Octo-Baby Daddies

Nine Months Ago ...

"Taimey Scores here, reporting for duty!" I salute the bartender and slip my happy heinie onto the stool, bowing before him so my boob-a-roonies give him a little wink. You know, with their nipples peeking out for half a second. Like a wink.

"What can I get you, Taimey Scores?" the guy asks as he wipes off the counter at Archie Tarantella's Bar and Bum Steaks. Why do bartenders in movies always stand around wiping counters? Are they really that messy?

"I'll have whatever that gentleman down there," I squint through the haze and point to the end of the bar, "is having."

"Pig Vomit Bellini?" He arches an eyebrow. "You sure about that?"

I swallow my gum by accident. Cough. Cough. "Um ... yes! Pig vomit sounds wonderful."

The bartender scuttles away on what sounds like the six or eight legs of an insect. Wisp wisp wisp wisp! Times two-ish. Do insects have six and arachnids have eight, or is it the other way around? Whatever. I stand up and peer over the freshly alcohol-polished wood. Sure enough, that bartender has six jointed legs! Arthropod, it is. Imagine that.

Maybe he's Archie Tarantella. No matter. I'm not here to pick up bartenders.

I roll my disbelieving eyes down the bar like a pair of dice--not out of my head, mind you, but more of a scattering of vision receptors, riding wondrous trails of light--until they bump the raised edging at the terminus. I follow a swath of fine gray wool up to the pale neckline of a man the likes of which I've never seen.

His deep claret tie seems to choke his hollow throat. Delicate blue veins pulse along the grooves there and up the sides of his neck. His paperthin skin looks as if it might crack if the humidity dropped a degree or two.

Do you measure humidity in degrees or percentages? I'm thinking it's percentages. But only if you're referring to relative humidity.

Suffice it to say, he looks a bit ... dry.

Hmm ... I need someone wetter.

Wetter! Ha! Did I really just think that? Sometimes my brain goes a little crazy-roonie!

So, anyway, this guy is staring at me like he wants to eat me. Not in a sexual way. I mean, he may really want to eat me. He's licking his lips, and--Oh, my goodness! Is that ... is that a ... FANG?

He smiles.

That's a fang.

"Jimminy Mul-roonie!" I gotta check this out. I wiggle my big round cooley off the stoolie and sashay down to the guy. I saddle up next to him, lay a hand on the bar, and smile big with my boobies.

His fangy grin widens, but he's not looking at said bazonga-roonies. He's got his eye on my neck.

"I heard you were drinking pig's blood--er, vomit--down here, and I had to come and see what all the fuss is about."

He doesn't seem to notice my boobies, despite the fact that I'm jiggling them like a dang reindeer's sleigh bell right under his nose . Literally--not figuratively--right under his nose. That's when I notice he's not breathing. Because if your boobs are literally right under someone's nose, you'd surely feel the heat of his exhalation and movement of his heaving chest as he gazes longingly at your glorious globes, right?

I pat him on the back. "Are you okay? You don't look well."

Definitely not breathing. Holy sriracha caracas!

And his Pig Vomit Bellini hasn't been touched. I wonder if this fellow is some kind of shape-shifter.

"I'm quite well, now that you're here." The sultry tenor of his voice sets my toes tapping under the stool. I suck in a lungful of air, testing it for his scent. All I get is the hint of a dusty funeral parlor. No biggie. A couple splashes of cologne will knock that funk right out. I fiddle through my purse--lipstick (five different colors in case I stumble upon one of those rainbow parties I've heard so much about. Gay people are neat!), mirror (weird how this shifter-man's reflection doesn't show in it), condoms (not sure why I have those).