the rabid terrapin primitive visits franksolich

[franksolich]

RATED “G”

“Now,” I continued, “there might’ve been an impression about us left after the elections of 2000, but that impression’s all wrong.

“Nebraska was one of the first states to put a ‘marriage is between a man and a woman’ initiative on the ballot.  As you can guess, it lost…..heavily.

“But it had nothing to do with gaiety.

“For whatever reasons, ‘activists’ in New York City and San Francisco decided they needed to come out here to ‘teach’ we rustic hicks.  The gay lobby put a lot of money, and a lot of people, into trying to ‘educate’ we hayseeds.

“I dunno why they decided to grace Nebraska, of all places, with the gifts of their persons; it seemed to me there’d be more fertile ground elsewhere.

“The pro-’marriage is between a man and a woman’ interests were outspent, out-canvassed, several times over by the well-funded gay lobby, who acted as if they were going to convert Nebraska, or die trying.

“They lost in a landslide, a decisive, crushing landslide.

“Part of it of course was that Nebraskans resent it when outsiders come here to tell us how to do things.

“But the bigger part of it was the activists themselves.

“We had all of these New York and California gays here, drama-queening and strutting their stuff in sequined shirts and pants, with big shiny baubles hanging from their ear-lobes, their noses, their chins, romping and frolicking and dancing and cavorting and skipping and prancing and capering around.

“The glitter, the jingle-jangling, the lights, the movements, the clamorous sashaying, spooked the cattle.

“Now, cattle are usually quiet, serene, pacific beasts.

“But sights like this can spook them, drive them berserk.

“Spooked cattle panicking and running amok, are not a pretty sight; they’re more fearsome than a pack of rabid dogs or a big clump of rattlesnakes.  Spooked cattle can kill, and it’s a pain to get them settled back down again.

“If the gay lobby hadn’t spooked the cattle, they still would’ve lost, but not so overwhelmingly.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

RATED “PG”

The rabid terrapin primitive asked if any gay Nebraskans had been here the past few days.

I thought the question was in bad taste, but answered it anyway, “I dunno who all you’ve met around here, but of all the people you’ve met in my presence, no.”

Anticipating the next question, I pre-empted, “no, I’m not willing to introduce any of them to you, because they’d be insulted, and I value their friendship too much.  This isn’t like in blue places, where people are sorted out and put into specific categories, especially sexual classes.

“People around here like to be identified as individual people, not as a member of a certain group.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Finally, my guest got around to what I’d been sure would’ve been asked much earlier.

“Myself?” I asked.  “No, not really.

“There was of course skinny-dipping in the rivers of the Sandhills, and the usual-and-standard high school boys’ locker-room antics, but I myself only ever had a single experience that could be even remotely considered gay.

“When I was a teenager, I once fell asleep the back of my head on the lap of my best friend, which gave him a hard-on inside his pants, and I unwittingly exacerbated the situation by twisting and turning my head.  I was greatly tired, my father having recently died.

“The phenomenon surprised both of us; myself because I was embarrassed at having been so rude, and him because he came from a strict obscure fundamentalist German denomination.

“That‘s been my whole experience, being homosexual.”     

- - - - - - - - - -

But back to Wills, I said.

“The bitch of Wills’ situation is how he allows the rabid women’s-libbers to use him--and of course once they’re done using him, they’ll throw him away, just like they’ve thrown away all other members of the male race who sought to be helpful for them, once their usefulness was used up.

“I suppose it has something to do with his identifying himself as a member of an ‘oppressed’ group, and feeling obligated to be supportive of members of other ‘oppressed’ groups.

“There’s tons of oppressed groups of people out there, and if Wills wishes to be supportive, he’s got a great big wide selection from which to choose, any or all of them far more worthy of one’s attention than the comfortable, affluent, well-heeled rabid women’s-libbers.

“Me, I’m very supportive of the Ghegs and Tosks, two oppressed groups if there ever was one, victims of real violence and bloody murder, but about whom only franksolich seems to care.”

to be continued

[USA4ME]

The rabid terrapin primitive is a quack. Just insane stuff like this...

madinmaryland

Elections have consequences. Had Al Gore been sworn in as President, in all likelihood there would have been no attacks on the United States in September of 2001. VP Gore's warning to the incoming "mis"administration was to keep a close eye on Al-Quada, which was dismissed by the Bush/Cheney administration.

Imagine:

No war in Afghanistan.
No war in Iraq
No John Roberts
No Samuel Alito
A federal deficit $12 trillion less than it is now. (Maybe even NO deficit).

Elections have Consequences.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5522457

... is enough to let you know she's out of her mind stupid. 

.

[franksolich]

The rabid terrapin primitive is a quack. Just insane stuff like this...

... is enough to let you know she's out of her mind stupid. 

I'm still having considerable problems with this character, the rabid terrapin primitive.

I always thought she was a woman, but at times he sounds like a guy.

It's truly consternating; I'm more than half done with the story, and still haven't be able to establish for a certainty what gender this character is.

[USA4ME]

Just read its profile on the island and it says male. Here's hoping it's old and will fall over dead soon.

Gender: Male
Home country: US
Current location: Ohio
Member since: Sat May 15, 2004, 05:04 PM
Number of posts: 56,839

.

[franksolich]

Just read its profile on the island and it says male. Here's hoping it's old and will fall over dead soon.

Gender: Male
Home country: US
Current location: Ohio
Member since: Sat May 15, 2004, 05:04 PM
Number of posts: 56,839

But see, the primitives lie so much their lies can't always be trusted to be lies,* if you know what I mean.

The rabid terrapin primitive, in the college football discussions, always struck me as playing the part of the coquette, the subtly-flirting woman winking at the guys.

Body language doesn't lie; it can't.

However, I'll come to some resolution--male or female--soon, because it's got to be cleared up before the story ends.

*the "Kama Aina" primitive, for example.

[franksolich]

RATED “G”

“How do you suppose the voting in the Top DUmmies is going to go this year?” the rabid terrapin primitive asked me, as he drove the two of us around the countryside, myself pointing out things of possible interest he might’ve missed on other excursions with others.

I’ve grown somewhat fond of the primitive, although I don’t dare discuss college football with him, recalling how it seemed to turn him into a flirting coquette among the other male primitives on Skins’s island.  It seemed a “trigger” for him, and that was a trigger I didn’t want to pull.

“I dunno,” I said; “I think that by all laws of reason, logic, and fairness, it should go in favor of the rabid women’s-libbers this year, given the way they’ve discombobulated Skins’s island for so long, but I’m only one voter, and don’t have any control over anybody else.

“I just collect the nominations, print the ballots, and write the awards.

“But me, myself, I’m going to nominate the rabid women’s-libbers for the ‘group’ award; BainsBane, the redqueen primitive, that seabeyond bitch, and the Bostonian beanie.

“And for Top DUmmie, which can go only to an individual, I suppose I’ll vote for BainsBane as the archetype of the rabid women’s-libbers.  Nothing personal against her; it’s just that she so exemplies all the other screeching banshees so well.

“They’ve got to learn that while they might, or might not, have issues and causes worthy of concern, they don’t have the only issues and causes worthy of concern by the primitives.

“They’ve got to learn to take a number and wait their turn on the queque, instead of always so rudely and noisily shoving themselves to the front of the bus.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“You know, this is really odd country,” the rabid terrapin primitive pointed out as we passed a long-ago abandoned old farmhouse.

“It’s so green and alive, but yet at the same time it seems to be dying.

“What do you mean by ’dying’?” I asked.

“Well, so many people are leaving,” he replied; “and surely you know better than I do, how much population the area’s lost the last, oh, hundred years.”

“Now,” I asked, curious, “why would one think a shrinking population’s a sign of decline and ’death’?

“To me, it seems nature’s way of seeking equilibrium, getting things into proper balance.

“This land wasn’t made to support vast hordes of people, elbow-to-elbow, all jammed in contentious ’togetherness’ like in blue places where nobody gets along.

“The Sandhills county where I spent my adolesence, a county larger than Delaware, at its peak in 1920 had 40,000 people. 

“In the last census, it had barely 10,000.  And that’s still probably a couple thousand too many.

“Sooner or later, the land itself determines it has too many people to reasonably support, and so gently shoves the excess away, using natural disasters or lack of adequate resources, encouraging them to go somewhere more suitable for their numbers.

“It won’t happen in my lifetime, but Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, Denver, Salt Lake City, and somesuch cities built in deserts with not nearly enough resources to support large populations, are inevitably going to wither up--when it comes to human habitation--and that’s probably not a bad thing.

“And out here, the fewer people we have around, the better life is.”

- - - - - - - - - -

They’re long gone now, I said, “but when I was a kid, the county was infested with falling-down old houses, abandoned during the depression and Dust Bowl of the 1930s.  They were brown or grey with significant holes, and leaning every which way the wind pushed them.

“Nowadays, the only evidence there was once a house--and sometimes a very large one--somewhere is that one comes across a clump of old trees that don’t belong where they’re at.

“Upon getting out of the car and walking near for a close inspection, one discovers all sorts of interesting things in those trees.

“However, while it was safe when there was a house there, and people lived there, now that the houses and people are gone, nature’s taken back the land.  A lot of outsiders come to metal-detect, discovering within a short time, ooops, that’s not such a good idea, as the rattlesnakes have come back.

“I’m sure there’s treasure-troves of buried artifacts, but unless one knows how to deal with rattlesnakes, probably one’s better off metal-detecting in the sands around Cocoa Beach, Florida, than around here.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

RATED “G”

“When did this area begin losing population?” the rabid terrapin primitive asked.

He‘s from the eastern coast; he really wouldn‘t know.

“During the Dust Bowl, of the 1930s.  It’s been a long, drawn-out process, although the last precipitous decline took place during the late 1970s, when Jimmy Carter, who single-handedly nearly killed the small family farm in favor of megacorporate agriculture, was president.

“It’s still declining, but there’s so few people left it’s barely perceptible.

“I think now we’re pretty much rock-bottom, and by coincidence, we’re rock-bottom right at that point where there’s a natural equilibrium between people, and the ability of the land to support the people on it.

“Nebraska used to have reasonably-proportioned population all over the state; nowadays, about three-quarters of Nebraskans live in the southeastern corner of the state, around Omaha and Lincoln, leaving all the rest to us.  There’s plenty of resources down there to sustain them, and it makes living up here more all the better because the land isn’t overstressed trying to support tons of people.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“That lesson--and it’s going to occur to currently-popular, hip, with-it, cool, trendy places such as out in California or in the American Southwest, sooner or later--was taught with undeniable vehemence by the Dust Bowl, the ’dirty thirties.’

“To over-inhabit the land, to use the land for things God and nature never intended for it to use, invites inevitable disaster and tragedy.

“You wouldn’t know this--the 1930s were hard years all over the country, all sorts of bad things going on, and so not many people east of Iowa or west of Colorado had the slightest idea what was happening here, they being preoccupied with other problems.

“And what was happening here is classified by professional historians and environmentalists as ‘the worst man-made ecological disaster in the history of the world.’

“I mean to repeat that, ‘the worst man-made ecological disaster in the whole entire history of the whole entire world.’

“Man-made ‘climate change,’ if it were to happen, even at its worst wouldn’t be nothing, compared with the Dust Bowl.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“The origins of the Dust Bowl are in 1914-1918, the last ‘good years’ for American farmers.

“Europe had a so-so harvest that first year, and the first world war got underway; nobody had any time to grow crops, then or for the following three years.

“Wheat was five dollars a bushel…..in 1914 dollars, when $10-15 a week was the ‘average’ urban income.  It never again reached five dollars a bushel until the declining days of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush prosperity ninety years later…..and that, five dollars in current dollars.

“Just about everybody and his uncle dashed to wherever wheat would grow.

“Now, the Great Plains are grazing land, not farming land.  As long as one’s just growing cattle, everything’s fine; it’s cool, and it does no harm to the environment. 

“But people in Europe didn’t want beef; they wanted grain.

“And so everywhere from northern Manitoba, down through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, clear to southernmost Texas, was ploughed up to grow wheat.

“The topsoil’s very fragile.  In the eastern third of Nebraska, it’s very thick (and no stones, rocks, or boulders), which is why the mere eastern third of Nebraska--never mind the rest of the state--is the third-largest producer of corn in America, after Iowa and Illinois.

“But in the western two-thirds, the topsoil’s about as thick as…..tissue paper; one has to be real careful about bothering it.

“Depending upon how one defines ‘dust storm,’ the Dust Bowl began in 1929 and lasted until 1938; it was worse down in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, but that was only because those places had more people than we did up here.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

[franksolich]

RATED “PG”

“So, anyway,” I said to the rabid terrapin primitive, “after this, the greatest man-caused environmental disaster in the history of the world--the Dust Bowl had lasted from 1929 until 1938--the White House sent its brain trust out to the Great Plains to evaluate the situation, to see if it was possible something could be salvaged from here.

“After all, enough soil had been blown from Manitoba to Texas, into the Gulf of Mexico, to create a very wide land-bridge between New Orleans and Morocco.  I dunno why that never happened, though; in theory, enough dirt was blown there to make it happen, but it just never did. 

“It’s probably superfluous to point out there’d occurred substantial depopulation--abandoned farms, ranches, homes, whole towns--and the conclusion of Roosevelt’s geniuses was that, at best, it would be 100,000 years before the Great Plains would be suitable for human habitation again, and at worst, ‘never.’

“And yet, a mere four years later, by 1942, this area was again the breadbasket of the world.

“The war’d delayed any implementation of governmental programs to save the soil--billions upon billions were spent after the war, but by that time, it was pretty obvious that nature, if simply left alone after some sort of catastrophic event, heals on its own.

“Without governmental programs and taxpayer funding.”

- - - - - - - - - -

We were now on the edge of the country where I’d grown up, and I remembered something, so drove that way.

“Behold,” I said as I steered the car around a corner in a clump of trees.

“This is where a high-school classmate of mine was raised, but because of the farm crises and malaise of the late 1970s, they just took up and left.  That was just before the beginning of summer 1979, when double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates, and double-digit unemployment drove many, not just farmers and ranchers, to the wall.

“It was a nice house, in its day.

“I’d invite you to go in and take a look, to see what a place in the Sandhills that’s been abandoned for 35 years, wide open to all the elements, looks like, but it’d be too dangerous.

“The floors are undoubtedly rotted through, and you might fall into the cellar below.  I’m not strong enough to pull you out, and because I can’t hear, I can’t call for help--I’d have to leave you and go get help.

“There’s no telling what you’d deal with when down there; cellars are prolific breeding-grounds for rattlesnakes.

“But there’s probably nothing of interest in there anyway.  And it looks as if someone sometime during the 1980s maybe, tried cannibalizing the structure for usable materials, and gave up.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“How long’s your guest going to stay?” Romeo asked me.

“I dunno,” I said; “he probably told me, but as I didn’t think it was important, I didn’t pay attention.”

“Well, is there any time he’s not going to be around, for a couple of days or something?”

“That, I do know,” I said; “he’s going to the football game this weekend.  He’s meeting some people in Omaha Friday evening, then going to the game, then going back to Omaha, and won’t be back here until some time on Monday.”

“Good,” said Romeo; “that gives us the whole weekend.”

“Why?  What’s up?” I asked.

He told me.

Uh, no, I said to Romeo; “I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

“But she said it’d be worth our while,” he insisted, “that it’d be a lot of fun.”

“She” was the head of the women’s-libbers from Lincoln, who’d showed up at Romeo’s place that one weekend not so long ago, the one who’d adamantly refused to get undressed, and who’d hand-cuffed me to the back of Romeo’s pick-up truck.

I didn’t get all that Romeo told me; in fact, all I “got” was that she wanted to come here and party with us. 

Or something like that. 

Given my being deaf, things usually have to get underway, before I know what’s happening.

“She’s a bitch,” I said; “she hates men.

“And for some reason, she seems to hate me most of all, although I dunno why, being a nice guy and all that.  I suspect it’s because I don’t let her intimidate me, making me ashamed of being a man.  It blew her away, that a man would actually be proud of being a man, delight in being a man.

“As you know, we’re not supposed to be that way; we’re supposed to be embarrassed and apologetic because of the way we’ve treated women since the beginning of time.

“She’s got a great body, nice and firm and soft, everything in proportion, well worth the poking, and if one subtracts the raging hostility from her face, she’s actually, well, pretty hot.  I’m sort of wondering if she were poked by the right guy, her belligerent sour-assed pissy attitude might change.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

RATED “G”

I was sitting out on the back porch in mid-morning, having coffee and reading the newspaper, when the rabid terrapin primitive came out to join me.

“Well, what’s the news?” he asked.

“There’s lots of news, but it’s all old now, because this is yesterday’s newspaper,” I told him; “one of the few disadvantages of living out here in the middle of nowhere is that one can’t get home delivery of newspapers.  One has to wait until one drives into town and buy one.

“Or, it can come by mail, but that takes two days, and I go to the post office only two or three times a month anyway.  I’ve never been sure why, but the post office has never considered this address part of its RFD--’rural free delivery’--territory.”

“That’s got to be a nuisance,” my guest said; “but I’m sure that even without television and radio out here, the internet helps keep you up-to-date.”

It does, I said, “but I have no problem waiting.  I was probably the last person in America to learn of 9-11--it was early afternoon that day--but as far as I could tell, when I learned of it wasn’t important.  I was still living in town, and outdoors stacking wood, when the neighbor dropped by to tell me.

“I suppose I handle getting news late rather well,” I pointed out; “for example, when I was wandering around the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants, because telephonic communication was irregular and I couldn’t use it anyway, I just mailed letters, and people here mailed letters back to me.

“It usually took about three or four months, and I’m not confident I received all that’d been mailed to me--some of the letters, by the time they reached me, or mine reached here, bore the most curious post-marks, from places such as Cuba, Guinea, Vietnam.

“I survived.”

- - - - - - - - - -

I went inside to get another cup of coffee.

“But one would be surprised,” I said when I came back out, “at all the newsprint that’s available around here, if one’s willing to wait a few hours--now--or days--in the past.

“When I was growing up out in the heart of the Sandhills, we got by home delivery, the morning Omaha World-Herald and the Lincoln Star, and then in the afternoon we got the evening Lincoln Journal, and the daily newspapers from North Platte and Grand Island.

“And twice a week, we got the local newspaper--home delivery--and the local newspaper of where we’d lived before--mail.

“But that was because we lived in town, a sprawling metropolis of 3,000 people, the second-largest town in the Sandhills.  The largest town, about 6,000 people, was way over on the other side, and had to get its stuff from distant Denver, while we were reasonably close to Omaha.

“And then on Sunday mornings, there was a rush to whichever drug store happened to be open that morning--there were three of them in town, and they alternated on opening Sunday mornings, when no one else was open--to get the Sunday Denver Post.

“But later on, when I was in college and lived in Lincoln, where I used to buy the Sunday New York Times at a mom-and-pop grocery store, I finally figured it out.

“And I’m sure the Sunday morning Denver newspaper had been the same--all sections excepting the first, the late news, were printed on the preceding Tuesday or something, and trucked out.  And then the front section, printed late Saturday night, was flown out.

“As a kid, I’d always been mystified that the sports news in the Denver Post seemed about a week old; one wasn’t going to find any Saturday college football scores in it.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Which reminded me of something.

“So…..what are your plans?  You probably already told me, but I don’t ‘catch’ all that’s told me.

“You’re leaving for Omaha this evening, to spend the night with friends, and then you’re going down to Lincoln to see the game, after which you’re going back to Omaha to stay until Monday morning, when you come back here.

“Right?”

Yeah, the rabid terrapin primitive said; “I’m leaving for Omaha about suppertime, and won’t be back here until about lunch-time on Monday.”

“Got it,” I said.

to be continued

[franksolich]

RATED “R”

In mid-morning the next day, Saturday morning, Romeo showed up.  The weather was great, and he smiled when I confirmed that my guest was gone, and would be gone all weekend.

He was accompanied by a cowboy, some guy I’d never seen before; younger, short, scrawny, black hair, pale, rather tentative and uncertain.  I figured this guy had just given Romeo a ride here or something, and wasn’t going to stick around.

“What’s up with the guitar he’s carrying?” I asked.

Great was my alarm when Romeo mentioned he was joining the party.

I pulled Romeo out to the back porch and lit a cigarette.

“Look,” I said, “I’m not into these multiple-partner things; we're going to have just one woman, and there’s already two of us.  And besides, I don’t know him, never seen him before--”

“But I already told you about him, and that I had to bring him,” Romeo interrupted.  “She wasn’t going to come unless there were three of us, saying two wasn‘t enough; she needs three.  It’s cool; he’s a friend of mine.

“I already told you that.  You really need to pay more attention,” he said.

Such things happen when one goes into a great deal of time and trouble explaining things to me, and as it turns out, I’d get tired after struggling to grasp the first half of the first sentence, and so quit trying, hoping that whatever follows isn’t important enough to worry about.

However, I remained doubtful.  “Three guys, one woman.  She’s not going to have us do anything queer, is she?  If so, count me out--”

No, Romeo assured me; “she insists it won‘t be complete unless there‘s three of us, and promises there won’t be any queer business.

“She had all these big ideas, and I had to wrangle with her so she’d promise there’d be no gay sex, and for you in particular, no costumes, no toys and gadgets.

“I had to meet her halfway on physical restraints, though.  She has a whole big collection she wanted to use, but now she’s agreed to use them only minimally, and only some of them.

“There’ll be no gay sex, and if you don’t want, you don’t have to do costume or toys either.”

“But this third guy, your friend, I don’t know him,” I insisted; “I’ve got no problems with you being right there, watching or participating--we‘re good friends after all--but this guy, even though he looks harmless, I’d feel rather odd, being naked in front of him, much less poking a woman in front of him.”

Romeo looked at me as if I were Bozo from Outer Space.

“Since when has it ever bothered you to be yourself in front of other people, even strangers?

“Good God, man, you define audacity, nerves of steel.

“It’ll be okay; he’s practically a virgin, and really hesitant and clumsy about things--and that’s why I brought him along, so he’d learn.  He’s really shy, and needs help--as you’d say, it’s all for the good of humanity, that he learn to assert himself, that he learn how to please women.”

Well, okay then, I said; “I‘ll do it as my moral duty, to help someone in need.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Six women--whom I recognized as being part of the group of women’s-libbers from Romeo’s place that one afternoon--suddenly came out the back door onto the porch, marching in military-like single file.  They were carrying photographic equipment, and excepting for g-strings, were nude, their exposed jugs bouncing up-and-down as they moved about.

Hey, hey, what’s this, I said.

“Oh, this is the way we work, when we film; it puts our subjects more at ease, when they see we’re naked too.”

As they scattered around the porch down into the back yard, it all looked as if something from one of Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion house-parties.

But well, they weren’t quite naked, seeing as how the thumbnail-sized patches of the g-strings covered up the most relevant part of their anatomy, but that wasn’t my objection.

“What’s with the cameras?”

“I already told you,” Romeo reminded me, “when I first told you about this whole thing.  You weren’t paying attention, though.”

“She’ll be out in a minute to explain,” one pair of bouncing jugs said; “in the meantime, you guys can feel free to peel off, so that everybody’ll be in the mood by the time we get started.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

RATED “R”

Romeo had already begun pulling off his clothes before she’d made the suggestion.  I was slower about it, because I still wasn’t sure about this third guy.  He turned around, his back to us, and pulled off everything excepting his cowboy hat.

When he turned around again, I was greatly relieved to see that I had no reason to feel insecure.  It’s okay with me that Romeo’s hung like a horse, but a distant second place is about as low as I care to go.

I lit a cigarette.  Romeo sat down at a table and rolled a joint, which he offered to the two pairs of juggling jugs standing nearby.  The cowboy, trying to look as if he wasn’t looking, like me leaned against a porch-railing and idly strummed on the guitar he’d brought with him, apparently getting it into tune.

- - - - - - - - - -

Then she, my nemesis from last time, strode out.

She was wrapped in a poor imitation of a medieval Pyrenees gown, and glared at me right away.

“Okay now, listen up,” she announced, “this is going to be a film noir, in black-and-white, and silent.  It’s going to be an ‘art’ film, for the sophisticated.  It’s going to be entered into the women’s film festival in late November, in time for a Christmas release."

Then looking at us, she said, “the girls with the cameras aren’t part of the action; it’s just you three, and me.

“There’s no dialogue, no script, it’s all free-form.  Just follow my lead, with the first thing that comes to mind, no matter what it is.

“Don’t think about sequence or chronology; we’ll be cutting-and-seaming the film into logical order later.

Then looking at me up-and-down, she commented, “you, the expert on medieval culture, surely you’ve heard of that 13th-century Catalonian play about the comtessa and her three male slaves.  She had her way with them, in a revolutionary reversal of the usual roles.”

Right, I said, “she spends a lot of time humiliating, degrading, and abusing her three slaves.

“I’m not into that.”

- - - - - - - - - -

I pulled Romeo aside.  “I’m not liking this at all,” I said; “the three of us are buck naked, and she’s totally covered.  One doesn’t need to know Freud to see that there’s going to be a dominance-submission game here.

“I’m not into that.”

I’d forgotten that because I can’t hear, sometimes when I think I’m whispering, I’m actually speaking out loud, and so she heard me.

She looked me up-and-down again, as if measuring me.

“Well, you don’t look the type to be a man who’s afraid of a woman,” she replied.

“It’s good to see the hair’s grown back,” she added; “what they say is true, that hair down there evens out your other features, adds some balance, some equilibrium.”

Then she gestured to the camerawomen, “Okay, girls, a couple of you come over here and roll some pictures; maybe we can seam them into other parts of the film.  If not, the stills could go into our private collections.”

As two sets of jostling jugs circled me, crouched down, and knelt down, taking various angles, I expressed my objections again.  “You know, this suggests something Freudianly sinister; we three guys are naked, while all of you are still clothed.

“As I said, I don’t do dominance-submissive games.

“Can’t you have them take off their g-strings--it’s true that’s all they have on, but the little patch in front is covering up the best part of women--”

She suddenly slapped me.  “So…..that’s what you think, that’s what all men think--the only part of a woman that matters is her receptacle.”

Then she slapped me a second time, but down there, and it stung.  “What would you think if women thought that the penis is the only thing about a man that counts?”

Ouch, I said; “and I’m sure that women think a cock’s a pretty important part of a man.”

She bristled at the word; she didn‘t like it.

“It’s my cock,” I reminded her, “’cock.’  There’s no need to euphemize here.

“It’s ‘cock,’ a word that suggests masculine vitality, potency, power, and virility.  It‘s something on a man he loads, aims, and shoots.”

I abruptly changed the subject, as she was getting all upset and bent out of shape.

- - - - - - - - - -

“I’m not comfortable with being filmed,” I said.  “Of course you’re going to have to have me sign a release, and what if I don’t?  Fame is nice, but not this kind of notoriety.  What if people I know, people who respect me, saw it?”

“It’s an underground art film,” she said.  “It’s for a women’s film festival.  Just how many people do you know, who attend women’s film festivals, or watch dirty movies?

“It’s not anything to worry about,” she said; “other than the promoters of the women’s film festival, nobody’ll have the slightest idea who you are.  In the film credits, your names are pseudonyms--you’re ‘David Allen,’ he’s“--pointing to Romeo--“’Brian Leitner,’ and he’s”--pointing to the guitar-strumming cowboy--”’David Allsopp.’

“Me, I’m ‘Ava Lowry.’

“You’ll sign a release,“ she said, looking me in the eyes.  “I’m going to make you a star.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

RATED “R”

She flipped the veil covering her front, exposing two firm protuberances exactly the right size and proportion for her body.  It was aesthetic, but I was more anticipating another part of her body, lower down, and alas still covered.

“Okay,” she said; “I’m going to sit down and have some supper.”

Pointing to Romeo and the cowboy, she motioned for them to sit down on either side of her, squeezing their heads under her arms against her jugs so they could kiss and vacuum as she talked to me.

“You,” she said to me, “are going to serve me supper.  First, bring out the candelabra from the dining-room table so there’ll be some class and elegance here.  And bring out and put in place the china, the silver, and the linen.

“And then stand there at attention, hands clasped behind your back, facing me, so you’ll know when I’m ready for something.”

After which followed, for about an hour as I stood there, wretched, despicable, depraved acts of abasement and humiliation that defy description; one of those spectacles one has to see first, before one can possibly imagine them.

This was someone who’d obviously learned all the tricks from the Magistrate’s and the truemud primitive’s wives.   It all transcended de Sade; such things had probably been unknown even in the riotous bacchanalia of Caligulan Rome.

I was very happy I’d been excluded from the costumes, the toys, the gadgets.  The exclusion had been confirmed by her own mouth, and she knew I wasn’t going to sign any release if she dared subject me to such.  So I myself, I was pretty safe from indignity.

I was however bothered that Romeo and the cowboy cooperated, putting up with it.  Looking at Romeo hooded in a baby-bonnet, and the cowboy sporting an Obama mask as she did various things to them, I feared for the future of American manhood.

There’s something about getting sex that makes most men lose their heads, their common sense.

- - - - - - - - - -

She decided she was going to “paint” the cowboy, and told Romeo he could take a break.  Romeo got up and sat on the porch-railing to puff on a joint.

“I’m disgusted with you two,” I said; “the way you’re giving into that--that--that--she-beast.

“It’s obvious what this all is; she’s trying to vent her rage and anger against men by shaming and humiliating them, making themselves look like asses.

“Sex is supposed to be a noble, uplifting, honorable, worthy, decent, elevating thing, undertaken with the most virtuous and unselfish of motives.

“It’s not meant as an outlet for one’s disappointments and frustrations, as she’s doing.

“She’s a sick woman, and needs help.

"Although," I added, hopefully, "maybe it's a case where she just needs poked by the right man, to get her head back on straight."

Romeo wasn’t listening to me, instead being preoccupied with one of the idle camerawomen sitting on the floor, her face upward slurping him, and another one sitting beside him on the railing, letting him play with her quivering jugs.

By speaking with Romeo, alas I’d attracted the attention of the she-beast.  Shoving the cowboy off her lap, where she’d been spanking his bare rump, she looked at me.

“I’d like to have a salad,” she said, after which I went into the kitchen to make it.

When I placed a carefully-prepared salad in front of her, inquiring which sort of dressing she preferred, she told me not to bother going back into the kitchen to get it.

“I like fresh, not bottled, creamy dressing,” she said.

I looked at her as if she were Bozo from Outer Space.

“I’ve never been so insulted in my life,” I said.

to be continued

[franksolich]

Suddenly she got irritated, her jugs shuddering, and signaled for the camerawomen to “cut.”

“Okay now,” she said; “we’re going to take a break, as this guy obviously has no clue about how the story’s supposed to be going.”

She got up to stand by me over at the porch railing.  Romeo, the cowboy, and the camerawomen congregated around the table, tittering and laughing, to puff some dope.  The camerawomen reloaded their cameras as Romeo caressed their jugs or fondled their derrieres, and as the cowboy strummed on his guitar, trying to look as if he wasn‘t looking.

“You, of all people,” she said, lighting her own cigarette, “you’re so bold, you’re so audacious, you’re so insouciant, you’re so blasé, so carefreely exhibiting yourself in situations where most men would cross their hands in front of themselves; you’ve got no hang-ups about being embarrassed.

“How come you’re not cooperating?”

“It’s not my thing,” I said.

“It’s just an act,” she insisted, “not the real thing.  You’re supposed to let me humiliate and abuse you--that’s the whole point of the drama here--and you’re supposed to accept it with utter servility and self-abasement, like women have had to do for men since the beginning.

“This film’s about the turning of tables, women ordering men around.”

“I’m not into humiliation and abuse,” I said; “it’s not my thing.  It’s so much not my thing that I can’t even act it, fake it.”

“Well, what is your ‘thing’?” she asked, slapping me with some vigor down there.

“Well,” I replied, “instead of doing this dirty film, I’d just as soon be poking you.”

She of course had been bereft of a top since first making her appearance on the back porch, but I thought it long past time to see the rest of her, and so yanked off the still-worn lower half of her gown, under which she was wearing a chastity belt.

I fumbled with it, but couldn’t open it.

“It’s locked,” she said; “and you can have the key…..after you cooperate.”

to be continued