CHAPTER FOURTEEN IN FLAGRANTE DELICTO; OR, TRICKED AND TREATED

The Chancellor’s estate is located in the upscale neighborhood of Citrus City Hills and is a very impressive home with topiary gardens cut in the shape of some very famous nudes: Francisco de Goya’s The Nude Maja; Titian’s Venus of Urbino; Édouard Manet’s Olympia; Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du monde (The Origin of the World) not to mention Katsushika Hokusai’s The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife. The Chancellor’s wife is not a major fan of the naked topiary garden, though she does swim in the nude in their Olympic size swimming pool. Inside the 4,500 square foot home, a plethora of twentieth century European art graces almost every wall. Both inside and out are lavishly decorated for Halloween with the requisite number of cobwebs, spiders, skeletons, and skulls, many of which look remotely similar to retired Citrus City faculty.

Professors, all adorned in a wide array of literary costumes, mingle. As the Reader now knows from the previous chapter, Liliana is dressed in a rather seductive Little Red Riding Hood outfit holding a basket with a red and white checked coverlet. Obviously, she’s not your grandmother’s Little Red Riding Hood nor did she have any intention of being your grandmother’s Little Red Riding Hood.

They have been at the party for some time, mingling with glasses of champagne, making small talk, talking trash about colleagues or administrators behind costumed backs, the politics of the academy, the dark underbelly of the academy. Usual stuff. But after a while, talking trash becomes repetitive, if not boring, and since rumor mongering is not what Malarkey is interested in hearing Malarkey moseys up to Little Red Riding Hood dressed as …

… with the addition of a granny cap. Of course, he had no option. It wasn’t as if he could be her Humpty Dumpty. So, the Big Bad Wolf puts his snout in Little Red Riding Hood’s ear and whispers something. If Malarkey tells the Reader what he whispers then it would undermine the rest of the chapter, so he won’t. Just imagine something Malarkey might say to a woman dressed that way while he’s dressed his way. Or, imagine what you, the Reader, male or female, might say to a woman dressed that way.

She smiles and looks at him as they engage in a dialogue that only Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf can possibly engage in. The dialogue goes something like this: Little Red Riding Hood got naked, tossed her bedclothes on the floor, climbed into bed next to granny and loosely draped herself with her down comforter exposing more of herself than hiding it. She is greatly amazed to see how granny looks in her nightclothes, and says to her,

“Grandmother, what big arms you have!”

“All the better to hug you with, my dear,” replies the Big Bad Wolf.

“Grandmother, what big legs you have!”

“All the better to run with, my child,” replies the Big Bad Wolf.

“Grandmother, what big ears you have!”

“All the better to hear with, my child,” replies the Big Bad Wolf.

“Grandmother, what big eyes you have!”

“All the better to see with, my child,” replies the Big Bad Wolf.

“Grandmother, what big teeth you have got!”

“All the better to eat you my child,” replies the Big Bad Wolf.

As randy as Big Bad Wolves can be, Malarkey gingerly takes Liliana by the hand and leads her to a nearby toilet. They enter together and close the door behind them. Unfortunately, randy Big Bad Wolves usually have only one thing on their minds and so the Big Bad Wolf fails to do what any randy, self-respecting Big Bad Wolf should do; namely, lock the door. Believing that even the Big Bad Wolf wouldn’t be so stupid as not to lock the door, Little Red Riding Hood drops her scarlet panties around her ankles, hops up on a corner of the Chancellor’s Abel sixty-inch vintage single sink bathroom vanity with walnut finish while the Big Bad Wolf, as Big Bad Wolves are wont to do, takes advantage of Little Red Riding Hood even though Little Red Riding Hood is in full compliance with the rules of Citrus City College Section 6, Paragraph 9 regarding off-campus sexual encounters of any kind. Unfortunately, because the Big Bad Wolf fails to lock the door, moments later the Chancellor, dressed as Don Quixote, taps quietly on the door with his spear and not hearing any response, reaches for the doorknob and turns it. At this precise moment, Little Red Riding Hood, her legs wrapped tightly around the Big Bad Wolf, turns to the door, in stark terror. Keeping calm and carrying on, the Big Bad Wolf merely looks at the Chancellor.

“Why chancellor, have you met Little Red Riding Hood?”

Jones slowly closes the door.