the auction of the crown. Lord Burningdeath failed to pay up, but did manage to hack his account and list Sergei's own ass for sale. It collected numerous pittance bids before Sergei noticed the anomaly and de-listed it. He was the recipient of negative feedback from would-be ass owners, but persisted in relisting the crown, this time with a reserve.
Early in the morning five days later, Sergei roused himself from the sofa and checked his auctions. Indeed, the pilfered Crown of West Belgium had met its reserve price and sold for a princely sum! So pleased was Sergei with the buyer's prompt payment that he tossed in a 1997 Girls of West Belgium calendar when he shipped the item off to Mexico City.
Ah, Mexico City. There, in the palatial Palace de la Plaza, Corporal Juan Sanchez Coronado IV awaited his new prize. The former dictator of Chile, he had assumed power by raising his hand after volunteers were sought to lead the nation. Curiously, he never got around to promoting himself, which led to a coup when a lieutenant ordered him to step down one day.
Coronado was known as a ruthless dictator, whose ambition in life was to dictate his entire life story to his secretary. He was popular with the poor for his many reforms, including banning electricity, adopting Esperanto as the official language, and tying the currency to his pant size. But true glory eluded him, and he was never able to achieve his dream of uniting Chile, Azerbaijan, and The Gap into a world power. Now, his new purchase- a shiny crown mostly devoid of DNA smears, would elevate him in prestige. Much more so than the tiara he had been sporting. And with it came a foothold in Europe- West Belgium! He could stroll right into France and take it over anytime he wanted! Those fools at The Gap would rue the day they spurned his offers!
"Woman! Fetch me my bags. Pack my things, and leave a mint on the pillow. We are moving to West Belgium," Coronado yelled to his servant girl, albeit in Esperanto. "There, destiny waits for me to claim her. I shall mount and impregnate her with the vigor of a steroid-raged stallion, and our offspring will be a glorious new empire!" The servant girl was quite relieved that someone else would be fulfilling those duties from now on.
Meanwhile, Sergei pondered what to do with his windfall. If a thousand monkeys could be chained together and eventually write a novel, perhaps a thousand people could be forced to produce something even grander! But where to find a thousand people? Sergei was filled with a healthy glow and shiny coat as the plot gelled in his head like day-old Cream of Wheat. A thousand slaves would toil day and night until the world's greatest artistic creation was produced. A work that would chisel his name into the marble halls of history, right above Kato Kaelin and just below Hitler.
The world's biggest crushed-velvet portrait of Stevie Nicks, brandishing a crystal orb and riding a unicorn. It would be visible from space.
Chapter 10: A Three-Hour Tour.
I surveyed the island for a wet bar. Cap'n Ron explained to me that he had been exiled here after his defeat at Waterloo. He also explained that he was very much insane, that he used to be the Queen of England and an astronaut, and instructed me to address him as "his Holiness" from that point forward. I conceded this point, and took a swig of "Ron Juice," the fermented grog he offered up from a coconut. It tasted similar to urine, but with confetti floating in it. I was confident that urine did not contain confetti, and that therefore I would be safe consuming this beverage, whatever it was, secure in its non-urineness. Alas, it failed to intoxicate me. I could still feel my liver.
Ron now ran an unauthorized Jimmy Buffett merchandise store on the island, and sold coconut likenesses of the singer to native tribesmen in exchange for not killing him. The tribesmen would toss the carvings into a conveniently-located volcano as sacrifices, forestalling their personal destruction for another month and allowing National Geographic photographers to take nudie pics of them for that much longer.
I confronted Ron. "Although I find your chiseled good looks and rugged eye patch most fetching, your Holiness, I must get off this island at once. I'm quite sure a massive search effort is well underway, and I do feel my dear friend Eleni may be drinking of a milk carton with my picture on it right now! The shock of my disappearance will surely fell her, and if not, I'll be sorely disappointed."
Ron responded, being torn away from a vigorous conversation he was having with imaginary tiny elves that were supposed to be attacking him. "There ain't be no way off this here island, me lady. I been marooned here nigh fifteen years. There ain't be no way off this here island."
"Have you tried making a smoke signal? Or using that radio?" I said, gesturing to the beeping, solar-powered transmitter a few yards away.
"It be pointless. You're graspin' at straws, Straw Lady!" he yelled, and did a little dance. "You may as well try to put your clothes on right-side out, or stop the bloody voices screaming for you to off yourself!" With that, he looked to and fro at the skies above him. "There! You see? You gone done angered the elves!" I was informed that, when angered, the elves became extra-pokey with their fingers, and were more prone to annoy the captain.
I must admit that having gone without sexual intercourse for a number of hours now, I was filled with randiness. Cap'n Ron's pudgy torso glistened with a mixture of brine and powdered margarita mix. I pondered doing a shot of his grog and using him as the salt-lick afterwards. His peg-leg offered endless possibilities.
"Ron! Oh, my captain! Pleasure me here, now, on the beach, and let our passions swell with the heaving of the tide! It has been far too long that I have gone without seamen. Ride, captain, ride upon your mystery ship!"
Ron shrugged, consulted with the elves, and proceeded to strip to his eye patch. In the process of removing his clothing, I noticed he also wore an identical groin-patch.
He gave it to me in the blowhole. Sand entered our most intimate of areas, our noses. At one point, a jellyfish stung Ron on the ass, but we opted to use it, and were amused at its swelling properties.
We did it long, wet, and long- at least five minutes. The seas rocked with our undertaking, and the crashing waves, courtesy of Ron's white-noise machine, added extra seaside ambience. Ron chewed on salt-tack and poured malted vinegar across my form. "Close yer eyes and picture Moby Dick," he helpfully instructed.
Finally, I deemed the process complete. I killed Ron after mating, in the hopes that by killing him, I would become him. I waited several hours, grunting and straining on the beach, but this transformation was not to be. I gave him a noble burial at sea by tying an anchor to his neck, and then waded across a small channel to the mainland of the miniature golf course.
Ron now ran an unauthorized Jimmy Buffett merchandise store on the island, and sold coconut likenesses of the singer to native tribesmen in exchange for not killing him. The tribesmen would toss the carvings into a conveniently-located volcano as sacrifices, forestalling their personal destruction for another month and allowing National Geographic photographers to take nudie pics of them for that much longer.
I confronted Ron. "Although I find your chiseled good looks and rugged eye patch most fetching, your Holiness, I must get off this island at once. I'm quite sure a massive search effort is well underway, and I do feel my dear friend Eleni may be drinking of a milk carton with my picture on it right now! The shock of my disappearance will surely fell her, and if not, I'll be sorely disappointed."
Ron responded, being torn away from a vigorous conversation he was having with imaginary tiny elves that were supposed to be attacking him. "There ain't be no way off this here island, me lady. I been marooned here nigh fifteen years. There ain't be no way off this here island."
"Have you tried making a smoke signal? Or using that radio?" I said, gesturing to the beeping, solar-powered transmitter a few yards away.
"It be pointless. You're graspin' at straws, Straw Lady!" he yelled, and did a little dance. "You may as well try to put your clothes on right-side out, or stop the bloody voices screaming for you to off yourself!" With that, he looked to and fro at the skies above him. "There! You see? You gone done angered the elves!" I was informed that, when angered, the elves became extra-pokey with their fingers, and were more prone to annoy the captain.
I must admit that having gone without sexual intercourse for a number of hours now, I was filled with randiness. Cap'n Ron's pudgy torso glistened with a mixture of brine and powdered margarita mix. I pondered doing a shot of his grog and using him as the salt-lick afterwards. His peg-leg offered endless possibilities.
"Ron! Oh, my captain! Pleasure me here, now, on the beach, and let our passions swell with the heaving of the tide! It has been far too long that I have gone without seamen. Ride, captain, ride upon your mystery ship!"
Ron shrugged, consulted with the elves, and proceeded to strip to his eye patch. In the process of removing his clothing, I noticed he also wore an identical groin-patch.
He gave it to me in the blowhole. Sand entered our most intimate of areas, our noses. At one point, a jellyfish stung Ron on the ass, but we opted to use it, and were amused at its swelling properties.
We did it long, wet, and long- at least five minutes. The seas rocked with our undertaking, and the crashing waves, courtesy of Ron's white-noise machine, added extra seaside ambience. Ron chewed on salt-tack and poured malted vinegar across my form. "Close yer eyes and picture Moby Dick," he helpfully instructed.
Finally, I deemed the process complete. I killed Ron after mating, in the hopes that by killing him, I would become him. I waited several hours, grunting and straining on the beach, but this transformation was not to be. I gave him a noble burial at sea by tying an anchor to his neck, and then waded across a small channel to the mainland of the miniature golf course.
Chapter 9: Bum Chicka-Ow-Ow.
Sergei could stand his hunger for Eleni no longer. Like an Ethiopian being digested from the inside by his own underfed stomach, Sergei buckled with uncontrollable gurgles of insatiable craving. After the neighbors called the cops on him due to the noise, he decided he simply had to have Eleni. Then. Now. At that moment. Which was then.
There was one way he could lure her back to Sifnos, where they had spent their nights of passion and days of drinking wine and eating roses. And that way was Hired Goons. He dispatched them with his trademark swiftness and efficiency, the same swiftness and efficiency that had earned him the nickname of "The Minuteman." Within hours, a report came in, that Eleni had been located and was en route back to Sifnos. Sergei knew he had to prepare his manor to receive this most special of guests. She was even more special than the Special Olympics kids he had let use the property as part of a legal settlement.
He groomed the lawn and his own thick, swarthy chest hair. "Manscaping," as he had heard the term described on Queer Eye for the Evil Villain, was supposedly attractive to women. As if he needed any help, he thought to himself! Sergei took the occasion to strain and re-oil his masculine mustache, a thick outcropping of drooping facial hair that let his potential lovers know one thing up front- that this was a man with facial hair, if you knew what that meant! And he hoped he did, for he was quite sure it meant something about unbridled virility, and he liked the concept of having that associated with himself. He finished up his self-preparation by drawing a bath of pungent cologne and soaking in it.
By and by the help dragged Eleni into the foyer, kicking and screaming. "Sergei!," she yelled.
"Why have you brought me here? You know as well as I do that ours is a coupling that cannot be! For years I've withstood your emotional coldness, the frequent beatings, and your singing in the shower! Who stood by you when you sued McDonalds for scalding you with coffee? Who supported you through the infamous Speedo affair? Who let the dogs out? I did! I DID!"
She went on. "Yes, I may love you with all the raging intensity of a wildebeest in heat, but I cannot tolerate your, um... shortcomings!" Her eyes drifted downwards.
Sergei drew back his hand and landed a bitch-slap across the starboard bow of her face. "I give you nice things! I offer you an undying passion and thick mane of back hair unmatched in the civilized world!" he chided in his vaguely European accent. "And this is how you show your immense gratitude? I will teach you a lesson, woman. A lesson in undying passion and hairy-backed carnal lust! A lesson in what it means to be truly sexed-up!"
With that, he grabbed and lifted her and carried her into the bedroom, sweating and gasping with step after step of pounding flab against the marble floor slabs echoing through the halls. He pressed his moist, livery lips against hers, continuing to breathe through his mouth. Struggling visibly to contain his bowels while bearing her weight, he dropped her three-quarters of the way onto the bed, a splayed mass of quivering and disoriented femininity.
"Yeah baby, you KNOW you like THAT," he yelped, holding his lower back as he grimaced. He threw his mustache back in the humid breeze as if he were in a shampoo commercial. Then he set the radio on AM-Light and performed a gyrating striptease to a Hall & Oates song, his hirsute form jiggling in the flat harsh light, before ripping Eleni's bodice off and mounting her. "Prepare for Sergeification!" he cried. His personal physician would later pinpoint this moment as the cause of his hernia.
Eleni found herself somewhat curious about the proceedings.
Sergei delivered satisfaction as if he were a missile-defense system locking onto its target. "BAM!" he yelled. "BAM! BAM!" It was really quite annoying. "How ya like THEM apples?" He delivered blow after unsure blow of gynoscopic force to her nether regions.
Eleni tried to focus on coital enjoyment, despite the fact she was bleeding profusely from her earlier slap, and that her hair was painfully entangled in the nightstand drawer knob. Her thoughts turned to Chinese water torture. Drip, drip. BAM! BAM! Although she was not totally convinced, she felt she may have briefly experienced some level of pleasure before it turned to an insistent pinching.
"BAM! BAM! BAM!" Sergei continued. Then, as quickly as the act began, it sputtered to an unforewarned stop, as Sergei lifted himself on his wobbly arms. "That enough for you?" He squealed with macho delight. Sweat oozed from every oily pore on his person. "How many did you have, babe?" he asked, the glaze of his juices gelatinizing across his body into an opaque hazy sludge in the stale air.
Eleni hesitated. She gave the answer she knew he wanted to hear, based on number of "BAM"s, the girth of his mustache, and the minute and a half that had elapsed. "One hundred and seventy-four, my stallion!"
"Yeah! YEAH! Now THAT'S how you get it! YARRRGHHH!" He screamed in a throaty, Howard Dean career-ending emotional outburst, flailing his arms in the air like a rodeo cowboy. Or possibly a rodeo clown. And with that final outpouring of effort, he was spent. He lost consciousness and collapsed in a cologne-drenched festering pool of his own sweat, hair, and musk, pinning Eleni to the bed for several hours beneath him until she managed to pry herself free and get a danish.
Why, oh why did she want him so? Maybe because that was the best damn lovin' she'd ever had.
There was one way he could lure her back to Sifnos, where they had spent their nights of passion and days of drinking wine and eating roses. And that way was Hired Goons. He dispatched them with his trademark swiftness and efficiency, the same swiftness and efficiency that had earned him the nickname of "The Minuteman." Within hours, a report came in, that Eleni had been located and was en route back to Sifnos. Sergei knew he had to prepare his manor to receive this most special of guests. She was even more special than the Special Olympics kids he had let use the property as part of a legal settlement.
He groomed the lawn and his own thick, swarthy chest hair. "Manscaping," as he had heard the term described on Queer Eye for the Evil Villain, was supposedly attractive to women. As if he needed any help, he thought to himself! Sergei took the occasion to strain and re-oil his masculine mustache, a thick outcropping of drooping facial hair that let his potential lovers know one thing up front- that this was a man with facial hair, if you knew what that meant! And he hoped he did, for he was quite sure it meant something about unbridled virility, and he liked the concept of having that associated with himself. He finished up his self-preparation by drawing a bath of pungent cologne and soaking in it.
By and by the help dragged Eleni into the foyer, kicking and screaming. "Sergei!," she yelled.
"Why have you brought me here? You know as well as I do that ours is a coupling that cannot be! For years I've withstood your emotional coldness, the frequent beatings, and your singing in the shower! Who stood by you when you sued McDonalds for scalding you with coffee? Who supported you through the infamous Speedo affair? Who let the dogs out? I did! I DID!"
She went on. "Yes, I may love you with all the raging intensity of a wildebeest in heat, but I cannot tolerate your, um... shortcomings!" Her eyes drifted downwards.
Sergei drew back his hand and landed a bitch-slap across the starboard bow of her face. "I give you nice things! I offer you an undying passion and thick mane of back hair unmatched in the civilized world!" he chided in his vaguely European accent. "And this is how you show your immense gratitude? I will teach you a lesson, woman. A lesson in undying passion and hairy-backed carnal lust! A lesson in what it means to be truly sexed-up!"
With that, he grabbed and lifted her and carried her into the bedroom, sweating and gasping with step after step of pounding flab against the marble floor slabs echoing through the halls. He pressed his moist, livery lips against hers, continuing to breathe through his mouth. Struggling visibly to contain his bowels while bearing her weight, he dropped her three-quarters of the way onto the bed, a splayed mass of quivering and disoriented femininity.
"Yeah baby, you KNOW you like THAT," he yelped, holding his lower back as he grimaced. He threw his mustache back in the humid breeze as if he were in a shampoo commercial. Then he set the radio on AM-Light and performed a gyrating striptease to a Hall & Oates song, his hirsute form jiggling in the flat harsh light, before ripping Eleni's bodice off and mounting her. "Prepare for Sergeification!" he cried. His personal physician would later pinpoint this moment as the cause of his hernia.
Eleni found herself somewhat curious about the proceedings.
Sergei delivered satisfaction as if he were a missile-defense system locking onto its target. "BAM!" he yelled. "BAM! BAM!" It was really quite annoying. "How ya like THEM apples?" He delivered blow after unsure blow of gynoscopic force to her nether regions.
Eleni tried to focus on coital enjoyment, despite the fact she was bleeding profusely from her earlier slap, and that her hair was painfully entangled in the nightstand drawer knob. Her thoughts turned to Chinese water torture. Drip, drip. BAM! BAM! Although she was not totally convinced, she felt she may have briefly experienced some level of pleasure before it turned to an insistent pinching.
"BAM! BAM! BAM!" Sergei continued. Then, as quickly as the act began, it sputtered to an unforewarned stop, as Sergei lifted himself on his wobbly arms. "That enough for you?" He squealed with macho delight. Sweat oozed from every oily pore on his person. "How many did you have, babe?" he asked, the glaze of his juices gelatinizing across his body into an opaque hazy sludge in the stale air.
Eleni hesitated. She gave the answer she knew he wanted to hear, based on number of "BAM"s, the girth of his mustache, and the minute and a half that had elapsed. "One hundred and seventy-four, my stallion!"
"Yeah! YEAH! Now THAT'S how you get it! YARRRGHHH!" He screamed in a throaty, Howard Dean career-ending emotional outburst, flailing his arms in the air like a rodeo cowboy. Or possibly a rodeo clown. And with that final outpouring of effort, he was spent. He lost consciousness and collapsed in a cologne-drenched festering pool of his own sweat, hair, and musk, pinning Eleni to the bed for several hours beneath him until she managed to pry herself free and get a danish.
Why, oh why did she want him so? Maybe because that was the best damn lovin' she'd ever had.
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