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.