The Minotauress (39 page)
Authors: Edward Lee
White Shirt offered a warm smile. "Congratulations, Officer. I'm sure you'll make an exemplary federal agent, and I share in your exuberance."
Stu continued to hoot and holler, doing an awkward moonwalk about the booking room. Then he stopped abruptly and stared at White Shirt.
"You! Stand up!"
White Shirt did so, and Stu took off his handcuffs.
"Hit the road!"
The man turned. "Thank you very, very much, Officer... "
Stu pumped his fist in the air and did a Rebel Yell worthy of any redneck this side of the Mississippi. "Courtney? Gimme the key to the chief's office! He's got a bottle of Jack in there, and you and me are SURE AS SHIT gonna party tonight!"
White Shirt lit a cigarette and quietly left the station.
(XI)
"We gotta get out'a here and dump this U-Haul ‘fore that cop comes back," Dicky panicked in the front seat. He dug in his pocket and pulled up some change. "I gots seven cents! How much you got?"
"Fuck me and the horse my mamma rode in on!" Balls yammered, searching his own pockets. "Shee-it, look! Two quarters on the floor!"
"That's enough to get us out'a here!"
Balls ran in, paid, and pumped fifty-seven cents worth of regular unleaded into the car.
Dicky hauled out of the lot, engine screaming. "I cain't believe that shit, man! Of all the fucked up thangs!"
"Fuckin'-A... "
"We gotta bury this U-Haul in the woods somewhere—deep, Balls! Can you imagine if he'd opened it up and seed that
thing
back there?"
thing
back there?"
"Ya ain't gotta tell me, brother. But ya know... " Suddenly a calm settled into Balls. " I ak-shure-lee don't thank we got anything ta worry 'bout."
Dicky slowed down, staring. "What'cha mean? The Writer's gonna finger us to that cop!"
Balls stroked the goatee. "Naw, Dicky, I bet he don't... 'cos it ain't lodger-kul."
"We abducter'd him, man, and we was fixin' ta kill him! We made him help us rob a house and then he watched us sacker-fice Cora! That's murder, Balls! We'se'll get the death penalty!"
"Ain't gonna happen, Dicky."
"How ya figgure
that?
"
that?
"
Balls let his long black redneck hair blow serenely out the window. "If the Writer was gonna finger us, he would'a done it right in front of the cop. He would'a showed him what's in the U-Haul and he would'a sung like a canary 'bout Crafter's house. But he didn't do none'a that."
Dicky seemed to chew on the speculation.
"Instead? He took the credit card rap and let hisself git arrested so's we could get away."
"Well... yeah," Dicky said in a slow drawl. "Now that I thank about it, I reckon yer right."
"Ya know, Dicky? The Writer's a geek and a tubesteak but he's also a stand-up guy."
"Dang straight—"
CLANK!
Dicky weaved in startlement. The sudden sound caused them both to flinch.
"Did you just throw a fuckin' rod?" Balls asked.
"Naw, man—" Dicky looked over his shoulder. "Sounded like it come from the back."
"Somethin' must'a falled over in the U-Haul. Pull'er over... "
Dicky idled the ‘Mino to the shoulder and cut the big engine. They both jumped out and ran back—
They stood.
They stared.
They slumped.
The U-Haul's door had been busted open from the inside, its steel latch bent and unseated. Inside, there was no sign of the Minotauress.
"That magic cum-spell must'a wore off!" Dicky exclaimed.
Behind them, in the woods, they heard a thrashing laced by vicious snorts. The sounds seemed to dim and eventually disappear as their source receded.
"There goes our million bucks," Balls lamented, hands on hips. He half-laughed to Dicky, then said, "Ain't that just a great big kick in the behind?"
But Balls had pronounced the word behind as "bee-hand."
EPILOGUE
It took the Writer two hours to walk back to downtown Luntville, yet he did so with a lively step and a studied joy on his face. The warm night's caress accompanied him, along with the gibbous moon and the aural sweep of crickets. Along the way, he pondered everything that had happened to him today and realized that the entire ordeal nearly existed as an allegorical masterpiece.
Yes... Intrigue and advents, epiphanies and a resultant actualization, all wrapped up in an ever-important anti-climax.
All necessary ingredients for fiction of literary worth—especially the latter component.
Like Pope's
Rape of the Lock,
Melville's
Bartleby,
Lewis'
Main Street,
and—the best always last—Sartre's monumental
"The Wall... " A gentle satisfaction swept the Writer, because he knew that the truth of his own life reflected the greatness of classic fiction along the same lines as
A Tale of Two Cites
and
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...
Back at the Gilman House, he stepped into proverbial pin-drop silence. He thought of Poe's quintessential protagonist stepping across the threshold of the brooding House of Usher...
Yes... Intrigue and advents, epiphanies and a resultant actualization, all wrapped up in an ever-important anti-climax.
All necessary ingredients for fiction of literary worth—especially the latter component.
Like Pope's
Rape of the Lock,
Melville's
Bartleby,
Lewis'
Main Street,
and—the best always last—Sartre's monumental
"The Wall... " A gentle satisfaction swept the Writer, because he knew that the truth of his own life reflected the greatness of classic fiction along the same lines as
A Tale of Two Cites
and
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...
Back at the Gilman House, he stepped into proverbial pin-drop silence. He thought of Poe's quintessential protagonist stepping across the threshold of the brooding House of Usher...
Up the stairs, then. Was there a bizarre vibe in the air? On the darkened landing, he paused at a barely audible hum. It was coming from behind one of the girls' doors.
A marital aid?
he suggested to himself, but then a feisty young-voiced woman yelled, "Git out'a there, ya little bugger! Git
out!
" and he thought he had a pretty good idea what the sound was. Behind another door, bedsprings creaked insanely, and a crotchety man's voice railed, "Aw jeezus-ta-pete! Kilt a dozen commies in Korea'n now I cain't even get a load'a jism off! Ain't good fer nothin' ‘cept sellin' tater chips ta immer-grints'n crackers! What I fight the war for?"
A marital aid?
he suggested to himself, but then a feisty young-voiced woman yelled, "Git out'a there, ya little bugger! Git
out!
" and he thought he had a pretty good idea what the sound was. Behind another door, bedsprings creaked insanely, and a crotchety man's voice railed, "Aw jeezus-ta-pete! Kilt a dozen commies in Korea'n now I cain't even get a load'a jism off! Ain't good fer nothin' ‘cept sellin' tater chips ta immer-grints'n crackers! What I fight the war for?"
The Writer had a pretty good idea who the client was.
Another door clicked open deeper in the hall. It was darker back there; the Writer could barely see.
"Is someone th—" he began, but the formation of a figure began to sharpen.
Must be one of the girls,
he reasoned. The semi-silhouette took more shape: a stunningly curvaceous woman but with—
Must be one of the girls,
he reasoned. The semi-silhouette took more shape: a stunningly curvaceous woman but with—
God help me...
—a peculiar V spreading wide from atop her head... like horns.
The Writer's heart seemed to stop.
"Haa!" came the chirpy voice, and finally the rear-hall's darkness disgorged the woman and her identifiable features. It was Nancy.
The Writer made a rare departure from his avoidance of profanity. "Nancy. You scared the living shit out of me."
She cracked a hick laugh. "You're afraid'a l'il ole
me?
" and then she came close enough to be seen.
me?
" and then she came close enough to be seen.
All she wore was her exquisite nakedness. Even in the murky light, that young, raw beauty raved, so intensely that the Writer's knees nearly went out. The ripe breasts and sleek, perfect flesh left him helpless and in awe.
I could... marry her,
the outrageous thought swept halo-like round his head, and scarier still was the immediacy with which the impression had arrived.
the outrageous thought swept halo-like round his head, and scarier still was the immediacy with which the impression had arrived.
But then the oddity registered in his brain. On her head she wore a facsimile of bunny ears, which he'd first feared were the horns of the dread Minotauress.
"What's that on your head?"
Her eyes bloomed at the afterthought. "Oh, tarnations! I plum fergot ta take 'em off after my last trick. The fella likes me to wear bunny ears 'cos he said his daughter was a Playboy Bunny long time ago, and I'se guess he wants ta pretend that I'm... Well, you know."
"Ah, yes."
There's aberration everywhere, like evil,
but after another moment's thought, he added,
but also like good. Certainly mankind's sin must pave the prospect for its redemption. Kierkegaard proved that.
The hope of the surmise brought him an instant well-being.
There's aberration everywhere, like evil,
but after another moment's thought, he added,
but also like good. Certainly mankind's sin must pave the prospect for its redemption. Kierkegaard proved that.
The hope of the surmise brought him an instant well-being.
Downstairs, the clock tolled three. "Dang, it's so late," the nude girl commented. "Don't seem like it, though."
"Time is simply a form of intuition, relative to space. It's not so much
time
that passes with each tick of the clock but
experience
and, hence,
truth.
"
time
that passes with each tick of the clock but
experience
and, hence,
truth.
"
Her adorable little nose scrinched up. "Huh?"
"Sorry, I'm philosophizing. But how was your evening?"
She glowed. "Aw, it was just dandy, it was. Got me over a dozen tricks'n made probably five hunnert bucks!"
"That's superb. You're quite industrious, Nancy, and quite the entrepreneur."
She took another step closer. "And how was
your
evenin'?"
your
evenin'?"
"Wonderful," he breathed. "It was an evening of advents and revelation, of anticlimaxes and dichotomies. Indeed... an evening of signs and wonders."
The remark fuddled her. "Well we'se could all hear ya typin' away in yer room all night long. You must'a got a lot'a yer book wrote tonight."
Strange,
he thought.
I barely wrote a word today, and I've been out of the house for hours.
She probably heard the air-conditioner rattling. "The book's coming along just fine," he bluffed.
he thought.
I barely wrote a word today, and I've been out of the house for hours.
She probably heard the air-conditioner rattling. "The book's coming along just fine," he bluffed.
She took another step... The Writer's eyes continued to shudder over the immaculate physique. Moments of silence passed, the two of them gazing at each other.
Suddenly, he wanted to weep. "My God, Nancy... "
"Yeah?" she giggled.
"You're so beautiful it's killing me... "
At last the space between them collapsed, and that warm, paragonic body was pressing him against the wall. Feminine heat and redneck perfume blanketed him; it seeped into his nostrils and through his pores like the most indulgent narcotic. When her hands slid up his chest, he felt pleasantly electrocuted. He moaned, then, nearly convulsing when she licked up his neck, sucked his earlobe, then stuck her hand inside his shirt to his bare skin. "I just got such a fixin' fer you, I'se
all
in a tizzy," she whispered. She'd opened his shirt fully now, and pressed her bare breasts against him. The sensation catalyzed him in a rapport of euphoria that he could only describe as heavenly. Her nipples seemed to sweetly brand him and then she licked along his neck again, giggled, and finessed a delectable tongue into his mouth. The Writer's arms wrapped around her as if holding onto an abstraction that would prevent him from plummeting to his death—a death that he might even welcome in the midst of this ephemeral bliss.
all
in a tizzy," she whispered. She'd opened his shirt fully now, and pressed her bare breasts against him. The sensation catalyzed him in a rapport of euphoria that he could only describe as heavenly. Her nipples seemed to sweetly brand him and then she licked along his neck again, giggled, and finessed a delectable tongue into his mouth. The Writer's arms wrapped around her as if holding onto an abstraction that would prevent him from plummeting to his death—a death that he might even welcome in the midst of this ephemeral bliss.
Suction pulled his tongue into her mouth. Her hand cradled his crotch, squeezing in pulses and inciting an erection that was suddenly so hard it hurt.
Carry me away,
he thought to the Fates. He convulsed in the gentle jaws of this penultimate contradiction—
Evanescent permanence,
he mused.
Cacophonic silence. Fleeting immortality...
Carry me away,
he thought to the Fates. He convulsed in the gentle jaws of this penultimate contradiction—
Evanescent permanence,
he mused.
Cacophonic silence. Fleeting immortality...
"I belong to you body'n soul," a delicious whisper twanged in his ear.
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