Darrell Vickers – FtN Chapter Ten: You Mean?…Exactly!
I wrote a large check and Polo fucked-off to do whatever it is I hired him to do and I went to have a last cup of gourmet coffee before heading home to my new house and furniture.
Punjab was standing by the pastries, waiting for someone to notice him. Just my luck, that honor fell to me. He was wearing this garishly colored, deep V-necked jumpsuit with a yellow turtleneck shirt underneath. I wasn’t quite sure what the fuck he was up to. Unfortunately, he was more than willing to tell me at length. This specific outfit had been worn by Dr. John Robinson and Major Don West as they piloted the Jupiter 2. It was actually called the Gemini 12 in the pilot, but that episode never aired. Blah, blah fucking blah. He began to bury me under a massive avalanche of tedious Lost in Space trivia. I could feel my brain trying to sneak out the side of my head through my ear. It was time to say something while I could still resist punching him.
“Pardon me for being a little confused here Punjab, but I don’t get why you’re so fascinated with this show. I mean it was like, canceled 20 years before you were born.”
I had hit a Punjabian hot button. He became very animated and loud. “Which is a travesty of unparalleled injustice. Surely, you must concede that this precious gem of entertainment should be still gracing our airwaves. Apart from all the actors who are dead, it could still be the greatest show in history. The Simpsons suck animated doggie genitals compared to Lost in Space. Now, instead of the sophisticated and poetically written interplanetary adventures of the Robinson family, we are affronted daily with the shitty reruns of According to Fucking Jim!”
It was tough to argue with the “According to Fucking Jim” part.
Alchemy walked into the room (Or did she glide in on the backs of angels?). I was saved. Those breasts and legs could pour all the thought out of a young man’s brain. Even Punjab’s (and that was a lot of thought). He completely forgot his point and went back to nibbling on his apricot croissant.
My Athene then smiled at me. What a trouser arouser she was. “The rumor is, you’re a home owner, now.”
I played it cool. Hopefully, she hadn’t heard anything about my two housemates.
“It’s better than being a rumored dick smoker, I guess.”
She laughed lightly and all the world’s hunger was cured and no child ever again knew fear. Perhaps I’m exaggerating a little, but it sure felt like that. She certainly possessed a supreme beauty that invariably excited the sensitive soul to tears. Alchemy had the kind of face you usually only see on bottles of fabric softener. Her dress didn’t even wrinkle when she sat down. She didn’t require makeup. It was literally impossible to imagine her taking a dump. Perfect in every way and then some. I wanted to hear her screaming carnal obscenities underneath my heaving, naked torso so much that it almost made me ill. But it was a really, really good kind of ill.
“So, are you a Mormon or something?”
I wasn’t quite sure where this was going but…, “I’ve never really been to a church, my mother was always too hungover on Sunday mornings, but I think I’m an Episcopalian.“
“It’s just, with the two “girlfriends”, that’s sort of a Mormon thing, isn’t it?”
FUCK! She knew. Well, I might as well come completely clean and own it. Perhaps she’d be impressed by my honesty.
“Well, I have a girlfriend and a prostitute, that’s closer to a Republican.”
At the house, all the furniture was in place. The pictures were on the walls. My new happy home was complete. The movers had zipped up their pants and gone home. Izzy lost by the way. Luckily, the shot wasn’t fatal, just hard to swallow.
The girls still had one outstanding problem. How to tip the gas man, his assistant and the two carpet layers.
Rebecca was very apologetic. “I’m sorry fellas, but our jaws are a little sore and we’re completely faithful to our man so you can’t enter us with your lusty swamp monsters.”
Needless to say, the four lusty-swamp-monster owning gentlemen were a little let down. They needn’t have worried. Izzy had a corker of an idea. She held up a crystal flute that she had just emptied of ‘95 Krug, Clos d’Ambonnay.
“But I don’t think there’s any rule that says we can’t jerk you off into a champagne glass.”
It appears that everyone came away a winner.
The girls were asleep when I got home that night. After work, I had stopped off to have a drink with young Miss Alchemy at one of those horrifyingly trendy bars where moneyed scenesters and scenestettes hold court. So I sat there among the ferns and wicker baskets and tried my very hardest not to make a pass at her. Alchemy only had one drink, of course, and went home to her sensible, exceedingly well-made bed.
Sigh. If a meadow of flowers could sing, her voice is what they would sound like. She told me that she was only planning to stay at Zielger Industries for a year or so. Alchemy wanted to be a news anchor (Or is it a news anchoress or anchorette – no, I think that’s a gum that helps you stop smoking.). It was her life-long dream and no amount of money was going to veer her from her chosen path. I sipped my beer and imagined her behind a desk, telling me all about political instability in Burundi. And yes, I had an erection while I was doing it.
After she’d gone, I stayed on to polish off whatever booze was left in the bar. There was something sad about not going home to my old apartment. Sure a great house in a great neighborhood was nice. And it was positively a step up from the cockroach-infested closet I’d been living in. But living in a cockroach-infested closet seemed like “me”. Living in a big beautiful house seemed like it was some other guy’s life and I was just getting to be him for awhile.
Plus, you could practically fall face first from my front door and hit the bed in my old apartment. Finding the right bedroom in this place, after a dozen Shiner Bocks, was like Stanley‘s search for Livingstone.
Having not found Jesus or Waldo, Stanley finds Livingstone on a dare
About four-and-a-half seconds later, it was time to get up for work, again. I don’t care what the national anthem says; dawn’s early light can stick itself up its own ass. Throwing off the oh-so-comfy counterpane and dropping one’s hungover feet onto the cold hardwood floor is not for the faint of heart. The girls, yet again, did not arise with me. I rubbed my weary, bleary peepers and headed down the majestic oak staircase. When I got to the bottom step, I paused but for a moment to get my bearings. Ah yes, the kitchen was…that way. I walked on, hoping beyond hope that the girls had remembered to buy a coffee maker.
Down the hall. Turn left. Then turn right. No, that’s the atrium. What the fuck kind of plant was that? Never mind. Coffee. Left again and I was there.
I surveyed the magnificent marble-countered, glass-cupboard-doored, copper-shit-everywhere-ed kitchen. Wow. Maybe I could get used to living here. And there, just before the horizon, I spied it. An elaborate coffee maker with a pyramid of stoneware mugs next to it on a tray. I was saved! And right next door to that was a rather tasty looking tray of pastries. Yummy! Then…I noticed this curious half-filled champagne glass. It had some sort of viscous liquid in it. Were the girls making pudding yesterday? I picked it up and sniffed. What the hell was it? Only one way to find out, I guess. I lifted the hand-carved flute to my lips and tipped the contents Zackwards. I knew, instinctively as a man, even though I’d never tasted the substance before, exactly what it was the microsecond the first molecule of gas-man-jism hit my terror-stricken gustatory cells. My face exploded in panic. It was absolutely essential, even as the spunk-of-unknown-origin was cascading onto my tongue, that its cummy gooiness should find no purchase upon my palate. I hawked into the sink quickly and with prejudice. I tried to spit the very lining of my mouth out.
“Ptaaa! Ptaaa!” I expectorated.
“Mr. Bramble? Are you okay?” asked a young woman’s voice.
I was unable respond or exchange pleasantries at first. I was far too busy regretting that I had been born with taste buds. After another two or three minutes of intense spewing, I gracefully turned. The owner of those sweet, concerned female vocal chords turned out to be a beautiful twenty-year-old vision wearing an apron. She had long dark hair and olive skin and was absolutely gorgeous (as most beautiful women usually are). Her name was Carla. I forced myself to smile at her. Then, I thought I faintly tasted a certain something and returned once again to hacking and spluttering over the garbage disposal.
Finally, having cleansed my lingua within an inch of its life, I took a breath and forced a second smile. “Hey,” I said in a fake jaunty sort of way.
This did not allay her fears. I indicated my eccentric actions in the sink. “I was just, ah, practicing what I’d do if I ever met Ryan Seacrest.”
She didn’t think this was nearly as funny as I did. Not a titter.
“I’m your new cook. Polo said a man of your lofty status shouldn’t have to make his own breakfast, so he hired me! I hope you like waffles.”
Carla was a very perky girl with very perky parts. I could see why Polo employed her. She didn’t cook very well but she did cook a lot. Mostly waffles. Almost exclusively waffles.
Turns out she needed the job because of some recent trouble at home. Polo was kindly looking after her while Carla’s father was in hiding…from him.
“Well, I might as well go with the flow,” thinks I. “Something with a lot of taste to it would really hit the spot right now.” I smiled at my new, scantily clad employee. “Waffles sound perfect.”
Then, I very casually goobered one more time in the sink.
“Mr. Polo said that you usually like cereal for breakfast but Artie already ate all the Honey Smacks. But don’t you worry, I’ll get Carlo to pick some up more when he does your shopping.”
“Carlo?”
“Oh, he’s my brother. He’s going to do all the shitty jobs in and around the house for you. And don’t you worry, he’s not going to take your women to bed no matter how much they might implore him.”
“You think they’d implore him?”
“It is the allure of the Latin mystique. It can be a powerful erotic enticer. They would be helpless to resist.”
“Don’t I have any enticers?”
“Oh no. You’re a white guy. You don’t have any mystique. But don’t you worry. You’re rich so that little white wiener of yours is going to do just fine.”
Carla cheerfully got down on her knees and unzipped my pants. The waffles could wait. As I stood there, experiencing all the tender mercies inside her gloriously shaped and talentedly (Is that a word?) tongued mouth, I began to realize why this was considered the most important meal of the day. I thought of Alchemy and tossed a mighty load.
Afterwards, I thanked her profusely and gave her a raise.
Thirty minutes and two tasteless, undercooked waffles later, I was in the back of the limo brushing my teeth. This was the third time I’d gone over them that morning. Carla handed me a bottle of Bling H2O. I gargled and gargled and gargled and then spit it all into the complimentary champagne bucket.
Across from me, waiting patiently with pen and paper in hand was Mr. Mystique himself. Carla was right about this guy. Carlo was 22 and as handsome as all fuck. The girls would have banged his Latin-mystiqued ass in a second.
“Besides the Honey Smacks, are there any other cereals or mueslis you’d like available for your morning repast?” he inquired charmingly.
Wow. How does someone get to be that handsome? Compared to him, it looked like someone had shit my face onto the front of my head.
“Ah, why don’t you get a small selection and some way more flavorful toothpaste.”
While Carlo wrote that down, I put the toothpaste I did have on my brush and began another round of vigorous scraping. I paused mid-scrape.
“And maybe you could pick me up some underwear and socks while you’re out,” I mumbled through a large cloud of foamy white bubbles.
Carlo seemed a little unsure. “This is not something I have done. Carla buys all of mine.”
Carla was having none of her brother’s back-lip. “Now you go out and buy Mr. Bramble some socks and undies. It’ll be good training for you if Polo ever finds daddy and we become orphans.”
“Is there a specific type or style you prefer?”
How the fuck should I know? I had never bought underwear in my life. I was still wearing the remnants of the stuff I had when I left home for college. Now that I was rich, and had a guy to buy shit for me, it was about time to get some jockeys that I didn’t have to hold up with a shoelace. “Ah, I guess what I need is something that’s average. I’m kind of an average guy, that way. Sort of.“
“Yes, I heard. Polo also told me to wear large, loose pants around you and your women as I am enormously hung.”
Carla nodded her head in agreement.
=DV=
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Darrell Vickers started out as one half of Toronto area band, Nobby Clegg. CFNY fans may remember the cheery song “Me Dad” which still gets airplay. From there, he valiantly ventured to L.A. and eventually became head writer for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Since then, he’s created numerous sitcoms and animation shows in Canada and the U.S. He still writes music and has an internet band called Death of the Author Brigade (members in Croatia, Canada and the U.S.) Mr. Vickers also had a private music mailing-list where he features new and pre-loved music. Anyone who would like to be added to his daily mailing list, just write him at Radiovickers1@gmail.com
Segarini: Don't Believe a Word I Say 
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