When I finally made it back home after three days of wandering and fasting, I was surprised to find how many dirty dishes I’d left around, leaning against the windows and walls, plates with splotches of past meals. I had no time to lose. I mopped the floor. In the kitchen, something smelly caught my attention, drawing me reluctantly to the garbage bin, where I stood without the courage to open its omnivorous mouth. When I pressed my foot down, the cantaloupe halves from the evening with Professor Ranji were staring up at me, swarming with hundreds of maggots.
I ran to my bedroom and thrust back the sheets. The dry, withered rump roast lay there like a baby which had never grown in size, though had wrinkled with old age. I lifted it by the string and fed it to the garbage disposal. I poured whisky and dropped flaming matches down the drain. I scrubbed the hob until it gleamed. I tore open my mattress. I thought everything was ready and I could finally take a shower and change, when I saw Professor Ranji’s footprints on the walls. With a feather-duster, I removed them one by one until I came to Stag Head and, in dusting him, the feathers became tangled in the antlers.
The doorbell rang. I was suddenly overtaken by an uncontrollable anger.
He handed me a particularly cheap brand of white wine I used for cooking, and stepped inside before I had freed the passage.
“Oh, you really shouldn’t have!”
“Huh?”
Had I not held out my hand, he would not have returned my key to me. I could tell he was too embarrassed to look at me.
“What is that smell on your neck?!”
“Old Spice,” he shrugged.
“Remove it!” I ordered, pointing to the bathroom.
He scrutinized me before giving in. When he returned, he smelt the same and I had not heard the water run.
“What’re all these darn feathers?” He kicked one weightless pile, then another.
“Angel down.”
His manners were drying my palate.
“You ask too many questions!” I had felt another was in the air.
“Then why don’t I just leave?” He looked me up and down.
“You must take off all your clothes! You must do as I say!”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
He undid the buttons of his polyester shirt (whatever buttons weren’t already open) before their threads burst from his stomach’s pressure. Underneath, he was wearing the same tank top he had on at the corner store. He kicked off his cowboy boots next to my ballet slippers. They were crass next to the fragile pink. Their tips curled upwards and the sole detached to give them the subtle smile of a satyr. His socks didn’t match, but he kept them on. His white kangaroo underwear might have proved sufficient with a little imagination, but I wasn’t inspired.
“I have prepared this for you.” I folded a white bath towel diagonally, and set it on the floor.
“What the heck’s that for?”
“Sit on it and don’t ask questions. Take that off! Bare, I said!” I had to concentrate to keep my voice at the highest volume before a command becomes a yell.
He struggled out of my grip as soon as I tried to stick a safety pin in the towel. I did my best to hold him down, but his knee knocked me in the chin; he was as ticklish as he was clumsy.
“You are no fun!” I complained, crossing my arms over my upset stomach.
“I was expectin’ dinner,” he retorted sorely.
“You are going to have dinner. But my way.”
“I don’t like some spoiled brat treating me like no goddamn baby.”
I vindictively removed my hair dress to show him what he was missing.
“What the hell’d you wanna do with it anyway,” he muttered, toeing the towel.
“If you tried it, perhaps you would have liked it … ”
“I ain’t no faggot, go play dolly with someone else.” He lifted one foot up after the other, a brief march, and tore each sock off.
“I’ll prepare your supper,” I consented, more to escape his presence than to fulfil an appetite he had already spoiled.
When I returned, I was startled to see him pinned in the nappy, his legs in the air.
“Wah!” he laughed until his belly jiggled like a mound of custard one sets down too roughly on the table, “Wah, wah, wah! Is this what turns you on, girlie?” His eyebrows, sparse and grey, established a distinction between his face and forehead, but the transition between his forehead and scalp was impossible to determine, granting him the naive charms of infantile baldness. His stomach was the happy hump of every baby, and his sagging breasts sat upon this hump.
I uncorked the bottle of white wine and dampened his nappy with a minute splash. “Oh, you bad baby boy, you made pee-pee,” I wished to participate in the merriment.
“I paid f’r that there wine, now give it here!” he bellowed unexpectedly, wrenching the bottle from my hand and swallowed the remaining contents without inhaling once. When he had finished, he licked the circumference of his lips and burped without anyone having to pat his droopy back.
I don’t know what came over him, but he crawled around the apartment on all fours and began going through my belongings. When he discovered the severed mattress, a series of hiccups jarred his slouching, grey-haired breasts.
“You made someone pretty damn mad, I’d say. Do you do this here of’en?”
“Make dinner?”
“This here.”
“Dinner is ready.” I turned about neutrally.
How oddly he reacted, babbling stupidities: if I was trying to get even with someone, for something, if this whole thing had to do with some ex of mine or some present-day jerk, then he preferred to leave before anything happened because if someone was going to walk in and see him like that, in a goddamn nappy on the floor, his feet up in the air, I might as well know that he was well-known in Pasqua County, owned the corner store for thirty-two years, worth, thanks to no one but him, its weight in gold, had distributors, clients, and a reputation.
I spoon-fed him his dinner to keep his mouth busy, tomato soup, carrot purée, strawberry mousse. The shopkeeper did not consume any substantial amount, rather he took advantage of his role and spat in my face.
“Never cared for it,” he coughed, “Not even one year out’a my old lady’s legs, I hate rabbit food!”
“Then why do you sell it?”
He let out a second despicable burp and brawled, “So why don’t you change my nappy, Mummy?!” When I didn’t react, he groped for one of my breasts and said, “I’m thirsty! Got anythin’ to suck?”
“That is odd, for you have drunk a whole bottle.”
“Fuck the bottle! Give me the real McCoy!”
With his foot, he knocked the globe off my banana case, put it like a pillow under his bald head and spread his knees so I would attend to his needs. I patted his bottom. The nappy was damp with white wine. I inhaled the alcoholic fumes, how keenly they resembled the smell of urine.
“Don’t waste no time smellin’: suck!” he invited, fumbling to unpin the nappy as fast as he could.
Though I lapped his skin clear of residual moistness, he hardly seemed satisfied. He executed a series of annoyed huffs, left the room and returned with a miniature parcel, the size of an After Eight, but shiny as a candy wrapper. He fumbled to open it, an exploit of diplomatic expertise, how to tear it open like a brute, yet preserve the precious contents. I wondered what quaint morsel could he have the delicacy to transport, imagining a refined rarity.
Whatever it was, it unravelled like a troll’s tongue, was transparently pink and at first interpretation, disappointing. Like a dainty stocking, he rolled it upon his member to enhance its natural, faded pink hue. I was astounded at the intricate pains one will undertake for vanity, when I understood its raison d’être. It was a rubber casing equipped with a built-in nipple. What a wonderful gadget, I exulted, recognizing his willingness to play. How clever, out of his impressively stout member, he had concocted a baby bottle.
I drew with force, straining my lungs, but could not retrieve a drop of milk. His face contorted with pain. I excused myself, withdrew to the closet, and removed a needle from the Best Western sewing kit my mother had offered me as a last minute farewell gift.
“What the hell you doin’?” he jerked.
“It’s to pierce the point, it won’t come out.”
“Give it time, lady! An’ take it easy with y’r damn rabbit teeth!”
“Shall we boil the nipple for fun?”
“Are you out’a y’r frigin’ mind?”
He rolled over to me and put the baby bottle in my face. I was a good sport and accepted it, but again the unpleasant rubbery taste without the recompense of a dairy extract dampened my eagerness after reasonable effort on my part. Not only did my jaw ache, but the more I pumped, the more I noticed his thing grew limp.
I moved it politely aside and he had the nerve to say it was my fault rather than admit the deficiency of his device.
“You’re supposed ta suck the whole thing, not just the damn tip! I got ten inches you kin appreciate, ya know, case ya didn’t notice!”
If the rubber cylinder were adapted to his piston, agitating the nipple would have sufficed to tap liquid according to the laws of air pressure.
“Main course!” I avoided a fight.
“My dick is on fire,” he wailed.
He pivoted himself to expose his profile. It lifted extraordinarily high, I’d say about eleven o’clock, a missile about to take off into the sky.
“I’ve got something for it,” I promised from the kitchen.
“Move it, baby, my balls’re gonna explode t’outer space!”
I hurried to him, raised his legs in the air, slid the nappy back into place, then massaged his crotch and buttocks with cream cheese, using my thumbs and chin.
“Whatever gets y’r motor goin’ baby doll, make my day, I’ll make y’r meal …”
I sprinkled on a layer of curry, massaging it to an even mustard colour with my tongue. My mind dwelled on Harry’s potty-training problem. An emptiness I’d felt since childhood, a sort of ravenous hunger grew to an excessive state I’d not yet known. I heard hedonistic grunts escape my throat.
“Now yer talkin’,” he encouraged, his barometer displaying his corporeal elation.
“Keep on truckin’, yeah baby, yeah baby, yeah baby …”
I pushed grains of corn into the mess. A fly landed on his buttocks to share the feast. Unfortunately, his skin was tougher than leather; his meat, compact and unyielding so that my jaw ached. All at once, the shopkeeper’s body underwent a great spasm. I tried again, this time with all my might. The rage on his face was the last thing I remember.