The Woman Who Loved Floppy Hats

Loretta Blissful was a very attractive and sexy twenty seven year old and had an untamed and insatiable appetite for the opposite sex. She had been married and divorced nine times; a commitment to just one man was impossible for her.

One man was never enough.

Loretta liked to think of herself as a sexual vampire with an unquenchable thirst for cock. No matter how deeply Loretta’s love for each of her nine husbands, she could simply not resist the urge, the opportunities, the lust to pursue other men for sexual conquests and adventures. She simply could not help herself; her passion was her demon and she loved her demon well.

Loretta naturally knew the type of man she wanted, and this varied according to how she was feeling, but she no longer pursued fat guys; she had experienced a couple of fat guys and on both occasions found the scene to be limited and awkward and damn right uncomfortable, and she had felt nothing but a big fat disappointment.

Loretta had personal standards, too; there were some party-tricks that she would not engage in whatsoever, but there is no reason to go into all that detail right now.

Tonight Loretta was sat alone in one of her regular and most successful of pick-up joints, a seedy club called ‘The Purple Snake’. She cast her eyes around the place, checking what was on the menu. She took a sip of her vodka on ice and set the glass back on her table.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

Loretta looked up and was impressed by what she saw. “Yes, it would be my pleasure”

“I’m Duncan Weatherby,” he said, offering an outstretched hand, “pleased to meet you.”

Duncan was a smooth-looking twenty four old who was presently recovering from a treacherous relationship that had broken him to pieces, but his eyes shone bright and his voice was deep and confident.

“I’m Loretta,” she said, taking his hand as Duncan stumbled into her web.

The two struck up some easy and warm conversation. Loretta knew that Duncan found her attractive, and she found him appealing as well. At approximately 10pm, she decided to make her move.

“Duncan, would you like to join me for a nightcap? I don’t live far from here…”

Duncan did not hesitate; he was eager and he was keen and he hadn’t been laid in a long while. He was bursting with excitement and could hardly contain himself or the graphic thoughts that were now streaming through his head.

“Yes, that sounds like a great idea,” he said. “We can get a cab.”

Together they left ‘The Purple Snake’, and ten minutes later they were in Loretta’s apartment. She had fixed some drinks and put some Sibelius on the hi-fi. They sat beside each other on the sofa, both of them wondering who was going to make the first move, but actually there was no question who was going to make the first move; it was Loretta.

“Dunky, would you like to get funky?” Loretta asked, smiling with lust in her eyes.

Duncan said nothing in response, nodding his head vigorously.

“Then Dunky, you follow me…”

Loretta rose from the sofa and walked down the hallway, proceeding to her bedroom with Duncan just a few perspiring steps behind.

As she launched herself onto the bed and began peeling off her clothes, Duncan dived right after, removing his own clothing as well as they kissed and groped one another.

A few moments into the adventure, Loretta cried out, “Dunky, stop! STOP, Dunky!”

Duncan stopped and rolled off of her in shock; things had seemed to be going well. He didn’t know what he had done wrong; he was definitely out of practice, but he still knew a thing or two.

“It’s not you Dunky,” Loretta explained, “it’s me, really it’s me! Something’s just missing…”

“Missing? And what’s that?”

“Would you do something for me, something that would make everything alright..?”

Duncan nodded his head, telling her “I’ll do anything, anything you ask!”

“Okay…” Loretta said. “Behind you, in a row against the wall, are twelve hat stands.

Duncan glanced over his shoulder and noticed her impressive collection of hats for the first time.

“Go to the first hat stand on the left and choose a hat, any hat, just choose one and choose one quickly! GO DUNKY GO!”

Duncan had never seen so may hats in all his life, a dozen hat stands with dozens upon dozens of hats upon each of them. It was quite the sight; hats of all different shapes, styles, sizes, and colours. It was honestly a bit overwhelming, being suddenly forced to choose one.

Then, suddenly, without further hesitation, Duncan lunged in all his nudity for the first hatstand on the left, grabbing a bright blue beret adorned with ridiculous plastic flowers. As he slapped it down onto his head, several of the flowers came loose and fell to the floor.

He leapt back onto the bed and resumed his passionate lovemaking, shedding plastic flowers all over Loretta and her bed as he rammed it home.

He was in mid-stroke when Loretta abruptly cried, “STOP DUNKY IT ISN’T RIGHT, IT’S NOT WORKING FOR ME! STOP! DUNKY! STOP!”

Duncan pulled out and looked at Loretta with wild confusion in his eyes. “What the fuck is it?” he gasped between breaths. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s the hat Dunky, it just isn’t the right one; you’ll have to try another. Go to the second hat stand on the left and grab a hat and DO IT NOW, I’M REALLY HOT FOR YOU DUNKY!”

Again, Duncan launched off the bed, this time coming back with a bright red and yellow sunhat with a wide plastic brim. Duncan slammed it down on his head and wasted no time at all jumping back on Loretta.

He hadn’t been going at her very long before she cried out once again, “STOP DUNKY! STOP! IT’S JUST NOT RIGHT! SOMETHING IS NOT WORKING! STOP DUNKY!”

“It’s the fucking hat again, isn’t it?” Duncan said. “WHAT IS IT WITH THESE FUCKING HATS?”

“DUNCAN, I’M HOT AND I NEED YOU INSIDE ME NOW! PLEASE, GO TO THE FIFTH HAT STAND FROM THE LEFT AND GET A HAT! IT’LL WORK THIS TIME, GO DUNKY GO!”

Once again, Duncan scrambled off the bed, grabbing a hat without looking from the designated hat stand. This one was a lustrous leather Australian outback hat with scores of wine corks dangling from its brim. They assaulted his face as he dashed back into bed, but he ignored the annoyance and got back down to business.

Within a few moments Loretta screamed, “NO DUNKY! STOP! YOU MUST STOP DUNKY! IT JUST ISN’T RIGHT!”

Duncan backed off of her, ripped the hat from off his head and threw it across the room.

“FUCKING HATS! FUCKING HATS!” he screamed in frustration. “FUCKING GODDAMN ROTTEN HATS!”

“DUNKY! I HAVE IT! THIS TIME I KNOW IT WILL WORK! DUNKY GO TO THE WARDROBE AND THERE YOU WILL FIND THE SPECIAL HAT THAT IS MAGIC! GO GET IT DUNKY! IN THE WARDROBE! GO DUNKY GO!”

With some reservation this time, Duncan raced over to the wardrobe and threw open its doors. He looked inside and had to take a step back to appreciate the view. It was the biggest fucking hat he had ever seen! A monstrous violet velvet Stetson, which he promptly snatched and heaved up onto his head.

Darkness overtook him as the huge floppy brim swallowed him to his knees. Stumbling towards the bed, he crashed into the nightstand and banged his kneecap on its corner, whereupon he tripped and fell face-first onto the floor. He lay there as he felt the warm ooze of blood begin to trickle from his nose.

All the while, Loretta kept screaming, “DUNKY! DUNKY! OVER HERE! I’M HOT AND WAITING FOR YOU DUNKY! QUICKLY! QUICKLY! HURRY! HURRY DUNKY!”

With the last of his strength and patience, Duncan wrestled himself and the massive hat up onto the bed. Loretta crawled in there with him and together they fucked beneath its floppy brim.

Within a moments, Loretta was writhing in ecstasy.

“OH! OH, DUNKY THIS IS IT! THIS IT IT! DUNKY! I’TS WORKING DUNKY! IT’S WORKING! OH DUNKY MARRY ME! MARRY ME DUNKY!”

Duncan couldn’t see what he was doing in the darkness, he had a mouthful of lint, his nose was bleeding and his knee seemed seriously injured, but one thing he knew for sure:

He was having the ride of his fucking life.

Requiem for an Ass

My girlfriend gets fed up with all the people who are always staring at her ass, so one day she locks herself in the bathroom with a giant kitchen knife and chops off both of her buttocks, just like that. They would’ve sew them back on at the hospital, but she lies and says she lost them.

Actually we keep them in a cardboard box on the top of the wardrobe, and I’m the only one who get to look at them. But one night someone breaks into our house, and I find a stranger sitting on our floor with the box in his lap.

He is staring at its contents.

“Get the fuck out!” I shout at him. “Stop staring my girlfriend’s ass!”

I kick him out of the door and I return the cardboard box to its place on top of the wardrobe. But around midnight, we awake to find that someone has break into our apartment again – there are now two middle-aged men standing in the living room, the open box at their feet, and they are gazing down at the cut-off buttcheeks inside.

“Filthy pigs!” my girlfriend screams.

I chase them out from the house with a broom stick.

Afterwards, we agree that I’ll take her ass up into the attic, which sadly means I’ll have to climb the ladder every time I want to pinch her butt.

So next day, I find four strangers up there, just sitting in a circle around the box. It looks like they are in some kind of deep meditation state, transfixed by twin mounds of ass-meat within.

Before they’ve even noticed me, I grab the box and hurry back down the ladder.

At the moment, we’re keeping the box in a locked drawer. I carry the key on a string around my neck. Every now and then, a stranger sneaks into our home and peeps through the drawer’s keyhole.

My girlfriend’s wounds are healing, but she still looks kind of like an apple someone took a couple bites from. Every time we make love, we take her buttocks out from the drawer.

I put on some latino music, and I tell her: “Shake your ass, baby!” So she begins to shake the cardboard box in her hands – her buttocks bouncing around inside.

With the use of some adhesive tape, we temporarily reattach her butt back onto her, and she gives me a really nice lap dance. The adhesive tape isn’t almighty, however, and she leaves one of her asscheeks in my lap.

It’s a bit awkward, but she smiles just the same, snatching up her asscheek and rubbing me with it like it was a sponge or something. The strangely preserved meat leaves a odd slime all over my skin.

I gaze at the small black dot on the asscheek in her hand – the lovely birthmark that brings back so many fond memories. It is then that a small, wriggling worm squirms out from under it. My girlfriend screams and throws her asscheek to the floor.

We always knew there was something special about that ass, but even an ass that great can’t resist decomposition forever.

After a few days, my girlfriend’s butt ends up in the trash. Now strangers are gathering around the garbage can out front, unable to take their eyes off it for a second. It seems my girlfriend doesn’t care anymore that they are staring at her butt. Instead, she seems to miss it for the first time.

“But there are many things more important than a butt, right?” she asks through welling tears.

“Of course,” I tell her, as they all come to mind.

The morning stretching, for example. Or walking in a forest. The marrow-melting sadness of the snapping of deer antlers. The calmness of long forgotten costumes, the silent swinging of the coat hangers in a dusty old wardrobe. The gold resin drops hanging from wounded trees – my mother used to say they were the honeyed teardrops of angels.

These are all more important than an ass, to be frank.

The wet milk skin of puberty, when adulthood gathers in the corners of your eyes, like morning rose spores. The drying gypsum sculptures of the secret thoughts in your skull. The vanishing pulsation of the stolen body heat after holding hands. All of these are more important than having an ass.

There are many more important things, I tell myself, joining the long line that has formed down the block for a peek at my girlfriend’s butt.

Thy Brother’s Keeper

Iron Mary poured thick, chicory-laced coffee into two chipped mugs and set them on the three-legged, formica-topped table propped into one corner of her kitchen. Easing herself onto a rickety, straight-backed chair she nudged a tin of evaporated milk toward her brother.

Picking up the tin, Grady poured until his coffee was the color of brown sugar then returned it to the table and tapped the silver top with a blunt fingertip. Squinting one eye nearly closed he grinned across the table. “You remember what we used to say after Ma started buying this canned cow?

“No tits to pull

No shit to pitch.

Just punch a hole

In the sonuvabitch.”

His grin broadened as Iron Mary threw back her head and laughed. When she righted herself there was a dribble of tobacco juice at one corner of her mouth.

“How long’ve you lived here now, Sis?”

Iron Mary slurped her coffee and looked around the room. Scrunching up her face she spat into the Old Luzianne can that served as spittoon. “Thirty year come fall,” she said in a voice thick with phlegm . . . then added, “Mebbe thirty-one.”

“And nobody left now but you.”

“Well, me ’n that damned billy goat,” she nodded toward the yard outside the window. “He wouldn’t stay around ‘cept nobody else’ll bake him biscuits. The mangy bastard ate the tops off two rows of my winter carrots last week. If I could find the bullets to my rifle I’d shoot him, if I could find my rifle. I’d shoot him right between the eyes only he’s so hard headed it prob’ly wouldn’t take. Why’d you ask?”

“Oh, I was just thinking about all the people who’re gone,” Grady said. Staring out the back door at what had once been a piddling town but was now nothing but collapsed buildings and overgrown lots, he sighed. “The place sure lived up to its name, huh?”

Iron Mary cackled at that, the dribble of tobacco juice turning into a trickle she had to wipe away with the leathery palm of her hand. “You’re remembering what Ma said, ain’t you?”

Grady nodded.

“We come up the hill in that old yella pick-up truck with the burnt-out clutch. Me, you, and Buell in the back; Ma and Pa up front. Took us what, two and a half, three hours to climb the mountain? Pa stopping every couple of miles to fill the radiator and Ma getting madder every time he pulled over. Uprooted was the word she used, wadn’t it? Uprooted and moved with never so much as a do-you-mind, is what she said. Then after the longest time we turned yonder at the bottom of what ended up being Main Street. Pa puffed up big and proud as a peacock, Whataya think, darling? he asked Ma. Seems mighty small, she says with a sniff. That kind of put him off so he tells her he somehow recollected the place as being bigger than this. Well, Ma says, it sure as hell must a’ shrunk.”

Iron Mary laughed so hard she hiccupped, then spat into the coffee can and slurped from her mug. “By the time they got around to giving us a post office Pa’s store was doing so good nobody argued when he said that ought to be the name of the place . . . Mustashrunk.”

“Ma never did think it was funny,” Grady grinned.

“Can you blame her?” Iron Mary’s voice took on an edge. “Little pissant town in the middle of the road and her without a friend or neighbor to her name.”

Grady took time to roll and light a cigarette before returning the Prince Albert can to his hip pocket and wiping at the table top with a callused hand. “I miss her, Sis, you know? Her being gone all these years and I still miss her something fierce. Pa, too.”

“If you’d ever settled down with a good woman it’d be easier for you now,” Iron Mary said.

“Sure,” Grady said derisively. “Like having a man around ever did you a lot of good. Twice widowed and your kids never coming to visit. What do you get for your trouble, Christmas cards from California?”

Iron Mary took her time getting up from the table. Crossing to the chipped enamel sink she gazed out the window at the thickening dusk. “Lookit that damned goat,” she muttered. “Standing spraddle-legged in the middle of my garden deciding what he’s gonna eat next. The sonuvabitch done got half a row of beets.” Rapping sharply on the pane with bony knuckles she hollered through the glass. “GET OUTTA THERE YOU MANGY, LOP-EARED BASTARD! AND STAY OUT ELSE I’LL BARBECUE YOUR SPOTTED ASS.”

Fetching the coffee from the stove she refilled their mugs then resumed her seat and sighed.

“It ain’t as bad as you make out, Grady. My daughters done good for themselves. It’s only their husbands I can’t abide me. I don’t blame the girls for staying away; a woman’s first loyalty is to her man. God knows I was loyal to mine, both of ’em. Me and that four-poster bed in yonder plumb wore the first one out. The way we went at it it’s a wonder I ain’t got a dozen chil’run. And the second one was just as randy. Yes sir, I always did like my lovin’. Still do, ‘cept finding a willing partner ain’t as easy these days.” She cleared her throat and emptied it into the coffee can. “The fact I don’t have steady company’s no reason you shouldn’t be warm at night. Don’t you get tired living alone?”

Grady stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray then reached again for the condensed milk. “I reckon I do, but who’d have me? When I was a younger man I was too worried about whiskey, horses and the kind of gal I daren’t bring home. Now I’m three years into social security and live in a shack that makes this place look like something special. I got two hun’erd dollars in the bank, a crippled hound near old as me, a Massey Ferguson tractor that runs half the time, and just enough corn to keep my hogs fed through the winter if we don’t get a long spell of snow. My knees creak like hick’ry splits, my teeth were made by a jackleg dentist, and I don’t shave these days as it’s easier not to. I smell of farts and failure, Sis. Oh yeah, I’m a door prize.”

“That depends on who you talk to,” Iron Mary wiped a thread of tobacco juice from her chin.  “Esther McClung’d give her eyeteeth to get you, assuming she had any. She asks of you every time I see her. She gets a faraway look in her eye when your name comes up, Grady. Was she a younger woman I’d call her giddy.”

“Ester McClung,” he snorted. “Now that’d be a match, wouldn’t it? She’d have me cleaned up, watered down, and sitting in the front pew at church before I got my duffle unpacked. Why I’d be tiptoeing around her house in sock feet afraid to scuff the carpet. And Lord knows she’d all the time be pestering me to do this, do that, or do something else. Ester McClung? No thank you, ma’am.”

“What about Imogene Walkup then? There’s a woman to keep your back warm come cold weather. Living above the drugstore the way she does, your place’d seem a mansion to her. Imogene likes her pork, too. She’s always asking after your hogs.”

“No wonder, fat as she is. I’m not sure I got enough corn to keep her fed all winter.”

“Well, I’m beginning to see why you sleep alone, Grady. Your problem is you’re too damn particular and that’s not good in a man your age.” With that Iron Mary folded her hands and pursed her lips, staring down into her lap.

Grady extracted the Prince Albert can from his back pocket and took his time rolling another cigarette. He lit it with a kitchen match and took a deep drag. When Iron Mary refused to look up from her lap he sighed.

“Understand me, Sis. I ain’t gonna do it,” he said softly. Before she could protest, he continued, “Ever’ time you start talking about women lusting after me it ends up this same way—you wanting me to move in here. I ‘preciate your concern, truly I do. But the answer is no just like it was the last time this come up and will be the next. You know I love you, Sis. And I know you’re as lonely as I am, but it just ain’t right.”

Embarrassed, Iron Mary sniffled. Looking up from under a long hank of gray hair she took in a whistling breath and let it out slowly. “Buell didn’t see the wrong in it,” she reminded him quietly. “It didn’t hurt him none, neither, if you ask me,” she added lamely.

“That’s not the point and you know it. Besides, Buell’s dead. I ought to know, I buried him.”

“I still can’t believe the two of you fought over me.”

“Not over you, Sis—about you. It ain’t the same thing.”

“What do they call it, what you done?”

“It’s called fratricide and it’s a sin.”

“We’re all sinners, Grady. That’s the thing of it.”

“The thing of it is I’m searching for redemption.”

“Well, it ain’t like you and me never done it before, Grady.”

“That was then, Sis, this is now. Christ, we were kids. We didn’t know any better. Leastways I didn’t know any better.”

“Buell weren’t a kid these last several years. He knew better and still liked it just fine.”

Grady simply looked at her.

“Come on to bed with me, Grady,” Iron Mary said. “The night get long and I’m chilled to the bone.”

“I can’t, Sis,” Grady’s face knotted up until it looked like a clenched fist. “I won’t,” his voice cracked over the word.

Iron Mary rose from the table and went to the sink again. Peering out the window she hissed, “Lookit that sonuvabitch.” Clawing to throw up the sash she stuck out her head and screamed, “GET OUTTA THERE YOU HEATHEN FROM HELL! TOUCH ANOTHER ONE OF THEM CABBAGES AND I’LL CASTRATE YOU!”

Slamming the window shut she backhanded a jelly glass off the drain board onto the floor where it skittered across the worn linoleum. “God damn,” she spat. “I do not know why I put up with that critter!”

With her back to her brother, Iron Mary stood frozen for several minutes while the silence grew until it was somehow louder than her yelling had been. Turning from the window she leaned across the table and rested her weight on stiffened arms. Her face was inches from Grady’s, half-curtained by a stringy hank of hair. She caught his eyes with hers, her gaze pinning him to the chair like an insect specimen. Her face was creased, like wadded cloth, a soft brown trickle of tobacco juice at one corner of her mouth.

“I’m going to my room now,” she said softly. “Be sure to turn off the light before you come in.”

Grady stared up at her. After a moment he blinked.

“Or before I leave,” he said.

“Or that,” Iron Mary pushed herself upright. Using her tongue to work the plug of tobacco from her cheek she spat it into the coffee can. Wiping her chin dry she smoothed the wrinkled front of her dress with nervous hands, her bony fingers plucking lightly at the buttons as she turned from the table in an arthritic pirouette.

She paused at the kitchen doorway.

“You and me’re all either of us got left, Grady,” she told his back. “Hell, we’re all we ever had whether you admit it or not. And don’t try to tell me you ain’t chilled, too.”

Motionless at the table Grady focused his eyes on one of the oilcloth’s red checkerboard squares.

He heard the floorboards creak as Iron Mary walked down the hallway to her bedroom.

After a while he got up from his chair and carefully gathered up the chipped mugs as if they were priceless china then placed them in the sink.

He heard Iron Mary pulling the bedroom window curtains closed.

Returning the tin of condensed milk to the refrigerator he noticed the only other items on the shelves were a bottle of Heinz catsup, half a loaf of Wonder Bread, and an open package of Oscar Mayer bologna.

He heard Iron Mary’s work shoes being kicked off into a corner.

Looking out the kitchen window he saw that the goat was still in the garden, contentedly munching a rutabaga.

He heard the bed creak in protest as it took Iron Mary’s weight.

Crossing to the short wall between the two doors, one leading outside and the other down the hallway, Grady raked the fingers of one hand through his hair then wash-ragged the same hand across his face as if that would somehow change his features.

He listened to the catch in Iron Mary’s breathing as she cried.

Standing alone in the dimly lit kitchen, like an actor left on stage, Grady wondered how they’d come to this? Or rather, wondered how they never seemed to have left it?

He heard the bedsprings creak as Iron Mary rolled over, the sound of her fist striking a pillow.

His mind’s eye could picture her withered body, awash in tears and shivering beneath the Eastern Star quilt that once covered their childhood bed. From nowhere one of his mother’s homilies came to Grady, the one she had used to instruct her children on the importance of family; Home is the place that when you have to go there, they have to take you in. It amazed him how the more things changed the more they really did stay the same. And it amazed him, too, that after all these years he was still able to cry.

With the sound of his sister’s sobbing thick in his ears Grady stood betwixt the two doorways, coughed softly and, with fingers as wooden as his heart, reached for the wall switch to turn off the light.