Chapter 4
| The Story | The Authors |
|---|---|
| She made him his favorite pudding of children's toes. | |
| while he ate, he whispered in her ear, "darling, please pass the salad". she passed it to him as as he took it their fingers touched a soft touch, he caressed her hand and soon they were kissing madly. | |
|
But she grew tired of him and his persistant body odor. So without a moment's hesitation, she swallowed him whole. | |
| ...well, she didn't know for sure, but that didn't matter. Perhaps she would sample a bit of Italian cuisine, or savor palatable delicacies in the south of France. The many appetizing possiblities and her indecisive nature made selecting just one rather difficult, but she knew that with persistence and an empty stomach, in due time she could have a little bit of everything. Her mouth had already begun to water at the thought... | |
| With her elephantine suitcase in hand she traipsed up to the corner at City Avenue and waited for the bus.She wasn't exactly sure where she wanted to go but the airport seemed a good choice. The walk wasn't hard, the suitcase was light. She hadn't had time to to do the wash before she left. All she had packed was her flannel nightie, three clean t-shirts and a pair of jeans and of course the perfunctory black dress and matching heels. At the last moment she went thru the things that her husband had left. A box of condoms, 4 dental dams from Australia,a miniture rachet with three small sockets, a very old round of moldy cheese and a bottle of rye that was half full was all he found useful to add to her kit. Paris, Venezia and Basil clouded her mind. The bus screeched to a halt. | |
| The doors opened and out stepped Vashondra du Lunchenette. She immediately spotted Bitzy sitting on her small grey trunk and knew that was something the elephant would never have done. Vashondra walked right up to Bitzy and looked her straight in the eye. "Vash!" Bitzy was surprised to see her friend whom she thought she'd ditched. "Ha!" said Vahondra. "So you thought you could ditch me so easily, eh? Well, I've been following you, Bitzy Bootleg, and I was right, you have changed!" "Yes, Vash, I have changed! I've grown mighty tired of being your sidekick! I'm my own person now and I'm enjoying every minute of it!" "Fine, Bitzy. But cannibalism?" Vash folded her arms and shook her head disdainfully. "Really, Bitz, it just isn't done." | |
| There was some commotion going on two blocks down the street. | |
| Tiki Dinette's wrists were throttled behind her back causing her Liz Claiborne blouse to gape. A bit of the flower on her Bali was exposed. The two gentleman from the food police held each of her elbows as they escorted here out ot the trattatoria. They politely covered her head as she bent down to enter the squad car. Camera's flashed as the reporter from The Weekly World News happened to be on the scene. Ms. Dinette had been trained by Jeremy Towers and Alice Walker, where had she gone wrong? It had something to do with the escarpment of lamb pouilles served on bed of raddichio and arugala drizzled with a balsamic roquefort vinegrette. "Hmmmm" she thought, "Who could bail her out of this mess?" | |
| Thumbing through her address book she found a battered lavender and black business card. "Bitzy Bootlegger" it read, "Wholesale supplier of epicurian delight". She remembered it was Bitzy who had come into the restaurant last week with 107 pounds of fresh lamb shanks at a bargain price. Of course, she had snatched them up. Fresh lamb is hard to come by unless you live in the antipodes. Maybe Bitzy would help her out, after all she lived just around the corner. "Officer Gourmand, before you take me to the food prison, may we make a stop on City Ave, so that I may notify a family member of my whereabouts?" "No worries, your wish I my desire" he replied with a broadening smirk | |
| She smiled inwardly. "It's so easy to play these food police," she thought. | |
| I looked at her incredulously, wishing I'd remained unnoticed. | |
| There was a knock at the door and Bitzy rushed to answer it, expecting a delivery. When she opened the door she saw Tiki Dinette flanked by two rather polite looking police men. "Tiki, darling, how nice to see you!" Bitzy fawned. "Forgive me for disturbing, Bitzy, but these gentlemen here are the food police. It's seems I'm an offender and I'm afraid it has something to do with that lamb you sold me last week." "Oh my my!" Bitzy said. "Gentlemen, do come in, we'll get this matter straightened out right away." Tiki and the food police entered Bitzy's house and sat down in the living room. Bitzy began to make her famous martinis. "Tiki, you remember my dear friend Vashondra Du Lunchenette?" Bitzy Bootleg said indicating the woman with the 3 foot high strawberry blonde beehive hairdo who was already sipping a martini and munching a garlic stuffed olive. Tiki said she did and they all made small talk until Bitzy served them their drinks. Immediatly after their first sips, the food police fell dead on the floor. "Ohmygod!" Tiki cried, spilling her drink. "Bitzy, what have you done?" "Calm down, Tiki and help me get these bodies to the back room!" Tiki reluctantly assisted Bitzy in dragging the two bodies to a back room which looked more like a butcher shop with all sorts of horrifying stainless steel devices. Bitzy tied on an apron and began to undress the men. "Bitzy," Tiki said in a quavering voice. "That was lamb you sold me last week, wasn't it? Wasn't it?!" "You had an order in for pork this week, didn't you Tiki?" Bitzy asked calmly. "No!" Tiki cried, breaking into a cold sweat. "No, I don't need any meat this week." She began to back out of the room but stopped when she ran into Vashondra who was grinning and handing her a martini. | |
| At that very moment, she suffered a nervous breakdown. She ran screaming from the room and barely kept from colliding with a rather large and blatantly unattractive Ming vase in the hallway. | |
| The screen door was locked. With a rippening thud against the aluminium and wire, she collapsed. Vashondra stooped over her comatose body, "Tiki, my dear would you like some mouth to mouth or another martini?" | |
| "BITZY WHERE ARE YOU?" Vashondra shrieked, "WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY" Bitzy emerged from the living room with a toothpick stuck in the gap between her front teeth, "What Up Mensahibe?" Lowering her eyes, she smiled, as she watched Tili silent on the floor. Fewer tendons and gristle she thought to herself, an easier cut once you remove the cuteneous fat. "DAMN IT BITZY, I USED THE LAST OF THE VERMOUTH". You will have to go off to the store before we can revive Tiki. | |
| "Now, now, Vash, don't panic." Bitzy said in her unnervingly calm manner. "There is another bottle in the pantry." She removed the toothpick from between her front teeth and stabbed the last olive in Vashondra's empty cocktail glass. She held the olive over Tiki's mouth and a small drop of the liquor fell in. Tiki began to stir and her eyes fluttered open. "Where am I? What's happening?" Tiki said, not realizing how cliche it sounded. "It'll come back to you soon enough." said Bitzy. "And when you realize where you are and what you know, I think you'll also realize what your choices are." Bitzy sat down in the big overstuffed wing back chair. Vashondra helped Tiki to her feet. Tiki glanced around the room and her eyes widened as she recalled the recent events that had caused her to panic and knock herself out. "You..." she said weakly, pointing at Bitzy. "Yes." Bitzy said smugly. "And now you know your choices. I was able to persuade Vashondra to join me and I think we can persuade you as well." Tiki was mortified. Vashondra had made more martinis and handed one to Bitzy and one to Tiki, which she refused. "Don't be that way, Tiki," Bitzy said. "I just know we can all be friends. Would another tour of the back room be enough to convince you?" Bitzy grinned and sipped her cocktail. Tiki looked at Bitzy, then Vashondra, and back at Bitzy. Tiki accepted the martini from Vashondra and Bitzy smiled triumphantly. | |
| "I'm famished," Vashondra exclaimed. "Those garlic stuffed olives are gettimg to be dreary." "Do be a doll, Bitzy and fix us some of those special canopes." Vashondra winked at Tiki as Bitzy rose and headed to the kitchen. She headed over to the bar to refill their glasses, this time dropping a pearl onion into the icy liquid. Tiki took the glass thankfully this time. Her head was beginning to clear. Vashondra seated herself on the lounge close to Tiki. Pulling a yellow legal pad and a fountain pen from her strawberry blonde beehive hairdo, she turned to Tiki. "I know you are a bit uncertain about our new business partnership, I was hesitant myself at first, but Bitzy showed me some pretty impressive spread sheets. The cost of supplies is neglible and this market has huge potential, the public is tired of pork, beef, chicken and lamb, and you know as well as I do that seafood is just too unstable. Everyday the masses read of a new danger in fish, from mercury levals to hepatitis C." Tiki, feeling bewildered took another sip from her martini, "What do you want Vashondra, what can I do?" Vashondra smiled, wrapping her arm around Tiki's shoulder, "A team player, I like that. We need you Tiki, you will be our marketing specialist. We need to create a new animal, a new name for our product and tell the world that it is a safe meat....something like tofu with flavor. Book the Today show and have Martha Stewart singing it's praises, show film clips of welfare mothers back at work raising livestock on farms and becoming millionaires. You can do it Tiki, all you have to do is create a new name for this epicurian staple." Bitzy waltzed into the room carrying a tray of canopes and a fresh pitcher of martinis. "A lifesaver you are Bitzy, I thought I'd die of thirst, but pass it the goodies to our new friend first." Gingerly, Tiki accepted a cocktail napkin and two round water biscuits smeared with a liver like paste and adorned with a marinated stuffed olive. | |
| "Well," Tiki said, nibbling the tidbit. "I suppose Soilent Green is out of the question." She chuckled at her little joke. Bitzy and Vashondra smiled wryly and shook their heads. "You know, this is really tastey." Tiki said popping the rest of the hor d'oevre into her mouth. "What is it?" "It's a sample of our product, the liver pate." Vashondra said. Tiki gagged and spit out the food. "Look, I agreed to name it but I never said I would eat it!" She wiped her mouth with the cocktail napkin. "But Tiki, how can you stand behind a product you don't believe in?" Bitzy asked. "You said yourself it was tastey." Vashondra added. "I think I've just become a vegetarian." Tiki said with burp. "Okay, why don't we just call it soylen, a meat substitute or alternative protein or something." Tiki said, wiping her mouth again. "I like that. Alternative protein. Soylen. Good." Bitzy said. Vashondra agreed. "People love anything that's alternative. I think that will work." Vashondra and Bitzy raised their cocktail glasses in a toast to Tiki. | |
| all of a suddun, Bitzy said," this place smells like shit, I'm leaving!!" | |
| "Bitzy, What's the matter?" Vashondra rose and put her arm around Bitzy, " I was only kidding when I said I was becoming a vegan. Your pate is delicious." Bitzy looked dumbfounded, "You just don't get it do you?" she asked tearfully. "Sit down Bitz and talk to me" Bitzy sprawled on the lounge, knowing she was to inebriated to leave. "First of all, the name is stupid, everyone will remember the flick and all the vegetarians already eat TVP and soy. Why are you asking her...I created the product and you are letting some fly by night food hussy intrude on us." "Ohmygod" Vashondra thought to herself, "Bitzy is green with jealousy, maybe she shouldn't have revived Tiki. It was all so complicated and the pitcher was dry." Tiki, sinking as far back in the chair as she could, realized that Bitzy might not be the butcher she was cracked up to be. The place did smell like shit. "I'm going to leave you two alone" she announced "while I take the trash out." | |
| As the back door closed behind Tiki, Bitzy burst into tears. "Oh Vash," she sobbed. "My hopes, my dreams, it's all falling apart! I don't even know what I'm doing!" she bawled, burying her face in Vashondra's ample bossom. Suddenly the front door burst open and in waltzed an old friend with a fresh pitcher of martinis and an unopened jar of almond stuffed olives. "Janice!" Bitzy and Vashondra cried in unison. "Yes, it is I, Janice, the immortal! Previous dominator of this story! And, girls, it's getting mighty thick in here." Janice poured fresh, cold martinis for everyone. | |
| Candace grimaced at what she had just read on her monitor. "Ugh..not that crap again," she sighed. What's old is old, she thought, so why couldn't people just let it go? And when it's old AND awful like that, well, there's nothing you can do for resolve short of taking a pistol to your head. So she took a warm shower, got dressed for the evening, and drove to the cinema to meet up with her pals. | |
| But before she left the flat, she made sure she packed the essentials: her flame red stilletos; her frilly nighty with the strategically placed holes; a can of pork and beans; a can of hair lacquer; and, most importantly, her petite crossbow and matching silver-tipped bolts blessed by the local bishop himself. After that "blind date" incident three years ago, she was never really sure she might not run into some spectre or tiresome vampyre in the night again. Men these days can be so undead! | |
| When Candace arrived at the cinema, Vashondra, Bitzy and Tiki were already there waiting for her. They were a stunning group of women sporting beehives and leatherette miniskirts. Vashondra and Bitzy were especially radiant this evening having dumped the alternative meat scheme. It was as if a 16 ton weight had been lifted from their shoulders and they were free to have fun and enjoy life again, which, after all, is all they really wanted to do anyway. Candace whipped out her can of pork and beans and they all giggled childishly. | |
| Candace stopped giggling immediately and grew pale afer noticing the fellow three rows ahead. "What's the matter, Candy?" asked Tiki. "You look like you've just seen a ghost." "Nearly true, Tiki. See that ragged looking ruffneck over there?" She pointed. Tiki stood up and squinted in the dimness. Somehow, running into a screen door had screwed up her vision, albeit temporarily. It was either that or too many martinis. "Who is that, anyway?" asked Tiki, hands at her hips and pretending she spotted the person in question. "It's...my late husband!" cried Candance. Before the girls could offer their sympathy, a lewd and less stylish woman harped from the row immediately behind. "Hey, you up front." Tiki, who was still standing, turned around and squinted. "Yeah, you...the blind girl in the miniskirt. Will you shut up and sit your Crisco can back down? I'm trying to watch the movie!" | |
| Tiki, her eyes full of fire, turned to face the woman. "Crisco Butt?" she queried beligerently. Her arm was cocked, ready to fire the half empty can of pork and beans. "Sit your fat ass down" the less stylish one retorted, "You and your elephantine whore partners are a disgrace to huma.." In mid-sentence Tike fired hitting the bovine creature square in the nose. Red tomato sauce dribbled down her cleavage and stained her pink spaghetti strap tent dress. She rose, eyes watering, exposing her amazon body size. Tiki stepped back to avoid her blows. A skinny man with a goatee stood up three rows down on the left aisle. He began shouting "Art Art Art, Armegedeon...Not the Movie, Life is Art, Conceptual Art is Life is Art *Snap Snap* Melee Melee Armegedeon is Life, Alive is Art, Art is what livers do to survive *Snap Snap* Eat beans eat each other." With that the lights suddenly came on to reveal Candy missing, Bitzy sobbing between Vashondra's humongous breasts and Tiki pinned on the sticky floor by the low classed amazons knee at her throat. | |