Posted by PK on February 02, 2002 at 16:45:36:
Julian could hardly believe his luck, even now after what seemed like hours of the wildest sex
he'd ever had. And with Her. Exhausted, sated beyond expectation, he lay with his succubus
sprawled on top of him. He bathed in the musk and salt sweat scent of her, he could feel her
hot breath as he inhaled. Fluids and air conjoined.
Some party. Never expected this...and he had thought...
It took some time to speak. Eventually, quotidian issues arose as they always do, flies in the
ointment, pimples on the face of God.
"What about Robert?" he muttered fondly and a little anxiously. Her (previous?) boyfriend,
the bastard. Hadn't seen him lately.
The blonde sex kitten licked his nose. "No problem, don't worry about it."
Julian was not so easily reassured. "Why not?"
"He's gone."
"Gone?" How gone? What gone? "When? How?" Fleet-footed Mercury had robbed his
tongue.
Felice sighed patiently. "I ate him," she explained. Or so it seemed at the time.
It was hard for Eric to remember the conversation that had followed. In the morning it was
hard enough to remember his own name, (Reroc, Eric the Fish or Freddie the Frog? Eric
would do) or at least what he'd called himself the previous night. From long experience at
dealing with hangovers, he made himself a healthy breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages,
grilled tomatoes, baked beans, hash browns and toast, with a bowl of cornflakes and three
mugs of tea. Half way through the fourth cup of tea, he remembered..
The entire lyric of 'Solar Flares' by Robert Wyatt (the 'Ruth is stranger than Richard' album)
is:
'They burn
For you.'
Trust me, it's how you sing it.
And that was what had been playing on the stereo at the precise moment when something or
other had happened.
Robert. Something about Robert. And why had he thought of himself as 'Julian' while he
was....
Fucking Felice. Star Trek convention. Party afterwards. How long ago had that been? Last
night? It seemed like longer. Who would have thought he'd meet Felice somewhere like that?
Felice the Popular Girl, Felice the 'Fuck off I'm Fussy' Girl, Felice the ManEater...
Oh, right. I had my Julian Bashir persona on. And the shirt. The shirt Felice pulled out of the
tight trousers so she could run her hands up inside, over my belly and pinch my...
What had Felice come as? Some sort of Klingon/Bajoran/Orion cross? Or somebody who'd
read a few comic books and just generalised: your standard sexy alien female is in all
obvious and necessary aspects human but may use pointy ears, minor skeletal adjustments,
modifications to skin colour etc, as fashion statements. No overt nudity, just imply it.
Strongly.
Go back a bit. Canadian. Anglophile She. Thus Julian.
Felice sighed patiently. "I ate him," she had explained.
Oh, that one. What had he said, anything he'd regret? Eric turned the TV up. This could be
really embarrassing.
Oh when I was a little Ghost
A merry time had we...
Each seated on his favourite post
We chumped and chawed the buttered toast
They gave us for our tea.
What the FUCK had he said?
"Oh, right," Julian had said nonchalantly. "Didn't know you Klingons did that." It was obvious
that Felice was still in character, whatever character that was.
"Not a Klingon." Tone not angry, not apologetic. "It was an accident. Mostly."
"You ate him by accident?" Not wanting to know, go to sleeeeeeep...
Muscles shift against muscles, Felice deliciously squirms and snuggles, Julian, exhausted,
stirs slightly.
There had been something after that, Eric was sure. Oh, he was meeting her for lunch.
Oysters. Something about oysters. Blue Oyster Cult? Caviarre?
Prairie oysters. And something about the name. Julian. Julian Bashir, genius doctor? Julian
May, writer. Felice Landry, that was it. Mad Felice. He hadn't made the association before.
The Raven, the Morrigan, what was that in Irish? Mor Rhian? Weren't there a couple of silent
'g's in there somewhere? Bugger Gaelic. Must have a book on it somewhere.
Sunglasses, Eric thought. I'm going to need them. A turn around the lake might help help.
Felice was wearing them too when he arrived. Not from need, it seemed. She looked fresh as
a daisy. Day's eye. Deadlier than Dandelion. All in white and gold, she seemed. Luminous.
"Hi," he said brilliantly. Nothing else, nothing dark, the time was out of joint. Outdoor tables at
the cafeteria, how disgustingly French. Julian (Eric! hey, I'm Eric) sat down (Not now!) and
strove to match her nonchalance. Her savoir faire. Fair? In American, tried to look cool.
Bicameral, bilingual, polyglot, I. Tell me, what IS that in Canadian? TOO fucking bright.
"What's good?"
Felice frowned. What's good? Brightened again. "I hear the lobster thermidor can't be
matched," she stated in the clipped, frigid 'British' accent that only North Americans can
manage.
Eric was nonplussed. Surplusssed? Surplus. Surplice? Surprise. Felice relented. "Well, I'm
sure it would be if they had any. Fancy a spam fritter?" This last in a genuine English accent.
Eric cracked up and the ice with it broke. (damn, parsing in german, nearly)
The conversation veered dangerously close around some of the rocks. Was he supposed to
smile when she explained that the pre-eminence of lobster thermidor as a culinary paradigm
was due to the fact that it smelled of cunt?
"It's like eating pussy," she explained.
"Oh. Right." Sourpuss? backtrack flashback
"Come on, you know you want to."
"What?" Eric had ordered the spam fritters in defiance. Or denial.
Eat the fritters, Eric the Red Faced told himself grimly.
"Pussy you can really eat. Think about it."
And then she had gone, Eric reflected some time later. After lunch he had crawled back into
his pit for an hour or two. Dreams. The scent of Felice departing. A small movement of her
legs as she stood up to go. She was wearing something flimsy in white and gold, he knew
there was nothing under it, and the slight movement sucked him into her centre...
Succubus? Suck you, boss? Serpent, sinner, Goddess, whore? What..
REM state collapsing: Jagged bottles jar stone solid stop. Vagina dentata. Dark out. Meet me
at the bar, she had said. Dark meat, dark meetings. Lamia, one spluttering neural net noted,
was 'gnored. Gnawned.
"It was an accident. Mostly."
"I didn't..."
"Ask, no."
It was mercifully dark. Eric said nothing. Felice smiled. Nice teeth. All day long....
"But you thought about it."
"About what?" Liar liar, pants on fire.
"Me eating Robert. What I said."
Not the honey pie, whew. But yes, he had not been thinking of a white hippopotamus.
"I did wonder," he said, "About that." Julian, please help with the jocular, offhand manner.
Only you. They burn.....
"What did you wonder about?" said the spider to the fly.
"Oh, you know..."
What did he taste like? How did you kill him? What the fuck am I doing having this
conversation? She's mad and I'm in a folie a dur...oops..deux...because I fancy her
something rotten. Pardon my French. Oh fuck, I said French. Oh balls, I said fuck. Bugger it,
I never wanted to be a monk anyway..."What really happened between you and whatisname."
Ducks deluxe.
"Robert?"
"Him."
"Oh, I told you. I'm sure I did. I almost forgot. Look, don't tell anybody. Humans are SO
judgemental..."
Joke, right?
Relatively used to coping with the darkness underground
Cubs and Brownies blink as they emerge
Solar Flares
They Burn/For you/Burn/For you
Just
For you.
What do Cubs and Brownies do at home after a boring day? Shine their boots and practice
tying knots? No of course not...
Felice smiled.
Joke, right. Whew.
Felice smiled. Deja fucked. One of us.
Felice smiled knowingly. Dawn bright. "It's a jungle in there," she said. She seemed..what?
Can't be, Eric thought, ordering the next round. Can't be. The routine of ordering drinks (it
wasn't his turn) gave him space.
Clutching in the dark....
Descending spiral, recurring Wyatt, winding down to (of course) Robert again. She (Felice,
his mind insisted on the parentheses) seemed..what?
This is the bit where you get a montage and a line of dots. Pixels. Quanta, sans Koalas.
Causality did its bit, trust me. The lust factor, strong as strangeness and charm. The spin
came later. Not spin, what....?
[Author's note} Oh come on, you know what happens next. They fucked each other's brains
out. Bonked. Inevitable.
{Julian could hardly believe his luck, even now after what seemed like hours of the wildest
sex he'd ever had. And with Her. Exhausted, sated beyond expectation, he lay with his
succubus sprawled on top of him. He bathed in the musk and salt sweat scent of her, he
could feel her hot breath as he inhaled. Fluids and air conjoined. Deja fucked.]
But not quite the same, not quite. Still, the positions matched. Two-body problem, soluble in
sweat. Yes, stoned and fucked again. Nobody does it better, he thought. Nobody could. He
was sure. Shored. Don't call me Shirley.
Called down far, brawling and star-stalled crawl. Rhyming smiles, repeating teapots. Jagged
bottles jar stone solid stop.
jump
Erosion. Memory loss. Meet me at the bar, she had said. Dark meat, dark meetings. [Lamia,
one spluttering neural net noted, was 'gnored. Gnawned.]Norned, gnot gnawed. Norn, not..
Colour, right.
fiioof[[f,, kkd dppd kp0a0felice ;f'[felice liucv=ifer luivy kkd l love ]kikj liquorice lucy oijad
lucifrer ferem hjfh fe c skkf jso elicfelice hundred thousand monkeys not Lucifer but
morningstar
Twelve might do. From far, from eve and morning and from yon twelve-winded sky.
Housmans or whatever, Felice had gone witj - sorry, with - the dawn. Witj. Etymology
overload, Scotty. Nets cast too wide.
Eric woke up.
Felice had departed with the dew. As fairies do.
"Juicy," she had said, cradling his balls in her hand. "So soft. Like lovely little fruit."
And just before they slept - or was it later? - something like: "It wasn't my fault. Anyway, I
couldn't just waste them, could I?"
As Eric put on his jeans he could almost feel Felice's fingers (near miss, nearal - no, neural
net intersection, associative memory, witj...)
Lacing his trainers, the sense memory persisted. Witches had been burned for less. Burn.
'They burn For you.'
"We were just playing," she had said.
Will you, won't you
Will you, won't you
Won't you join the dance...
They Burn for you.'
Emphasis? Colour, right.
He could almost feel Felice's hand, her palm warm and firm, her fingers strong and gentle,
holding his center. He stiffened. Hold off on that, he admonished himself. Zipper coming.
Witch?
Empathy. The honey trap.
"Sex is no good unless you actually eat each other," Felice said. "Sometimes you eat the
bear, sometimes the bear eats you. Law of the jungle. Lex talionis."
Eric wasn't inclined to argue about it as he - well, because -
She had his balls in her hand.
He had her toes in his mouth. Geometry of lust, Lovecraft by Playboy. Angles inexplicable.
Besides, she hadn't actually said that at the time.
"Didn't you ever want to eat a woman?" she murmured.
Eric couldn't deny he'd had that fantasy. "It's just a fantasy," he murmured back. Felice was
curled under his armpit. He loved her. Oh God no......he could see it coming.
Fleece said nothing, waited. Golden Fleece. Silent.
You can't really eat people, Eric thought. Paused.
"You can't really eat people", Eric said.
"Because...?"
"It kills them. Killing people, not nice. Anyway, difficult."
This was much later, you realise. Later cycle. Half a day.
"But you must have wondered what if....."
"What if?"
"She was already dead. Or he. You know. No crime, really, is it?"
Eric wasn't stupid, but he could fake it. "Is this about Robert?"
"I told you it was an accident. I was tempted, and the noose thing was his idea, not mine. It
slipped. Then, there he was. Dead. Juicy balls and all. I just couldn't resist. Cadbury's cream
eggs..."
Felice smelled and felt warm and cosy. Her body was wrapped neatly around his. She might
be a lunatic but she was HIS girl. And of course, she was just kidding. Eric breathed in
deeply. Felice was a good lover. Scratch that, she was terrific. Better than he could have
imagined. She might be a lunatic but she was...(vagina dentata, honey trap) sort of fun....
"So you just ate him. Right. can't blame you for that." Dingoes? No, Crocodile Dundee.
Alligator. What's the name of that sexy babe who nearly got eaten? Tip of my tongue..
"Not all," she muttered. "I mean, I had to put the rest of him in the fridge....."
Eric woke up under a tarpaulin, in the car park next to the local pub. It was quite cosy under
there, but he knew he had to get up. There was something he had to do. Oh, right, pick up
batteries or something from the shop around the corner. He had ordered them some time
ago. Funny, he couldn't remember when he'd done that, or the order number.
Standing up, he noticed that he was wearing a yellow dress and no shoes. He wasn't
discomfited by this as she noticed she was now female, but the dress was rather short. The
ground was comfortably warm under her bare feet. Soles on warm tarmac, sensual.
Problem, he/she thought. They won't recognise me dressed like this. I have no underwear
and I'm not really sure this colour goes with my hair. Reflections in windows revealed this to
be red. And the outfit is too young for me. But not so, she seemed younger.
The only way was to act like nothing was wrong. Just go around the corner. I'd eat me,
dressed like this. No, Linda Something Polish. Kozlowsky? Fuck, it's cool with no underwear
on. Just don't let them take advantage... 'ware crocodiles..something about zymurgy
Okay, I get it, he thought...I'm winning this one. He smiled winningly.
"Hello?" she said.
Reic remembered the quote from a book he'd read:
"Once you open a can of worms, the only way to put them back is to use a larger can"
Everybody knows that magic works, Eric realised. Everybody but the Psi Cops. James Randi
the angry snake oil man. I'm a fraud, you must be too. Magic and anti-magic. They
cancelled. Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition....irony. We all do.
So, I'm bewitched. Balls bedevilled. She slipped the loop. So simple...higamus
hogamus...fried onions..it's so obvious, really....how it all works...
But then he woke up. She wasn't there, like the little man upon the stair. Eric needed time to
think and somewhere tranquil to do it, and he knew just the time and place. He would attend
his morning lecture.
True to form, Professor Velikovsky's voice did its work. As the Prof droned on, Eric achieved
the state normally reached by sitting by a stream, the soft, monotonous babbling noise
soothing him without impinging on his consciousness. He stared at his notepad and jotted
down his thoughts.
Elf-shot. Away with the fairies.
Okay, that's me. What next? Felice, of course. The girlfriend from Hell. Why Hell? She didn't
bite (well, not hard, anyway) and she was a bit too short for a Valkyrie. Define the problem.
1) She says she ate her previous boyfriend.
2) Said boyfriend has disappeared.
3) I don't know anything about her.
4) She comes and goes in mysterious ways.
Eric stared at the paper until the words stopped meaning anything. He shook his head.
Refocussed. What was he, a character in an Agatha Christie novel? He scribbled notes
between the lines.
1) So fucking what? Pillow talk.
2) Who knows where Robert went? Who cares? Not me.
3) and 4) So fucking what? Women do that. Three cancels four. Numerology sucks, but
Felice does it better.
As analysis, it lacked something. He sucked the pencil and added:
5) The dreams.
(Something stirred and tried to crawl towards the light...)
Try as he might, Eric could think of no coherent interpretation of them, he could barely
remember them now. Only one thing for it, the British solution, a night out with the lads. The
only defence against Morgan le Fay:
"Now that we Christians have our beer
Nothing's to fear."
As luck would have it, an opportunity presented itself.