Tagged: clothes

“Ladies and Gentlemen!”

  • by jengot to the edge of a very big wood
  • He and Carla never had sex
  • she found in the basement
  • on file with the DMV
  • she sank into my uncle’s arms

Tune in next time part 275                           Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Jupiter cried. “Direct your attention to the center ring!”

Of course, this being a shack, there was only the one ring. Jove cracked his whip and both of the clowns lifted their rainbow-bewigged heads from the carpet. With my brothers perched daintily on their backs, the clowns crawled on hands and knees until they got to the edge of a very big wooden coffee table.

A crack of Jove’s whip motivated his clown to climb atop the coffee table, and I saw for the first time that under the big red nose and oversized bowtie, this clown was a female. Seconds later I realized it was Jove’s wife Carla. From the letter that accompanied their Christmas card every year, I knew far more than I cared to about Jove and Carla’s marriage. He and Carla never had sex on the trapeze she found in the basement until they were both properly licensed and those licenses were on file with the DMV. That sort of thing.

Jupiter rose to his feet atop his clown. His shiny knee-high boots were obscured by colorful ruffles, and his black silk top hat brushed against the balloon animals along the ceiling. I wondered if he was married to his clown, too. Jupiter’s first wife, Juno, was out of the picture. Their marriage hadn’t even lasted through the reception. Uncle Jinx skipped the ceremony, and arrived at the reception looking quite debonaire in his tuxedo. Jupiter introduced the two, she sank into my uncle’s arms, and that was that. But perhaps he had remarried.

“Jove and Carla will prepare the altar for the sacrifice!” Jupiter announced, looking pointedly at Tesla and myself.

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I Wanted to Stop the Man in the Pink Bathrobe

  • by jenthey castrated people all the time
  • no choice but to watch him go
  • the only dollar he had
  • stepped purposefully out into the living room
  • the blue of an equatorial sky

Tune in next time part 273                           Click Here for Earlier Installments

I wanted to stop the man in the pink bathrobe and ask him if my brothers still ruled this island, and if — as they did a decade ago — they castrated people all the time, but he moved so quickly that I had no choice but to watch him go through the door like he was chasing the only dollar he had left in the world.

Tesla and I looked at each other, then turned to flee and ran straight into the arms of our beefy mime escorts. The two of them were utterly silent as they twisted our arms behind our backs and marched us through the door into the shack. Inside was a sort of cloak room, with another door at the other end. The mimes blocked the exit and glared at us until we opened the inner door and stepped purposefully out into the living room of the shack.

The walls were painted the blue of an equatorial sky, and the ceiling was obscured by multitudes of tropical birds fashioned from colorful balloons. Across the green shag carpet from where Tesla and I stood, my brothers Jupiter and Jove sat regally side-by-side on the backs of prostrated clowns, casually toasting marshmallows with their fiery exhalations.

But what made my blood run cold was their matching ringmaster garb. Things were much more dire than I had ever imagined.

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As John Gladly Followed Hipster Jane

  • by jenwasn’t wearing his shoes
  • something incredibly icky was about to go down
  • online spirituality does have its limits
  • my opinion on these matters is final
  • found in high levels in semen

Tune in next time part 251                           Click Here for Earlier Installments

As John gladly followed Hipster Jane up the stairs, I noticed that he wasn’t wearing his shoes. John’s bare feet are not a sight for the faint of heart, and Hipster Jane’s foot fetish was the stuff of legends, which meant that something incredibly icky was about to go down in the root cellar. That suited my plans just fine. I’d stand a better chance with Tessa without others around confusing the matter. Step three, here we go.

“I’m glad we’re finally alone,” I said in my best husky voice.

“Me too,” Tessa said. “I’ve been trying to learn mindfulness from a YouTube guru, but online spirituality does have its limits, and I was never the best student.” Her hand fell to the knife hilt protruding from her belt.

“You were valedictorian!”

She snorted. “That’s only because I drugged the rest of you and the faculty needed someone to stand up there and give a pretty speech.”

“It was a very pretty speech.” Tessa was always a sucker for flattery from me.

“My opinion on these matters is finally clear,” she said. “No matter how attractive I find you, you’re no good for me.”

“Tessa,” I pleaded. “Take these cuffs off me, or don’t, and let’s get out of here. I’ll show you how good I can be for you.” I turned my smolder up to maximum and saw her decisiveness falter.

She whispered, “The only way out of here is through the root cellar, and if we go upstairs now we’ll have to see whatever it is John and Jane are doing.” She leaned in close and ran her hand down my chest. “But maybe you can show me now and we can get out of here later.”

It really wasn’t the best plan, and I knew for a fact that there was a tunnel leading from this subbasement to the Academy’s submarine dock, but the idea of being with Tessa again after so long drove all other thoughts from my brain.

She shoved me to the floor and left the cuffs on me, but I rose to the occasion. She rode me like a woman possessed. After the climactic moment she leapt off and inserted a sponge into her underpants.

To my look of confusion she said, “A certain exotic compound is found in high levels in semen in the men in your family. When I get back to the lab, our scientists can use this sample to devise a synthetic equivalent, and we’ll finally be able to achieve our ultimate goal!” She smiled down at me, laying pantsless and handcuffed on the floor.

“Ultimate goal?” I asked, baffled.

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I Came To in the Subbasement

  • by jenwhy no one sees the dinosaur bones
  • burned down a giant goat
  • the redheaded streetwalker coughing next to him
  • skintight orange jumpsuit
  • under the root cellar

Tune in next time part 249                           Click Here for Earlier Installments

I came to in the subbasement under the root cellar of the Academy, a place I’d hoped to never see again. I focused my bleary eyes on the three figures standing over me. One was Tessa, one was John in a skintight orange jumpsuit, and the third looked like a cheap hooker who time-traveled from 1970s Times Square, her face hidden behind a huge cloud of noxious cigarette smoke.

John smirked when he saw that I was awake. He turned to the redheaded streetwalker coughing next to him and said, “You’re up.”

She waved a hand, driving the smoke away, and I saw the last face I expected.

“Hipster Jane,” I said, keeping the surprise from my voice. “I haven’t seen you since the two of us burned down a giant goat at that music festival you organized.” Truth be told, I’d assumed she burned up with the goat.

“It’s a travesty that Burning Goat never took off while so many other festivals are so fucking popular. I had the best, most obscure upcoming bands that no one had ever heard of! I don’t know why no one sees the dinosaur bones that play those other festivals for what they are – obsolete and boring. Why does anyone want to see the same bands over and over again?”

My plan was working. If you got Hipster Jane talking about music, she forgot about everything else.

“You’re getting off topic,” said John.

Damn.

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By the Time Isaac was Done with Me

  • by jenwonder if you even miss me
  • people thought they had a far more sinister meaning
  • dressed in a Hazmat suit
  • mixture of ferocity and jocularity
  • nonetheless churning with anxiety

Tune in next time part 223                           Click Here for Earlier Installments

By the time Isaac was done with me I had learned that her real name was Cleopatra, and I was exhausted from my efforts both conversational and carnal. My mind was nonetheless churning with anxiety over the sinister Tibetan chocolate bar, which manifested in my actions as an odd mixture of ferocity and jocularity. The last time I felt that way I dressed in a Hazmat suit and went to the White House to talk things out with Thor. The thing about Hazmat suits is that most people thought they had a far more sinister meaning than I intended. I was just trying to be funny, but you try telling that to the Secret Service.

I digress.

There were no Hazmat suits in Cleopatra’s apartment so it was easy enough to avoid that misstep this time, despite my compromised mental state. As I was getting dressed in the clothes I’d gotten from Jim’s closet what felt like ages ago, Cleopatra turned on the TV.

“We need to make sure your father’s return hasn’t hit the news yet,” she said, flipping through the channels until she landed on the Contrarian News Network showing footage of my heavily pregnant wife Fleur and her retinue, all laughing at the antics of a troop of mimes.

I wonder if you even miss me, I thought, as she threw her arms around the neck of Viscount Arlo of Svenborgia. The damn Svenborgians were all over this mess.

“That Arlo guy is such a dick,” Cleopatra said.

How did she even know who he was?

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Some Members of My Extended Family

  • by jentried to convey everything by grimaces
  • probably view it as an escape
  • floating upon the surface like corks
  • the launderette they owned
  • We did find a hammer.

Tune in next time part 219                           Click Here for Earlier Installments

Some members of my extended family tried to convey everything by grimaces, Svenborgian UnderDuchess Esmerelda among them. I tuned out the impossibly red dress and focused on her face. I hoped to discover a message in the minute details of the arrangement of her lips, but the image was too blurry.

If the world saw this footage of my father, a man who was supposed to be dead, they would probably view it as an escape. Never mind that he’d never been convicted of anything, or even charged. Certain factions of the public thought my family untouchable, and they resented us for it. They saw life as an ocean, and to them we were floating upon the surface like corks while they struggled against drowning in the undertow. Another way of looking at it is that they saw us as going through life on the gentle cycle in the launderette they owned in this analogy, while they were stuck in the lint trap.

Lint trap!

I tore my eyes away from Esmerelda’s enigmatic face and looked again at her red dress. How could I have forgotten the old washerwoman’s code? It was ancient, taught to first years at the Academy and rarely mentioned after. But still, I should have remembered sooner.

Isaac saw the dawning comprehension on my face. “What does it mean?” she demanded.

“We did find a hammer.” I could hardly believe it. The message could only be referring to retired professional wrestler Great Hammer, my brother Thor’s some-time lover. With any luck, Isaac would assume Esmerelda had been at the hardware store.

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Jim Was Always Coming Up with Outrageous Theories

  • by jenin that gentleman’s widely opened eyes
  • these dashing cardigans
  • Tonight: dinosaurs.
  • Her stomach made fish tank noises
  • appeared to have been eaten by foxes

Tune in next time part 197                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Jim was always coming up with outrageous theories about twins. I guess being the only twinless sibling in the family will do that to a guy. Not that he was a singleton. No, Jim was a triplet, but his co-trips were identical girls and he always felt left out. His experiments were often painful, and I had no interest in seeing what he had planned for today, or how the paper shredders would play into it.

I took a step backwards, away from the false graveyard of office equipment, and promptly bumped into someone standing right behind me. It was Jim, of course, and in that gentleman’s widely opened eyes I saw no hint of brotherly affection. To my surprise, he was flanked by our sisters Jemma and Jemima. It was unusual to see all three triplets together. They were all wearing these dashing cardigans in a blue and green color scheme that told me all I needed to know about where their loyalties currently lay. Normally the girls pledged fealty to the Academy’s chess team, the Anacondas. Tonight: Dinosaurs. If he had convinced them to support the chess hooligans of our greatest rivals, Jim had more sway over them than I had ever imagined possible. Perhaps his theories about twins weren’t as outrageous as I had always imagined.

Ignoring Jim and his widely opened eyes, I smiled at our sisters and reached out to shake their hands. With Jemma’s hand in my right, Jemima’s in my left, I executed the secret “twin handshake” we had all developed as children when we wanted to exclude Jim. I was hoping to break through whatever insidious hold he had over them, but to all outward appearances I was unsuccessful. And on top of that, they wouldn’t let go of my hands.

“Jem,” Jim drawled, “and Jem, bring him back out to the operating table.”

My sisters pulled me back into the rocket surgery. My crocs had no traction on the slick floor, especially when they dragged me through Absinthia’s blood. Her stomach made fish tank noises under our feet, all blurbley and squelchy. Her poor corpse appeared to have been eaten by foxes, not operated on by rockets.

I averted my eyes and tried to come up with a plan to escape my nefarious triplet siblings.

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My First Impulse Was to Flee

  • by jenninja assassin on the prowl in west LA
  • twine marks on only one wrist
  • they said he was not the type of person
  • scabs and scars
  • “What’s the matter?” screamed the ladies.

Tune in next time part 195                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

My first impulse was to flee the scene as quickly and quietly as a ninja assassin on the prowl in west LA, to get far away from the stench of burnt flesh, and all of the blood. But I had been on the run for so, so long, and I was exhausted. I felt like a man with twine marks on only one wrist, which is the Contrarian way of saying ‘burning the candle at both ends.’

I locked the door to the rocket surgery to make sure no one walked in on me while I slept, then I curled up on the operating table and took a nap. When people described my brother Jason, they said he was not the type of person who could sleep just anywhere, that he was very finicky about where he bedded down, but they would never say that about me. The slab of stainless steel was an island in a sea of Absinthia’s blood, and upon it I slept like a baby.

When I awoke, I spent a few minutes counting all my scabs and scars, cataloging the myriad ways I now differed from my twin. It wasn’t just our sleep habits that would enable people to tell us apart any longer.

Self-examination complete, I leapt from the table and onto Absinthia’s desk chair. My momentum and the chair’s excellent casters carried me away from the gore, and around a corner. Here was Absinthia’s apartment, replete with bed and shower. If only I’d explored last night I could have slept in comfort. At least I could still get clean.

After my ablutions, I rifled through Absinthia’s closet, hoping to find something a little more dignified than my calico pinafore. In addition to the doctor’s clothes, none of which would fit me, I found a cache of men’s clothing that fit me a little too well. It was as if they’d been tailored for me, which meant they’d probably been tailored for Jason. But the shoes were too small.

“What’s the matter?” screamed the ladies. That’s what I call my intuition, my gut feelings. ‘The ladies’ had never let me down. And right now they were trying to tell me something important. If the shoes were too small for me, they were too small for Jason. That meant, the ladies assured me, that these clothes had been tailored for my younger brother Jim.

I froze.

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I Put All Thought of the Wastewater Treatment Plant Out of My Mind

  • by jenglimpse of a red sweater
  • I have had little experience of women
  • capable of forgetting that he had ever been married
  • until the helicopter came
  • Whenever she wore pants

Tune in next time part 193                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

I put all thought of the wastewater treatment plant out of my mind and delved back into the juicier part of my flashback. I recalled Tessa in her scarlet Academy uniform, and how after she rescued me from the frozen rugby pitch, and in the process saw me naked, I blushed at every glimpse of a red sweater.

You must remember that in this flashback I am a teenager and I have had little experience of women. I don’t like to think of myself as a man who is capable of forgetting that he had ever been married, but again this is a flashback, and the time period being flashed back to predates my marriage to Fleur. I just want to be clear about that. I wasn’t a virgin or anything, but I also wasn’t participating in orgies until the helicopter came in for a landing, as they say. That part came later, but I doubt we’ll get to that in this flashback.

Whenever she wore pants with her red sweater, Tessa got in trouble. Girls at the Academy were expected to wear either skirts or the occasional wetsuit, just as we boys were required to wear kilts when we weren’t training for underwater missions.

Underwater missions! Of course! That held the key to getting me out of this terrible situation.

I quickly stopped my flashback and stared into the face of the fusillade of rockets aimed at my body. There were enough to make any Independence Day celebration envious, and now I knew just how to escape their surgical fury.

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Inside the Rocket Surgery

  • by jenskating together and holding hands
  • then dissolved in acid
  • “You obstinate fellow!”
  • strings of a balalaika being plucked
  • kept the last of my clothes on

Tune in next time part 191                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Inside the rocket surgery I heard two thumps and a rattle, followed by precise, clicking footsteps. I was pretty sure I knew whose footsteps those were, and it made my heart feel like it was skating together and holding hands with its sweetheart. The doorknob turned and those sweethearts in my chest fell through the ice and then dissolved in acid because the lake upon which they had been skating was not composed of water.

The door swung inward and there she was, Dr Belladonna, the former headmistress of the Academy.

“It’s you!” she cried, happier to see me than I had dared hope. “Unless it’s Jason.”

“It’s me either way.”

“You obstinate fellow!” She stood aside and ushered me into her operating theater. I had no choice but to enter.

The room was well-lit and swelteringly hot, and it smelled of hydrocarbons. Whatever music she was listening to sounded like the strings of a balalaika being plucked with an eggbeater.

“What are you doing in Harmonia, Dr Belladonna?”

“Oh please, we’re not at the Academy anymore. Call me Absinthia.”

“What are you doing in Harmonia, Absinthia?”

“It’s not rocket surgery!” She laughed. “Well, actually it is. I’ve developed a marvelous new technique that turns the whole field on its head. Instead of performing surgery on rockets, I have devised a way to use rockets to perform surgery!” She laughed again, with a triumphant gleam in her eye. “Perhaps I should say ‘developing.’ I’m always looking for new test subjects, and you suddenly appear at my door! I’d say that’s a sign!”

I edged back toward the door, but not quickly enough. Absinthia sprang at me and injected me with some sort of paralytic. I was helpless as she laid me out on the operating table and stripped off my crocs and snowpants. I suppose I should feel grateful that she kept the last of my clothes on, but the calico pinafore was easy for her to pull up to my neck, exposing my entire torso to this madwoman and her collection of surgical rockets.

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