briar patch of dark brown curls. It thrust up at least twelve inches from that curly
base. Just back of the mitre it was as thick as my wrist. It curved back slightly
toward his hairy belly.
It `breathed’ when he did, bowing an inch at each breath. I looked at it in
horrified fascination the way a bird looks at a snake, and felt my nipples grow
crisp. Take it away! Get a stick and kill it!
`Boss, take that silly toy right back to Sears Roebuck and demand your money back!
Or I’ll, I’ll – I’ll flush it down the pot, that’s what I’ll do!’
‘You do and you’ll pay the plumber’s bill. Look, Dagmar, I’m ing to wear it home and
I want you to snap a pic of Zenobia’s face when she sees it. Then I’ll take it
off… unless Zenobia decides she wants me to wear it to the Mayor’s orgy. Now get
into your costume; we still have to pick up Daffy and his assistant. His goose,
although he claims otherwise. Move. Shake your tail, frail.’
`Pee on you, Boss.’
`Has the sun gone down so soon? Maureen, if I understood you earlier, you have not
eaten today. Come have dinner with us and we can discuss what to do with you later;
my wife is the best cook in town. Right, Dagmar?’
`Correct, Boss. That makes twice this week you’ve been right.’
`When was the other time? Did you find something for Cinderella to wear?’
`It’s a problem, Boss. Ali I have here are jumpsuit uniforms, cut for me. On Maureen
they would fit too soon in one direction, too late in the other.’ (She meant that
I’m shaped like a pear while she is shaped more like a celery.)
Dr Ridpath looked at me, then at her, decided that Dagmar was right. ‘Maureen, we’ll
see what my wife has that you can wear. It won’t matter between here and there;
you’ll be in a robocab. Pixel! Dinner time, boy!’
‘Now? Wow!’
So we had dinner at the home of the Ridpaths. Zenobia Ridpath is indeed a good cook.
Pixel and I appreciated her, and she appreciated Pixel and was warmly hospitable to
me. Zenobia is a dignified matron, beautiful, about forty-five, with premature white
hair tinted with a blue rinse. Her face did not change when she saw the mechanical
monstrosity her husband was sporting.
He said, ‘What do you think this is, Zen?’
She answered, ‘Oh, at last! You promised it to me as a wedding present all these
many years ago! Well, better late than never – I think.’ She stooped and looked at
it. `Why does it have “Made in Japan” printed on it?’ She straightened up and smiled
at us. ‘Hello, Dagmar, good to see you. Happy festival!’
‘Bumper crops!’
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`Big babies! Mrs Johnson, it was sweet of you to come. May I call you Maureen? And
may I offer you some crab legs? Flown in from Japan, like my husband’s new peepee.
And what would yon like to drink?’ A polite little machine rolled up with crab legs
and other tasty titbits, and took my drink order – Cuba Libre but omit the rum.
Mrs Ridpath congratulated Dagmar on her costume: a black, sheer body-stocking
covering even her head – but missing wherever presence of garment would get in the
way at a saturnalia: cutaway crotch, breasts bare, mouth bare. The result was
glaringly obscene.
Zenobia’s costume was provocative but pretty – a blue fog that matched her eyes and
did not hide much. Daffy Weisskopf climbed right up her front, making jungle noises.
She just smiled at him. ‘Have something to eat first, Doctor. And save some of your
strength for after midnight.’
I think Dr Eric’s suspicions about Dr Daffy’s assistant, Freddie, were justified; he
did not smell right to me and I apparently did not smell right to him – and I was
beginning to be whiff, as I was starting to get into a party mood. As I had
requested, that Cuba Libre had no rum in it, but I had half of it inside me before I