Sherri exhaled a long, straight blast of yellow smoke from her pursed lips and rolled her eyes casually to Erik.
“Spit it out, Sievert,” she smiled. “I’m not gonna bite you.” Erik reached into the shopping bag, sheepishly producing a single article of clothing.
“Would you mind trading me the sweatshirt for this?”
Sherri’s eyebrows lowered menacingly.
“I’m gonna fucking bite you.”
Erik held the tiny white “Eskimo Princess” jacket at a defensive arm’s length as his mouth quickly rattled his defense.
“Okay, wait, I know it sucks, and I know you don’t want any part of this thing. But please, Sherri, be reasonable!”
“You be fucking reasonable!” Sherri screamed, throwing the ladybug at his head.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing to me? I’m an individual! I’m not just going to sit here and let you cutesy me up until I match your bullshit, cookie-cutter, Delia’s-catalog ideals of beauty, you brainwashed, hive-mind fuckwad!”
“Daaaamn, nice mood swing!” Trent interrupted. “I guess it’s that time of the month when somebody’s getting a visit from her Aunt Flo.”
“Keep that shit up and you’ll be the one who’s bleeding uncontrollably from the groin!” Sherri barked.
“Look, Sherri, I’m sorry!” Erik squeaked. “I don’t want to change you! I don’t care how you dress! I’d wear this stupid coat myself if it would fit me, but it doesn’t.”
“So why don’t you just get another sweatshirt, asshole?” Sherri snarled.
“There are no other sweatshirts. It’s the middle of summer; everything in there is thin and skimpy except for this leftover junk that was on clearance.” Erik’s soulful blue eyes peered desperately over the top of the fluffy white hood in his trembling hands. Sherri crossed her arms and looked him up and down angrily. His lean body was shivering. She guessed it was partially out of fear, but mostly from the bitter cold. A cold that failed to penetrate the baggy folds of her remaindered sweatshirt but seemed to wrap around Erik’s unprotected body like an icy cloak.
“I know this thing’s not your style,” Erik continued, “but it’s a matter of life and death.”
Having lost his polo shirt to the same spider silk that had claimed Sherri’s coat, Erik now wore a fresh ringer tee silk-screened with a cartoon Mountie sporting the exact same faux-age wear as the ten others in the stack from which it had been taken. Somehow his mutant arms seemed far less grotesque emerging from two neatly cut slits in a T-shirt than they did belching from their previous nest of filthy polyester bandages soaked in dried blood and pus. Nonetheless, his four bare, shuddering arms were pale and sickly-looking with chill.
“Please, Sherri,” he said softly. “I’m freezing.” Sherri’s pink eyes rolled back in her head as she sighed a doomed sigh.
“Fine,” she grumbled. “Okay, fine, Erik. I’ll wear the stupid coat if it means you won’t die. ”
Erik exhaled a breath that he had been holding for nearly three minutes.
“Thank you, Sherri!” he gushed. “Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. I mean, nobody’s going to see you wearing it tonight but us, and we know the story. Plus we’ll probably find another coat for you down the road tomorrow, right? Right?”
Sherri blinked distractedly.
“Oh, uh. Right.”
She wasn’t listening to Erik’s relieved ramble. Her fingers had clasped on the zipper of the sweatshirt but couldn’t seem to bring themselves to pull it down.
“What’s the matter?” Erik asked. “Is the zipper stuck?”
“No, it’s not stuck,” Sherri mumbled. “It’s just … I … I don’t want to take it off in front of Raccoon Boy over there.”
“Oh, now that ain’t cool,” Trent said sternly. “Girl, you never call a brother a
‘coon, yo. That’s racist and uncalled for.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Sherri growled. “I meant you’ve got two black eyes!”
“Damn straight they’re black. Why you always gotta make it a racial issue, dawg?”
“You’re not black!” Sherri snapped.
“You best learn to free your mind,” Trent smirked. “Love is colorblind. For real.” Sherri shook her head.
“Oh, shut up and wipe the blood off your face, you fuckin’ hemophiliac.” Trent’s fingers darted to his cheek, wiping away a residual trickle of blood from his wing-related injury.
“Can we just do this later, please?” Sherri said, taking a defensive posture.
“Seriously, I don’t want him watching me undress.”
“What’s the big deal?” Bobby shrugged. “It’s not like you’re naked under there, right? You’re still wearing a T-shirt.”
“God, can’t a girl have a little privacy?” Sherri complained. “You wouldn’t make Vivian change in front of everybody.”
“Ha!” Bobby laughed. “Are you seriously trying to get us to believe that you’re modest all of the sudden? Seriously, what’s the big deal?”
“None of your fucking business,” Sherri spat, clenching her arms more tightly. Trent’s swollen eyes suddenly grew wide in his head and he squeezed Priscilla nervously.
“Holy shiggedy shit,” he gasped. “You got cut, didn’t you?! You’re hiding extra limbs under there!”
Sherri fixed her gaze on the dirt.
“I am not hiding extra limbs,” she muttered. “Shut the fuck up.” Vivian’s scrutinizing eyes ran up and down the lumpy sweatshirt, suddenly realizing for the first time that it was indeed full of more Sherri than it should have been.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “It’s happened to you too, hasn’t it?”
“Nothing’s happened to me!” Sherri snarled. “You shut the fuck up too!”
“Don’t be ashamed!” Erik chirped. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of! Vivian and I are both fine. You’re going to be fine too!”
“I am fine!” Sherri screeched. “Shut the fuck up! Everybody shut the fuck up!
I’m not a mutant!”
“If you’re not a mutant, then what’s the big deal?” Bobby shouted back.
“Seriously, stop being an attention whore and just take off the damn sweatshirt. What’s the big deal?”
“What’s the big deal? What’s the big deal?” Sherri sneered mockingly. “Fine!
I’ll show you the big deal!”
With a furious yank of the zipper, Sherri tore off the sweatshirt and threw it to the ground. Suddenly the world fell silent except for the crackling of the fire and the imagined wail of an innuendo-laced saxophone solo. She had not grown any extra limbs, but hidden within the shrouded recesses of her mangled leather coat, Sherri had undergone a different sort of mutation.
” These are the big deal, alright?!”
Somewhere along their journey, an underdeveloped waif of a girl had disappeared, eclipsed by a shapely young woman with all the right curves in all the right places. Her previously diminutive bustline had grown like the Grinch’s heart on Christmas Day, pressing the nipples of two perky, pink-grapefruit-sized breasts distinctly against the inside of her ragged T-shirt. This bulging bosom distorted the shirt’s original form, hauling its hemline up past her navel to reveal a tanned midriff of smooth skin that melted salaciously into a pair of voluptuous hips. The golden curls of her hair bounced across her pointy face as her head jerked accusingly across the gaping stares of her friends.
“Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Frederick’s of Hollywood,” Trent prayed, making the sign of the cross. “That’s a rack that would make Bullwinkle say damn! You busted right out of your bra, girl!”
“I don’t wear a bra,” Sherri said with disgust. “The bra is just another one of the Man’s schemes to keep women uncomfortable and subservient.”
Trent laughed mockingly.
“Admit it! You just never needed one before!”
Sherri snatched the princess jacket from Erik’s hands angrily.
“Alright, show’s over!” she eru
pted. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to take my shirt off in front of you people!”
Turning her back on Trent, she jammed her arms into the sleeves and wrestled her way into the tiny white coat. Despite her protests, it couldn’t have fit more perfectly over her narrow shoulders if it had been custom tailored for her. She yanked up the zipper, and the quilted nylon fabric hugged her slender form all the way up to where her now ample chest halted its forward progress. The bottom of the tiny coat left four inches of midriff exposed between its furry trim and the top of her frayed skirt.
“Oh, that’s just swell,” she fumed, futilely tugging the hem. “That’s just great. What kind of fashion-whore retard designs a coat with no middle?” She yanked the coat’s hood over her head and stuffed her smoldering cigarette between her lips sulkily. Vivian squinted thoughtfully.
“This is exactly the kind of thing that we were talking about before,” she realized.
“Sherri, your mammary tissue must be dividing at an accelerated rate!”
“Yeah? No shit!” Sherri retorted. “Why do you guys get all the bad-ass monster parts and all I get is a pair of torpedo tits full of breast cancer?”
“I don’t know,” Vivian admitted. “I can’t explain it.”
“You know, maybe you’re just reading too much into this,” Erik said awkwardly.
“Maybe you’re just, you know … blooming. ”
“Blooming my ass!” Trent crowed. “El Pollo Loco can’t cook up breasts that fast!”
Sherri re-crossed her arms over her swollen chest and puffed angrily on her cigarette.
“It could be some kind of hormone imbalance,” Vivian suggested, tapping her chin. “It’s possible that her ovaries are what’s really growing, and this is just a secondary effect.”
“Jesus! Hello?” Sherri spat. “I’m right here! Please stop talking about me like I’m some pre-op transsexual fertilizing his bitch-tits with estrogen pills!”
“Wait, hold on,” Bobby said suddenly. “That night. At the bar.”
“So what-I was wasted,” Sherri said. “We said alcohol doesn’t have anything to do with it, remember?”
“No, not that,” Bobby continued. “In the sub. The pills.” Sherri’s eyes widened as the memory sloshed back to the front of her mind.
“Shut up,” she said nervously. “Just shut up.”
“What pills?” Erik asked.
“Special K,” Sherri said tersely, her eyes narrowing into razor blades. “I was high on Special K that night. That’s all.”
“Isn’t Special K a liquid?” Erik asked.
“What the fuck? Did you all watch a filmstrip on this or something? It comes in pill form too!”
“Come on, Sherri. You know this isn’t a radioactive mutation,” Bobby said. “It’s got to be hormonal! You were popping Menoplay tablets like they were Mike and Ikes that night!”
“Shut up!” Sherri screamed. “You promised you wouldn’t tell! You fucking suck!”
She threw her lit cigarette into Bobby’s face and stomped off into the darkness, leaving behind only echoes of a humiliated sob. The others sat for a moment of silence as the new information sunk in.
“Menoplay?” Vivian said. “Like ‘aisle four, women’s hormone supplements’
Menoplay?”
“Yeah,” Bobby nodded. “It’s a long story.”
“Damn,” Trent said. “I guess that explains why her mood swings like the Brian Setzer Orchestra. A double dip of the lady hormones makes for one powerful rage, yo.”
“Oh, shut up, Trent,” Vivian scowled. “Benedictine monks have a better grasp on feminine biology than you do.”
“I beg to differ,” Trent grinned smarmily. “I think I’ve got a pretty good grasp on a fine specimen of feminine biology right here. Isn’t that right, Prissy?” He squeezed his arms around Priscilla, rousing her trancelike gaze from the ash spiraling upward from the crackling fire. She nuzzled against his body and stroked his chin with absent-minded affection. Swaddled in Trent’s wool jacket and wrapped in his amorous arms, Priscilla looked warm, comfortable, and truly happy. Just then a cold breeze picked up, skating over Vivian’s exposed skin, slipping though the slashes in her wrecked polyester dress, and encircling her icy ribcage. She clenched her arms around herself and glared grudgingly at the well-insulated newcomer.
Nick would have liked Priscilla, she thought. This was a girl who knew how to use her assets to get what she wanted. In just a few hours, she had used her statuesque figure to collect both a warm coat and a hot embrace without saying a word. Vivian’s teeth chattered. As disgusting as the idea was, she found herself almost jealous of the girl being held lovingly in Trent’s arms.
She tore her bitter eyes away from Priscilla, turning to Erik just in time to see him slipping into his regained sweatshirt. Her eyes flashed covetously as he rubbed the cotton-poly sleeves over his quickly warming arms. Why hadn’t he offered it to her? Of course it wouldn’t fit over her wings, but a few holes cut in its back could remedy that problem easily enough. It was obvious to her that she, and her modest assets, had been conspicuously overlooked. Erik caught her glaring angrily at him.
“You okay, Viv?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” Vivian said sourly. “I’m just cold out here without a coat. I guess you didn’t notice.”
She cocked her head toward the ground and her lower lip darted outward in a shameful pout.
“Didn’t notice?” Erik said. “Of course I noticed! I’m sorry, I just got distracted by Sherri’s big-”
Vivian glared at him. Erik closed his eyes and shook his head.
“I just got distracted.”
He stood up and retrieved the last shopping bag.
“Don’t worry, I saved the best for last,” he grinned. “Drum roll, please!” He reached into the paper bag with both hands and, with a dramatic flap, produced the cherry-red coat of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“Ta da!” he announced. “Sorry, horse not included.”
“Oh, nice try, freak boy,” Trent laughed condescendingly. “How’s Vampirella gonna fit her extra gear in that? ”
Without a word, Erik smiled and flipped the coat around. On the back of the Mountie Bee’s former coat were two wing holes extending from its shoulders to its waist, custom tailored to accommodate the insect mannequin’s physiology in a perfect double stitch. As if to make the appropriateness of his find perfectly clear, Erik’s two mutant paws popped out of the holes with a showy flourish of their grizzled fingers.
“I was going to just cut some holes in this sweatshirt, but I think this will be a much better fit for you. Plus you’ve got to admit, it’s got a lot more panache!” Vivian’s lips pulled away from her teeth, revealing a smile so large that it could hardly be contained within the frame of her face. She had not been forgotten after all.
“Oh wow, Erik,” she said, taking the coat and turning it over in her trembling hands. “I mean … wow. Good thinking! I never would have thought of taking clothes off the display model.”
“Well, when I was just in there, the Mountie Bee-he made me think of you,” Erik smiled. “Er, I mean, not that you look like a humanoid bee or anything, just that …
you know, he had those big stupid wings and-not that wings are stupid! Wings are actually really cool; I just meant-”
“It’s okay,” Vivian said blushingly. “Help me put it on; I’m freezing.” Erik stepped behind Vivian with relief and started working her wings through the tailored holes. With a bit of pulling, folding, and squeezing, her long, spiny wings were wrestled through the fabric until the jacket’s epaulettes rested neatly upon her shoulders. Fastening the brass buttons down its front, she found the fit a little snug, but quite comfortable and, most importantly, very warm. She raised her arms and bent her elbows to test the fit, prompting her wings to stretch out from her shoulders in a disturbing arch of bones and black leather.
“How do I look?” she asked.
“Like the wet dream Nell Fen
wick never told anybody about,” Bobby replied. Vivian turned to Erik with a newfound warmth that danced in her sparkling eyes.
“Thank you, Erik,” she said, taking his human hands in her own. “It’s absolutely perfect.”
Before Erik could reply, Sherri came stomping back to the fireside, plowing straight between them and tearing apart their gentle grip. She bent down and picked up her new purse, quickly stuffing a fresh cigarette into her chattering teeth.
“Just shut up,” she said with quiet preemption. “It’s too fucking cold over there.” She lit her cigarette and pulled a long, hot drag into her lungs. Her glare slid up and down Vivian as she exhaled.
“Oh, now that’s just so unfair,” she snarled. “I’m all faggoted up like Holly Hobby, meanwhile Vivian gets to be all Sergeant Pepper over here.”
“I’m sorry,” Vivian said without at all sounding like she meant it. “I don’t think you realize how good you have it. I’d rather wear that stupid little coat than have these awful wings.”
“And I’d rather have the wings than wear the coat,” Sherri said. “Ain’t irony a bitch?”
With that, she dropped into a cross-legged heap by the fire. Erik and Vivian exchanged a short, longing glance over Sherri’s head before sitting down on opposite sides of her veil of cigarette smoke.
“Okay, all of this dress-up montage stuff is all fine and good,” Bobby interjected,
“but didn’t you two bring back any food? ”
“But of course,” Trent said, grabbing the Army backpack and tossing it to Bobby. “While Little E was in there playing fashion show, Big T was bringing home the bacon.”
The backpack hit Bobby in the gut with a thump that sent pain blistering around each side of his scarred body. He sucked air through his teeth and looked at Trent spitefully. Trent was too busy playing with Priscilla’s hair to notice. Bobby set the bag down between his legs and started digging into it.
“Alright, let’s see what we’ve got,” he muttered. “Oh! What a surprise! Maple cookies!”
A unified moan went up from the empty stomachs of the hungry survivors.
The Oblivion Society Page 36