Just A Bunch Of Hypocrites

Manhattan is an island of drunks. They say that there’s a bar for every ten people. Rusty’s down in Hell’s Kitchen was no exception. It was 9am on a Saturday and there were already ten guys drinking at the bar. If you walked into Rusty’s at anytime you could count on one of these ten guys being there, but Saturday mornings were their special meeting time. Rusty’s opened at 7 and closed at 4, and they’d be there all day.

On this particular Saturday Joey Canizzaro had to leave early. His daughter was getting married.

“To my daughter, Sophie!” Joey had a shot of JD in one hand and a Bud in the other. “She’s getting married today.”

A couple of guys cheered Joey.

“But she don’t want me there,” Joey continued. “She says I’m a drunk.”

There were some boos.

Joey settled them down. “It’s all right. I ama drunk.”

More cheers and some laughter.

“But I’ll tell you what. Even if I’m a goddamneddrunk, and even if my daughter called me up asked me not to come,” he paused for a moment, “I’m going to go to my daughter’sgoddamnedwedding!” There were cheers. “And I’m going to walk her down the goddamnaisle!”

Joey slammed back his shot. He made a sour face, and chugged the rest of his Bud. He stared at the label and remembered Sophie as a bright-eyed kid swinging in the park. She didn’t mind daddy’s drinking then. Not when he was pushing her on the swing and making her laugh.

Joey walked out into the slanty sun. Saint Nicolai was only a few blocks away, but the streets were mirrors bouncing the sun back into his eyes, and all the cars with their shiny grills were lined up against him. It was going to be a tough few blocks, especially if he had to walk past the coffin factory with its bright black coffins awaiting their final destination.

Joey knew the wedding wasn’t going to start until nine-thirty. He figured he still had plenty of time. He decided to take the long way around. That way he’d get to avoid the coffins and pass by Tito’s Wines and Liquors instead.

Joey walked into Tito’s and bought a small bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He took a couple of big swigs then he slipped it into the breast pocket of his jacket. He took out some chewing gum and walked over to the church. Sophie was going to get married to this neighborhood kid, Johnny. Johnny was a good guy. He was a butcher for Manganeros, which was the best meat shop in the Kitchen. Joey was glad that Sophie was marrying a neighborhood kid.

The bells were chiming and the door was open. Joey popped a fresh piece of gum in his mouth and climbed the old stone stairs. He saw that the doors were decorated with white streamers and above the door was a white paper bell. Joey thought that was a nice touch.

Joey wiped his brow and straightened the collar of his shirt and then stepped into the church. He breathed in the familiar frankincense that came with all Catholic churches, and it brought him right back to when he believed in Jesus.

“Joey?”

He heard a worried voice. Joey looked to his left. It was Frankie. Frankie looked ridiculous stuffed into his one good suit. His big cheeks were hanging down over the stretched collar.

“Hey, Frankie. Where’s Sophie?”

“Joey, you shouldn’t be here.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know all that. Now where’s Sophie? I just want to wish her well. Can’t a father do that?”

“Joey…”

“Frankie, I’m not asking.”

Frankie shook his head and dabbed his sweaty brow and big cheeks with his starched white handkerchief.

“She’s down there.” Frankie nodded to his left.

Joey patted him on the chest. “Thanks Frankie. You’re the best.” And then he walked on down the hall.

There was an open door at the end of the hallway. Joey looked in. There was Sophie looking like a princess dressed in all white. Her hair was long, and dyed a nice shade of blonde. Joey was glad for this moment. Even if everything else went wrong, this moment would be his forever.

Sophie took a couple of deep breaths and her tight chest expanded. A pained expression crossed her face.

“Daddy?”

“Sophie, Babydoll. Come here. I want to give you a kiss.”

“Daddy, you shouldn’t be here. I asked you not to come.” Tears started forming right away. It was just like when she was nine years old and he stumbled home drunk and demanded that the door be opened. At first, he pounded at the door and yelled, and then he pleaded and begged and that’s when the tears really started to come down.

“Babydoll, I love you. You’re my little girl.”

“Are you drunk?” Joey’s ex-wife Patricia floated into view. She was all red-lipsticked and white-faced and angry. Just like he remembered.

“Don’t start with me Patty.” Joey pointed his finger at Patty.

“Ohmigod, you aredrunk!”

Sophie held her head in her hands and cried.

“Don’t cry Babydoll. Daddy’s not here to fight.” Joey kneeled down and patted her crunchy hair. He accidently knocked some bobby pins out. He tried to put the bobby pins back in her hair. “Remember that time that you opened the door for me when Mommy locked me out? I want it to be like that again.”

Sophie shrank back. “Don’t touch me.”

Joey looked confused. “I just want to walk my baby girl down the aisle. I’m your father. I’ve got a right to do that. You understand, don’t you baby?”

“All right, that’s enough!” Patty stepped forward. Her big tanned breasts pushed towards Joey. “You have some nerve!”

Joey jabbed his thick finger at Patty. “You stay out of this! This isn’t about you!”

The Church’s organ groaned to life and the wedding march echoed off the hard stonewalls. Joey’s eyes flickered in the light.

“This is it, baby!” Joey held out his hand.

“Daddy, I don’t want you to walk me down the aisle. I don’t evenwant you to be here,” Sophie cried out.

“Somebody go get Frankie,” Patty yelled out. One of the bridesmaids ran out.

“You hear the music baby?” Joey waved towards the sound of the music. “This is it baby.”

“Daddy, your breath stinks.”

“Joey, come’on you gotta get outta here.” Someone grabbed Joey’s arm. It was Frankie. His heavy jowls shook around the tight collar of his shirt.

“Frankie, what the fuck you doing?” Joey jerked his arm away. “This is a family matter.”

“Joey, come’on. You heard the girl. She don’t want you here.”

“And, Frankie, I’m telling youI don’t want youhere.”

The organ swelled. It was time for the bride to make her entrance.

“Come on, babydoll let’s go.” Joey grabbed Sophie’s arm. He jerked her to her feet. She tried to pull away.

“Let go of her, you jerk!” Patty smashed Joey over the head with a bottle of hairspray.

“Patty, I’m warning you!” Joey raised his hand. “Don’t push me.”

Patty sprayed him in the face with some hairspray. Joey backhanded her hard across the jaw. Her red lipstick smeared across Joey’s knuckles. Frankie stepped towards Joey, but Joey kicked him in the balls. Frankie collapsed down onto one knee. Joey pulled Sophie out into the hallway, “Nnnnooooo!” she shrieked. “Daaaaadddddyyyy, Nnnnnooooo!”

“Nobody’s telling me I’m not walking my own daughter down the aisle! Nobody has the right!”

Five tiny bruises were already appearing on Sophie’s arm. The organ played on. Joey yanked Sophie to the left and they started down the aisle. There was a collective gasp from the congregation.

“Joey, what are you doing?” Someone yelled out.

“Being a goddamn father! That’s what!” Joey yelled out. “You got a problem with that?”

“Stop him!” Patty’s cheek was swollen. “Somebody, stop him!”

A bunch of big guys filled the aisle.

“Oh look, the Manganeros butcher boys are going to stop me.”

“Let go of me Daddy!” Sophie broke free of Joey’s grip.

“Sophie! Babydoll, get back here!” Joey demanded.

“Leave her alone Joey.” One of the butchers grabbed Joey’s shoulder and spun him around. It was Johnny.

“Johnny, you stay out of this!” Joey punched Johnny squarely in the jaw, but he didn’t budge. Joey tried to punch him again, but Johnny’s big fist slammed into Joey’s face. There was another slam and some noise and then Joey was out.

Joey opened his eyes and the blurry face of Father Tom the priest came into view.

“Tom, I’m her father. You understand, don’t you? I’m not a bad man.”

Father Tom pointed down at Joey. “When it’s your turn to kneel before the cross Jesus may forgive you, but right now I want you to get the Hell out of my church.”

A couple of big hands grabbed Joey’s jacket and yanked him back.

“I’m her father! I’ve got a right!” Joey yelled. The big men pulled Joey down the aisle and out the door. Once they were outside, they threw Joey down the old stone steps.

“Fuck you guys! You don’t know nothing about Jesus!”

The rest of the Manganeros butcher boys spilled out of the church and stood at the top of the steps.

“Jesus was a forgiver!” Joey yelled at those useless hypocrites. Those fuckin’ blasphemers.

Joey reached into his jacket and pulled out the bottle of Jack. He searched out Sophie on the steps. She was clinging to Johnny’s arm. Joey pointed at Sophie.

“You never loved me. You’re just an ungrateful little shit like your mother.” Joey drank down the rest of the Jack and then showed them the empty bottle. “See you in Hell.” He dropped the bottle and it clanked off the sidewalk.

Joey turned away and stumbled back to Rusty’s. This time he took the short way back. He passed the shiny black coffins and a plane passed overhead throwing its shadow down over the street. Joey shivered and looked up. It was still early, but the city was already taking on that old familiar yellowy feel of stained sheets, of struggle without success, of decay. Joey liked it like that. He pushed open the doors to Rusty’s and fell back into the darkness.

“Joey’s back!” Someone yelled out.

“Who needs fuckin’ family? They’re just a pain in your ass anyway.” Joey made a wide sweeping gesture with his hand. “You guys are the only family I need.”

“We love you too Joey,” someone joked.

Joey breathed in the thick sour smell of the bar. He was glad to be back.

 

The Man Who Had Power Over Women

Every now and then, the earth moves. Even for geeky Gruber Hoover.

He suffers from what he calls his ‘problem’. That’s why he takes a couple of extra Y-fronts when backpacking in the Peak District or along the Pennine Way. Activities also done to avoid situations that cause his embarrassing condition. City precincts, particularly in summer, tend to provoke his ‘problem’. Girls wear short dresses, tight T-shirts and often less. Thin fabrics that contour their frequently bra-less and visibly quivering breasts, and that sets off stirrings in his underpants which he can’t control. And his Y-fronts fit him as tight as a warm handshake from a friend. If he had a friend. Which he doesn’t.

Gruber is meek as a squeak, with a train-spotter’s dress-style. The recession never bothered him. He’d been a failure even during the boom. He’s also invisible. Meet him, and ten seconds later you’ve forgotten what he looks like; which is geeky. Even at thirty-two, living with Mumsie, he’s got explosions of facial acne like complex Braille texts, lank hair that’s long and greasy where it’s not already receding, and heavy-rimmed glasses as thick as bottles.

So when he’s in precincts or Shopping Malls, and its summer, he’s worked out some survival strategies. A girl, a T-shirt so sheer the nipple pigmentation and dimpled areola are not only visible, but tactile. Two playful snub-nosed mounds just begging to be petted. So first you deliberately don’t look, so as not to alert her to your intention. Walk towards her, your eyes hunting dropped coins on the pavement, or sight-cruising the Music Centres, lap-tops and DVD displays behind the reflecting shop windows. Until the last possible moment. Then look up sharply – as if surprised, pausing as long as is safe to gaze directly at the breasts. Sometimes, if that gaze lingers a nano-second beyond the acceptable limit, she intercepts your attention. Luckily Gruber is – remember, invisible, and her expression of shocked distaste soon fades as, a moment later, she’s forgotten he ever existed. Of course – if the furtive gaze had come, not from geeky Gruber, but from a good-looking hunk, her expression would be a secretive smile of approval. He knows this. Sometimes the unfairness of it all gets to him.

Public transport is also a dangerous provocation. Even before sitting down in the No.167 bus to Halifax, or the 07:46 train to Cleckmoorside, he knows the seat-vibration on his clenched buttocks will cause instant arousal. And that once arousal begins its unstoppable expansion within the tight confines of his trousers, the friction that results between the sensitive tip of the glans and the slightly coarser material of the Y-fronts will speed up the process. If there’s a girl there on the seat across the aisle it then goes into overdrive. Which is where the extra underpants become important. On a bus or a train it’s impossible to control an in-pants ejaculation – so what do you do? Stuff a handkerchief into your fly, hoping no-one notices, and bite your lip to stifle the groan? Cross you legs furiously, close your eyes, and hope against hope the ‘problem’ will subside first…? But you know it won’t.

So Gruber goes backpacking by himself in the Peak District or along the Pennine Way where he can avoid the things that bring on his ‘problem’. Humming Abba songs to himself. Sitting on a smooth rock looking over Ribbledon he can noisily chomp the cheese & tomato sandwiches Mumsie has prepared, and slurp sweet milky coffee from his red thermos. The air sharp and cool. But even here, miles from anywhere, there can be daydreams of shocking nymphs doing delectably dirty things. And his cock achieves lift-off beneath his anorak…

Of course, he’s a virgin. And would be still, were it not for the intervention of the Octopus-Alien from some Bubblegum planet.

It begins like this. He’s humming “Voulez Vous”, striding his ungainly uncoordinated gait along the drizzle-drab Pennine Way towards his planned overnight stop at Luddenthorpe, when the rapid dot of a Spacecraft cuts the clouds. Then he loses sight of it beyond the sudden jump of a hill. Until, with a spiral cavorting across a cleanly slashed sky and a sound like the air itself retching, the craft comes in low over his head. He can see it in detail now. All winking green lights and the chuntering clunking motion of something wounded.

It’s a UFO. He knows that immediately. He’s seen the blurry out-of-focus photographs and the ‘artist’s impressions’ in his magazines, The Unexplained and UFO Watcher. And now it’s coming down violently a close hundred yards away, beyond the dry-stone wall and just in front of the trees…

***

And every now and then, the earth moves.

This can’t be happening. Not to geeky Gruber Hoover. But it is.

From where he’s lying on his back on the floor of the reception hall of the B&B he can see right up Mavis Bisselrode’s dress. The effect is sensually shattering. She’s middle-aged. A little over-weight. But all Gruber can see is legs ascending to heaven above him, smooth sleek female legs that go all the way up to her stocking-tops. And the dark M&S suspenders. And the white knickers with shadowy traces of pubescence curling from beneath their lacy rim.

Only moments before he’d come lurching and staggering down from the tree-line above Luddenthorpe, his moss-green anorak scorched, his long greasy hair crisped, and his face blackened but for the two large round circles around his eyes, where his shattered glasses had been. He’d come all wonky-legged and shaky to Mrs Bisselrode’s B&B, where he’d earlier ‘phoned through a reservation, and as Mrs Mavis opens the door to his frantic buzzing, he falls inside, flat on his back, spread-eagled on the carpet. His eyes – looking straight up her dress, are glazed. His breath rasping somewhere deep in his throat, where little gasping groans get caught up in each ragged bubble of exhalation. But, there in his trousers, in instant reaction to the vista of her revealed crotch, his problem starts stirring.

“Oh, Mr Hoover, whatever’s the matter?” she gasps, her motherly concern an overwhelming thing that urges her to stoop protectively over him. So that the secret odour of her scented underwear reaches his nostrils. And the unbidden dirty thoughts storm his head even as he lies there. The knickers. The nest of coiling hair. The taste of those moist vaginal lips where the pubescence must delicately part. It’s all too much.

Her expression changes in a subtle way, as his thoughts rage feverishly out of control. Although he can’t see her face, even as she’s reaching down to help him unsteadily to his rubber legs, and shepherding him attentively up the staircase towards the room he’s been allocated. “My My Mr Hoover, what’s happened to you then, Dear? You’re in a proper state and no mistake. Here we go, not far now, just lean on me Dear, almost there. We’ll get you cleaned up quicker than a jiff.”

The door opens inwards. The room is not a large one, the ceiling slopes down towards a single dormer window. There’s a bed with a pale blue floral duvet, and a bedside table with an old-fashioned angle-poise lamp. They stumble around awkwardly. His brain on fire as he’s pressed up against her huge breasts and the aroma of her engulfs him. She sprawls him back onto the bed.

He watches her breathing heavily from her exertion. Remembers her stocking-tops in startling clarity. Savours the imagined taste of what must lie between her legs. And even as his problem goes near-critical and his imagination roars into overdrive, she reaches up under her dress, wriggles her hips in a provocatively feline way as she tugs her knickers free and down to her knees. They drop to her ankles. She steps out of them one foot at a time.

He lies on his back, spread-eagled on the duvet. And she climbs up to straddle him. “Here we go Mr Hoover. Breathe deeply now.” Lifting her dress. Her thighs bare now. A riot of pubes above the stocking tops. He’s transfixed as she moves up over him until she’s sitting gently on his face. Her hair tickles his nose. The scent is intoxicating. The vaginal lips part, flesh-pink and glistening. His tongue extends, lapping helplessly. At first a faint sourness attacks his taste-buds.

“OOOOOO Mr Hoover! That feels sonice. The late Mr Bisselrode never did anything like that to me. You naughty man!” She grinds her hips down into his face less gently now, and he’s devoured by the sweet rush of her moistures, the hard bud of her clitoris moving insistently on his agitated lips. He can hear her breath racing as he slavers and slurps unbelievingly. His cock so stiff and angry it’s almost painful, until she reaches round to slide the zip and release it shimmering and pulsing into the cool air, and into the tight grasp of her warmly enveloping fist. As he hoped she would. Her eyes grind shut with agonised concentration. He licks and laps and sucks like a man possessed. And orgasm hits him suddenly, shooting long gooey strands over her hand and over his trousers.

“Now never you mind Mr Hoover,” gasping out one word at a time, to the rhythm of his tongue on her clit. “Just keep on doing what you’re doing. We’ll get you cleaned up just as soon as you’ve finished. Then we’ll get you – and this (squeezing his messy penis affectionately) ready for whatever else you have in mind…”

***

The following morning he lies in bed trying to reconstruct it all.

It had all started so differently.

There’s a knock on the bedroom door. For a moment he can’t quite understand what the sound is. His mind turning slowly like a sluggish wheel.

Now he remembers. The UFO. The saucer that came down beyond the dry-stone wall, and just in front of the trees. Normally he’d have put as much distance between him and it as possible. But instead he found himself lumbering towards it as if wound in by an invisible spool. Over the wall he goes, rasping his ankle. Until he can see it clearly, a crashed saucer of flesh-imitating plastic, with a crawling green luminosity that crackles, faintly droning like a damaged insect. He gives his head a punch-drunk shake. His entrails move unpleasantly. A smoking hatch gull-wings open. There are chumbling light-displays set in smooth ebonite beyond. So why does he enter the wrecked ship? Some kind of Compulsion-Beam or Force-Ray. Must have been.

“Come in.” He raises up on his elbows as the bedroom door opens inwards.

“Good Morning Mr Hoover. Feeling better today, are we?” She comes into the room with a tray. There’s coffee on the tray. A silver toast-rack with fresh slices of toast slotted in. And a white carnation in a tall-stem glass. She looks about twenty-one. A younger daughter-shaped version of Mrs Mavis Bisselrode. Wistful brown eyes that closely resemble two Coco-Pops adrift in a bowl of milk. He watches her come in. And his problem begins almost immediately.

The saucer creature watches him with its single huge segmented eye. An Octopus. Or Octopoid-type thingy. He watches it, loathes it. Its disgusting warty skin repulses him. He wants to be sick over and over again. The machine noise ascends in a dangerously accelerating whirr. The whole thing is going to explode. And yet he’s helping that foul warted Octo-beast out onto the Pennine grass beneath the Yorkshire trees and beside the dry-stone wall. There must have been some kind of telepathic compulsion.

She leans over to place the tray on the bedside cabinet beside the old-fashioned angle-poise lamp. He can feel the derangement of his libido beating and pumping in response to her nearness. A rush of blood to the groin. A stiffening of… resolve. An orgy of erotic images in his head.

She smiles at him so closely he can smell the sweetness of her breath. “I’m Rosie. Mother says you were too badly shaken to come down for breakfast, so I should bring it up for you. Is there anything else you need?”

He looks at her unwaveringly, and concentrates his thoughts hard. “As you ask, yes, there issomething.” Should he? Can he? He draws the covers down breathlessly, scarcely daring to believe his new talent will work a second time.

The Octopoid is as chill and warty as a knob of well-chewed bubblegum. Its single eye watching his every move. Controlling his every move. He half-drags half-carries it leg-by-leg-by-leg towards the safety of the dry-stone wall as the ascending whine gets unbearably shrill. Then the UFO explodes. Waves of black flame as thick as oil flashing out slowly, like in a weird rental special-FX DVD. And the blackness hits them. Swallows them. Fusing them together as close as one single entity…

He looks down unbelievingly, over the skinscape of his undulating stomach. Rosie’s eyes looking up, meeting his eyes looking down. Her head in his groin bobbing up and down his engorged shaft gently. His cock trapped between the agonising tenderness of her full warm lips. Her fingers smoothly working on his balls. She even seems to be smiling her approval, although it’s difficult to tell. Only a throaty slurping noise escapes with a trickle of saliva down her chin. Telepathic compulsion. And he has it! As that warty Octopoid died he must have acquired its powers, fused into him by the blast. So that now Rosie is here cheerfully and eagerly sucking his cock.

He lies back luxuriating in the sensation, flexing his legs, toes curling in ecstasy. He took his last breath what seems like five years ago, and the way she’s sucking at him it’ll be another five before he gets to the next. The challenge is to keep his flag flying for long enough to enjoy it fully. He looks down again, thinks a different set of instructions at her. A momentary puzzlement comes into her eyes. Reluctantly she releases his cock from her mouth so it slaps wetly back up against his gut. Then she shrugs her clothes off with indecent haste. She’s agreeably rounded in an agreeably round slightly chubby Yorkshire sort of way, with generous snub-nosed breasts that bob and shimmy, just begging to be petted. And beneath them, a fan of pubic hair so rich and dark it just insists you bury your face – and other parts of your anatomy, into it. She pauses for just long enough to let him see it all, then she licks her lips determinedly, as though she can still taste his cock there, and climbs up onto him, her fingernails biting into his skin in her urgency. She flips his cock vertical to kiss her lower lips with a practised ease that says she’s done this before, and, already moist, slides down onto it with a satisfying squelch.

She leans forward – resting one hand either side of his face, so her breasts sway and jiggle hypnotically an inch from his nose as she moves up and down on him with a vulgar suction sound to provide a voluptuous audio aphrodisiac. He reaches out to trap and suck first one nipple, then the other, so large and warm each one in turn fills his mouth. And just when he can stand it no longer and begins jetting deep and wet inside her, she grinds low and moans “yes yes Mr Hoover, do it to me, do it to me, pump me full of your lovely spunk,” just like he’s willed her to…

***

Sometimes the earth moves, and sometimes it doesn’t.

How long will the effect on these women last? He dresses quickly, his shirt-tail flapping mournfully out from his pants at the back. He sneaks out the B&B – without paying, unnoticed, walking at speed down the curving road towards Luddenthorpe. He’s invisible. They won’t be able to photofit him. A No.167 bus will take him back home to Mumsie. There will be plenty more women. But first it’s important to get as far away from here as possible before they realise what they’ve done. Before they realise what he’sdone to them. And what he’s compulsion-beamed them to do to him. His groin still tingles with aftershocks. A lascivious smile spreads as he replays each moment in his head.

Other moments too. He’s thinking of that warty alien Octopoid, presumably dead – and the remains of its Starship from the Bubblegum planet. They must still be up there. Somewhere just off the Pennine Way. But no… of course, there’s no way that Gruber can know what’s really happening out there. He’s unaware of the furiously circling lights that UFO-ologists from as far apart as Huddersfield and Halifax have been reporting during the night. He doesn’t know about the alien Mothership rescue-mission hovering there in the clouds, beaming the salvage aboard, and reanimating the stunned but still-living Octopoid. Taking it home. It’s influence already receding.

It’s then that the Police car slews around the bend. Gruber cringes, cold fingers passing up and down his spine. It slows to a halt so close he can touch it. A Policewoman. She must know. She must have come for him. ‘SEXUAL HARASSMENT in the B&B’. He can see it already in the papers. On local TV reported by that nice woman announcer.

She winds the window down. He looks into her eyes. And suddenly, all that fear is replaced by that tell-tale stirring in his Y-fronts. Gruber Hoover smirks an odd and unpleasant smirk, unzips, and extracts his stiff cock. Then pokes it in through the Police car window, concentrating his thoughts on her…

It’s only later, in the cell, that it occurs to him. Charged with indecent and offensive behaviour towards the officer investigating reports of a strange explosion above Luddenthorpe. He paces up and down the confines of the cell. Slumps down onto the hard bench. Now it dawns on him, that – just possibly, the alien compulsion-effect might be a temporary thing…?

What will Mumsie say?

Then he remembers Mavis. And he remembers Rosie. His problem begins again. And this time, he has no spare Y-fronts left…

Absinthe Oranges and Alligators

It’s the Saturday before Fat Tuesday “Mardi Gras” and New Orleans is in full swing like the tits on a woman jogger. The French Quarter is so packed you can tell what flavor of gum the person next to you in the crowd is chewing. The smell of vomit, piss, and day-old beer fills the afternoon air. It’s the aroma of a decaying city that shall rise from the pestilence, the filth and garbage on Ash Wednesday.

I’d had more than I could stomach of the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. Women flashing sagging, stretched-out, wrinkled fake tits for plastic beads made in China. Drunks staggering aimlessly, unable to navigate through the throngs of fraternity boys and tourists screaming “show us your tits!”

Locals are convinced the reason New Orleans is sinking is due to the weight of all the imported beads.

I decide to get the hell outta the French Quarter and heel toe express it to St. Charles Street and catch some parades, with a more passive and less inebriated group.

The Crew of Bacchus always presents an exciting, colorful and festive parade. This year it more than lived up to their past performances. As Bacchus rolls by on his Chariot of grapes shrouded in purple, I hear the voice of an angel whispering in my ear from behind.

“Hey Sailor, looking for a good time?”

I  turn around, abruptly spilling my cup of Johnny Walker on the mysterious voice and myself.

“Of all the parades, in all the towns, in all the world, you’ve gotta show up at mine,” I say with the worst Bogey imitation ever spoken.

“Sailor, you’re suppose to drink that there whiskey, not shower in it,” she says with a smile. She wipes the spilled liquor from her chest and puts her booze-soaked fingers in my mouth.

“Yummy like sugar, huh sugar?” she whispers in a Cajun drawl that causes my heart to race.

“Tell me Santiago, you still hooked up with that coon-ass queen slut from Irish Bayou? Or do I finally get my chance to fuck you ’til tomorrow becomes a memory?”

Now, I  want to just jump on that bus of suggestion like a commuter late for work,  but I decide to play it poker style, just checking her raise. What a cosmic event, running into Gitane after five years. I knew this exotic, erotic, and somewhat toxic mulata princess from my days of living in Fat City, when she bartended at Pat’s Pub. The woman she’s referring to is Pamela, pronounced pa-mel-la, an old flame of mine that was extinguished after I finally pissed on it.

“I am no longer engaged in sharing that tangled web of lies and lunacy with that spider of a woman. She ran off with the bass player of some Aerosmut cover band. The word around Irish Bayou was that she got pregnant and he abandoned her somewhere in Nevada. Now that’s some bad fucking luck… Nevada, God’s toilet. Dream woman dream until your dreams come true!” I sing, raising my glass in a toast. I’ve since grown fond of Tyler and his band; seems I  have discovered the reason why.

Gitane grabs me and lays a kiss on my lips that would make cooked spaghetti hard again.

“Well sugar, whatya say? It’s Mardi Gras baby, time to throw out the old an bring in the new.”

“Did you say bring you in nude?” I joke.

She just smiles and grabs my hand.

“Santiago, you always make me laugh. I’ve got some LSD, a bottle of green fairy direct from France, my body achin’ for some tender loving and no one to share with. Come on sugar, we were meant to be together, this meeting wasn’t by chance! My aunt Gerty read my tea leaves yesterday and it was in the stars. You don’t wanna disappoint aunt Gerty, she jus’ might put a Gypsy curse on ya. Laissez los Bons Temps Roulez,” she sings.

Here we go, Cajun Gypsy curse, how does anyone accept this type of bullshit as gospel? I pretend to be afraid with a display of my body shaking and a terrified facial expression. It evidently doesn’t appear to be all that convincing, because she starts laughing.

“I certainly can’t chance hurtin’ aunt Gerty’s feelings,” I say, “what a callous fellow I would be.”

We start walking to her apartment on Napoleon, her arm around my waist, mine around her shoulders. Strange, but I suddenly develop a taste for a cup of hot tea with honey.

I’m not one to express my softer side, but this is turning into quite a  romantic moment. I didn’t just write that did I? I did? Damn, I must be becoming a romance novelist.

“So tell me baby, what brings you back to the Crescent City?” she pries. “You aren’t still doing that work for Marcellus, are you?”

“What work, for whom, and where did you hear such exaggerated bullshit like that? Don’t start believing rumors, Gitane. I’m just an unemployeed musician on a quest to capture those mythical golden notes belonging to the melody of magic.”

“Uh huh, and I’m really a princess kidnapped by Gypsies when I was just a baby.  Now I’m leading a life of palm and tarot card reading to make my living. I’m learning what a humble life is like before I’m discovered and restored to my throne to reign as queen, now that my mother has died.”

“I always suspected just that! You  possess a regal air about you, the demeanor of royalty.
Your Majesty, I do admire your talent for story telling.”

“Oh stop flattering me. Still your charming old self, Santi. That story is so Sam Clemens it rings of Twain. So are you?” she asks again. “You know, working?”

“Where? What work you say?”

She slaps me in a loving manner and doesn’t inquire again. However, she hit the proverbial nail on the head, driving it deep into my thoughts. I was there waiting for a load of cocaine to deliver to Chicago within the next few days.

The crowd grows as the sun begins to set, permitting the night to spill its darkness into a jealous sky pouting over the absence of its stars, their sparkle obscured by the clouds bullying their way into the space left by the sun’s retreat. The moon grows larger and brighter as the Earth turns, spinning  night’s beacon of  light into a brilliant white.

New Orleans becomes a completely different city at night. The scent of magnolia blossoms travels on every breeze. The sweet gum and oak trees appear taller and seem to scratch the sky with their fingered branches. Sounds burst through the lazy silence, celebrating with notes of noise that fill the air with the music of darkness. I watch the light from street lamps dance on her brown skin, highlighting the minute, almost invisible hairs on her arms. Her hair smells of lavender and her skin is soft like the fur of a sable.

“Santi, would you like to spend the night with me? It’s Sunday tomorrow and I don’t have to work. Thought maybe we could go to Mandeville and visit my mother and sister. We could bring a king cake, drink some home-brewed moonshine and get silly. You remember my mom and ‘dem from the Christmas party at the bar a couple of years back. She took a shine to you, ya know.”

“Can I spend the night? Baby, there was a time when I wanted to spend my life with you.  You loved me but you just didn’t know it. Sounds like a perfectly pleasant day. Yeah baby, it’s a date.”

We reach her apartment, which is actually a house that has been split down the middle, making two shotgun homes. They’re refered to as shotgun houses because you can open the front and back doors,  stand on the porch with a shotgun then shoot straight through the house. The buckshot exits out the back door without hitting a single thing.

It’s a quaint and welcoming home with lace curtains, doilies on antique tables next to an oversized davenport, covered in a crushed velvet material.

“Come on sugar, let’s take a shower. It’s in the bathroom in my bedroom. The other is outta commission right now. Come on, get outta those whiskey-soaked clothes and let me give you a dirty shower…”

I’m not really all that soiled or soaked from the whiskey incident, but I’m certainly not going to object to a dirty shower. I’m naked in a matter of seconds, sitting on the bed as I watch her undress. She turns on the radio and dances, performing a strip tease for my pleasure.

“Mardi Gras mambo, Mardi Gras mambo down in New Orleans…”

I’m totally captivated by her body and the way she gives purpose to rhythm of the melody. She reaches into her dresser and pulls out a small bottle containing the acid. She floats over to me and places a tab on my tongue, which dissolves in my mouth. Pulling at my arm after consuming her own dose, she leads me into the shower. The water pulsates from one of those adjustible spray shower heads with a thousand different settings.

“I see you left the setting on masturbate. How can any man compete with an instrument  that possesses the ability to provide non-stop, pulsating pleasure?”

“Don’t embarrass me sugar. Yes I use the shower to pleasure myself from time to time, but it’s  a poor substitute for a man. There’s no intimacy, no loving touch, no body next to you, skin to skin. The excitement of his breath becoming more and more rapid, the sound of his heartbeat…”

While lathering up a bar of soap between her hands, she gets on her knees and takes my cock into her mouth, gliding back and forth in slow motion. After a few minutes, her hands begin to move smoothly in short strokes up and down the shaft.

I cum long and hard, groaning in pleasure, my legs weak and shaking as she stands, tenderly kissing my body all the way back up. Her lips are soft and velvety, her tongue moving slowly, passionately in my mouth.

She stops and whispers, “Did you enjoy your dirty shower sugar?”

I’m at a loss for words, literally unable to utter a syllable. Gitane start to laugh but I can’t find any humor in my dilemma. I am beginning to feel the LSD coming on. My mind is lucid and my body is experiencing rushes that originate from my head, trickling down to my lower extremities. I exit the shower and Gitane is lying naked on the bed waving a multicolored scarf above her head, totally mesmerized.

“Baby, are you getting off on the acid?” she asks.

“Yes, I’m fucking tripping heavy baby. Like someone climbing the stairs with their shoe laces tied together, this shit is awesome. Hey Majesty, I’m going to put on some music, open the bottle of absinthe and release the green fairy. Do you want a cocktail baby? Of course you do, what am I thinking? I’m going to “louche” the absinthe, do you have sugar cubes?”

Suddenly I realize that I am speaking out loud.  I’m curious why light bulbs are  shaped like they are and start thinking of how profound and crucial the question has become. I find a gap in the traffic of thought rushing through my mind, remembering that I was going to do something that required sugar cubes.

“Santi, do think that clouds are good things or a bad things? I mean they bring storms, rain, snow and they unleash violent tornados and hurricanes that destroy things, but they are so alluring and pretty… They look so puffy and soft, creating different pictures shaped like almost everything. They’re like art in the sky, they’re the angel’s Play Doh…”

I’d feel a bit silly and quite embarrassed if I were to bring up my light bulb epiphany just then. It seems so trite compared to Gitane’s deep observation.

“Gitane, that was beautiful and profound,” I tell her. “The manner in which you expressed your thought was classic Joyce Kilmer. She was the poet that wrote the poem about the beauty of a tree. The angel’s Play Doh! Classic, baby…”

I decide to put on her robe. It’s one of those satiny materials with a feathered boa attached to the neck line. I take a look at myself in her full-length mirror hanging on the closet door, and I’m surprised at how attractive I appear.

“Santi, are you a crossdresser?” she screams. “You like wearing women’s clothes! Let me dress you up, please, it will be so much fun! I think there’s film left in my camera.”

“I’ll indulge your obsession to dress me up, but no fucking pictures. I need to put on some music, then pour us some absinthe that I’m going to louche. Now, do you have any sugar cubes, for the second time?”

She awakes from her LSD trance and momentarily grasps a small portion of reality, just enough to answer my inquiry.

“If you louche, you’re gonna need sugar cubes, Santi. You’ll find them in the left upper cabinet by the sink, and the absinthe spoons are in the drawer under the same cabinet.”

If you’re not familiar with absinthe, a quick lesson: It’s a spirit that originated in Switzerland. The wormwood tree provides the major ingredient, producing cognitive brain functions leading to hallucinations when consumed in excess. It gained its popularity in France, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many artists and writers such as Hemingway, Poe, Rimbaud, Lautrec, Picaso, and Van Gogh all chased the green fairy, believing it enhanced their creative abilities. I drink it because I become sexually aroused and it creates intimacy, much like ectasy or mescaline.

Gitane enters the kitchen as I’m pouring the absinthe over a sugar cube. It slowly drips into the glass from a spoon with holes acting as a sieve.

“Santi, I want an absinthe cocktail now…” she whines.

“Almost ready baby, damn you look incredible, absolutely gorgeous. You are a vision of lovliness.” My comment  was the gospel truth; she is more than I ever imagined, a classic work of art.

The absinthe was ready, and our glasses clink in a silent toast accompanied by her sensual smile.  Some  spills on her chest as she shoots the entire glass down. The drops  roll down her breasts from her chest to her stomach, tiny green tears of pleasure begging for my lips to sip the green droplets from her body. After licking the drizzled liquor from her breasts I drop to my knees and begin to suck it from her stomach. She pulls my head against her and I do not resist. Purposefully, she spills a bit more, giggling as the absinthe cascades down her body and into my eager mouth.

“Santi, I want sex but it’s different than what you may be use to…” she says.

Different than what I may be use to? I hardly think so! I’m no Don Juan or Cyrano, but I’ve been around the block a few times and have experienced some strange sexual practices.

“Sure baby, anything you want,” I  say, “just tell Santi.”

She walks to the refrigerator and retrieves a large bag of oranges. Alright, orange body shots, I  happily assume is our recreational sex game. She sets the bag of oranges on the table and walks back to the fridge, placing her back against it. She looks at me and smiles.

“Now Santi, throw an orange at me please…”

Without hesitation, I rip open the bag, grab an orange, and casually lob the fruit at Gitane. She makes no attempt to catch the orange, and it bounces off her left breast.

“Yes baby, but harder!” she instructs. “Throw it at me harder, I  want to cum…”

I grab another and throw it with more force. It makes its mark just above her pussy, leaving a large red spot no her groin.

She’s moaning like a cat in heat, screaming, “Yes baby, yes, harder, again harder!”

I grab another orange, wind up like a big league pitcher and let it go. The fruit strikes her belly and I  respond quickly with another then another. I continue with a barrage of oranges, hitting her tits and legs. She spreads her legs and with her fingers she opens her vagina.

“Here baby, here, come on Santi! I’m so close to cumming….”

I’ve tried to win those ridiculous stuffed animals at county fairs and carnivals, throwing balls at targets with no success. Now I needed to hone my skills and make an accurate throw.

I wind up and bingo, I hit the spot!

She writhes and moans in pleasure, fingers rapidly stroking her clitoris. I must admit, in all my years of sexual activity, I  have never encountered this type of sexual gratification before. I’m totally aroused and ready to respond in kind. I walk over to her, turn her around, and immediately enter her from behind.

She screams, “Harder Santi, harder!” I comply with her request and slam myself into her, finally cumming in triumph.

It is then hear something knocking, a loud pounding from what I  think is out back.

“What the hell is that noise? Do you hear that, Gitane?”

“It’s nothing,” she assures me, “just the wind blowing a tree against the house.”

Then, again, the sound like someone slapping the wall or the door.

“Let’s have another absinthe, Santi,” she suggests. “You can lick the juice off of my body…”

I whip up two more large portions of the green fairy, and we both down them with one gulp. Gitane hugs me tight, the sticky remnants of oranges sticking to our bodies.

“Is everything okay, Santi?” she asks. “You don’t think I’m strange for enjoying that type of sexual stimulus, do you?”

“Yes baby, I do find it strange and unusual,  but does it bother me or cause me to not want to participate? No. Did you think it would make me uncomfortable? I’m a pleaser angel, at times to a flawed degree. No, it doesn’t bother me, and I’m grateful you have such trust  to share your predilection with me. Although,” I think to add, “I  wouldn’t use apples or pears or anything harder than grapefruit.”

Truth is it didn’t disturb me at all. I found it strangely erotic and sexy.

By this point, the LSD has leveled off to a mellow high, and I fix us another round of cocktails. Gitane embraces me and places her head against my chest, rocking  side to side to the music playing in the other room. Again I  hear that fucking slammimg and slapping sound coming from somewhere on the other side of the wall.

“What the fuck is that noise?” I ask her again.

“It’s the wind, like I  said before. Just the wind!”

I look out the kitchen window and observe the stillness of the trees and other plants. There’s not the rustling of a single leaf.

She walks into her bedroom, signaling for me to follow.

“Come on sugar, take a shower with me. I’ll let you wash me any place you want, come on sugar…”

Just as I take a step in her direction, I hear the disturbance again. This time I’m determinded to investigate it. I turn and march toward the back door and the bathroom she said is out of order.

“Santi, no!” she screams. “Do not open that door!”

It’s too late, my hand has already turned the knob and I push the door open. I fumble for the light on the wall, flicking the switch as my ears begin to register a loud, throaty hissing. Suddenly a four-foot alligator comes lurching at me from the darkness. I nearly fall on my ass, screaming like a schoolgirl as I stumbled back out of the bathroom.

The gator lunges at me again with its mouth wide open, displaying enormous teeth lining its huge pink mouth. I figure that this is the end. I’m dinner for some fucking alligator. I accept my fate, but before I can become gator bait, I feel Gitane’s hands gripping my arms.  She tugs at my body, freeing me from the impending doom. The gator’s mouth snaps shut within inches of my leg. With Gitane’s assistance, I finally scramble to my feet and make a mad dash to the safety of the living room.

“Gitane, what the fuck are you doing with an alligator in your bathroom? That son of bitch nearly killed me!” I scream. “Are you missing some god damn brain cells? What the fuck are you thinking, you lunatic!”

She coaxes the monster back into the bathroom and shuts the door. She’s laughing hysterically, pointing at me now, trying to comment but she’s unable to speak through her laughter.

Finally, she’s out of breath, still reeling from the excitement.

“Oh Santi,” she says, “you should have seen yourself, you were so scared!”

“Scared, scared you say! I  was fucking terrified, totally panic strickened. You pulled me out just in time, and not a second too late. Seriously, why the hell do you have that monster son of a bitch living in your bathroom, tell me?”

“He was just a baby when I found him washed up on the street from the last hurricane. I felt badly for him, so i brought him home and put him in the bathtub and gave him a home.  He grew so quickly, I just kept him as company. His name is Gawain, after Sir….”

“Yeah,” I interrupt, “I know who the hell Gawain is!”

“It’s time for a drink!” she yells enthusiastically.

“Is that door secured, is it locked?” I ask. “I don’t want that bastard getting a second chance! You realize you can’t keep him, don’t you? Call the zoo or that alligator hunter guy on TV. He’s only gonna grow larger. He should be in the swamp, not your bathroom, baby.”

“I know that I can’t keep him… Will you help me find a home for him, Santi?”

“Gladly, it will be my pleasure.”

We partied into the wee hours of the morning, finishing off the bottle of absinthe and occasionally laughing at the alligator incident.

I wake up to discover I’m dressed in a plaid skirt, a crew-neck blouse, and fucking panty hose. I’m wearing one glittery sandle with my hair tied up on top. I make my way to the bathroom and my reflection scares the shit out of me. Unlike last night, the mirror hanging on the closet door betrays me this time. My lips are painted with a bright shade of shocking red lipstick, my eyes with blue eye shadow and mascara. More than anything else, I resemble an old, washed-up hooker. I’m wearing dangly silver earrings and a too-tight bra that is presently strangling my chest.

“Oh, Santiago,” I whisper to myself, “you incredibly submissive fool…”