XXI.
On my way home, I am grabbed from behind.
My elbow springs up and back, and hits somebody's throat. On one
leg
I spin round, hitting down with the other arm and bringing up my
knee.
Unfortunately, it has to be a male, they do most
grabbing from behind.
He needs his precious maleness squished.
It quibbles on the ground. Peh peh peh, it says.
Oh dear, I know who is this little crumpled thing,
the redoubtable
Queenie quails before me. I'm saying sorry and cursing at the same
time.
This damn tail, it wriggles around between my legs
like a cut snake.
I wish I did have it cut off.
I turn around and unzip my fly while he's still
sitting down seeming
poorly, put the tail down the leg of my pants. A bit better that
way.
"Your bum is black," he says sitting behind me on
the path,
"Who beat you babe?"
"Birthmark. I was never a baby, though, Dad was a
sleek black pussy
of a man I hear."
"You weren't born normal," he says, "As fas as you
know, your dad
was a nip scientist, I know that, oh little Miss Cege Nation," he
trills.
"Poor little hybrid freakish me," I murmur at him,
hooking my arm
under his armpit, pulling him to his feet.
"Incite me to riot," he growls, runs his other
hand up my arm to the
shoulder behind my head pulling me in by the hair.
"First time I go out in daylight alone in months
and I have had it already,"
I hiss in his face.
His mouth covers mine and he bites my lip, tongue
zips in with a chance
with my half gasp. "You haven't had that yet," he says smirking,
"C'mon,
let's go get a drink at Zippy's."
So we stumble off across the road, me still
supporting him under the armpit,
but thinking serves him right anyway, trying to be clever. It doesn't
look like
my three punches to the meat gave him any satori though.
We sit down in a booth and hear some stupid music.
Zippy himself is there, even fatter than usual, his tuft of hair too
much today
with a big sequined bow. I think, it's too much. I say so. Pointing
at his head.
"That's too much today."
"You're welcome," he says, "What'll you have?"
The polka dots loom at me over the table. "A spot of sherry."
"Where?" he says, pawing at his belly.
"Martini, martini, I miss your tongue of fire
inside me, martini why do
you forsake me oh my darling?"
"And I'll have a stiff Brandy Alexander," says Queenie.
Zippy stumps off, we start talking, then drinking.
Queenie wants to know
about Her and I tell him about the last time she came at our place
and we
fucked over dope cake, and I make him jealous and he whines about
how
freaks have all the breaks and wishes that life could be swedish
magazines.
We talk loneliness, a crowded room full of open hearts turned to
stone, all
together all alone. And how, when you know the name of the game,
you
can never play enough.