The Best of Talebones

by edited by Patrick Swenson

  Outside on the lawn the older children began hitting each other with bats. When one fell to his knees the others gathered around him, hitting him until the boy collapsed completely on the lawn and soft matter oozed into the grass. Some of the children continued to hit him with their bats because they liked the loud, soft sound his body made. The other creatures on the edge of the lawn continued to watch, but a few brave ones crept from cover to perch on the mowed portion of the lawn itself.

  Inside the glass-walled room, the parents continued to laugh and dance, wondering why they’d never gotten together like this before. The mother who had worried wondered why she’d had so many children in the first place. She loved her children but they wanted so much, needed so much, that sometimes it seemed there must be dozens of them grasping, pushing, mouths open to be fed. It shamed her to be thinking like this. But sometimes the sheer numbers of children in the world filled her with terror.

  Outside on the wide lawn the older children joined their bloody hands and raced down the long slope toward the wild edge below, leaving the younger children and the dead boy lying still on the hot grass. At the bottom of the slope the other creatures all entered the lawn and crept up the hill.

  Inside the room the parents turned down the music and gathered at one wall of the glass. The couples held each other and smiled. Some of their children lay sleeping peacefully on the lawn, or rubbing their eyes and yawning as if impatient for sleep. The mother who had worried saw her youngest there, watching the sky.

  The woman peered outside the glass down the slope of the lawn looking for her other two children, seeing nothing but a great cloud of insects in the hot summer air, and below them a gathering of eyes as the immensity of the world looked back at her.

  I’ll always remember the quick teaser Anne sent us for this story: “Gwen is having some trouble with George and Gracie—her breasts. A new bra is all that stands between her and a life out of control.” Little did I know when Anne sent “Still Life with Boobs” that it would end up as a finalist on the Nebula ballot for best fantasy short story of the year. Then again, I did know right away it was one special story. And so, of course, here it is here. It was also reprinted in David Hartwell’s Year’s Best Fantasy 6. The cover for #30 was one of several that Northwest artist Jeff Sturgeon did for us.

  STILL LIFE WITH BOOBS

  ANNE HARRIS

  She could no longer ignore the fact that her breasts were going out at night without her. Gwen stood in front of the bathroom mirror and gave George and Gracie a long hard stare. They bore marks she knew they had not acquired in her presence; scratches, smears of dirt and other, less identifiable substances.

  “Shit,” she swore under her breath. “What do you want from me?” But George and Gracie just stared back at her innocently with their cold-puckering nipples, like two children caught making mud pies in their Sunday clothes.

  They hadn’t looked so innocent when she’d caught up with them last night in the back room of Menzer’s Art Supply.

  She’d fallen asleep in front of the television again. That was her routine these days, plop on the couch with a carton of peppermint stick ice cream and let prime time rob her of the capacity for coherent thought.

  When she and David were still together they’d have stimulating conversations about art and politics. She’d watch him paint or they’d go to art openings. She hadn’t minded her job back then, because she was working to foster something she believed in; David’s art.

  It was David who named her breasts George and Gracie. He had a regular puppet show he’d do. “Say good night, Gracie,” he’d say in a deep voice, jiggling the left one. In a high-pitched voice he’d answer, “Good night Gracie,” as he jiggled the right one. And then he’d kiss them, his mouth soft and open, with a flicker of his tongue that still sent shivers down her spine, just thinking about it. Gwen sighed and stepped into the shower.

  She’d nodded off last night sometime between Law & Order and Conan O’Brien, awakening again around two-thirty in the morning. An old black-and-white movie painted the room in flickering shades of noir and the ice cream had melted and leaked out the bottom of the carton, forming a pink lake in the middle of the coffee table.

  When she got up to clean the mess she realized her breasts were gone. She ran her hands over the blank, flat place where George and Gracie should be, and felt a tremor of panic deep inside. She’d had this dream before, she thought, and pinched the featureless flesh hard. It hurt. The ice cream dripped off the edge of the table. She wasn’t dreaming.

  She threw on a sweater, sweatpants, and a pair of slippers and ventured out into the hallway of the apartment building just in time to see the elevator doors closing. Without stopping to consider if breasts even know how to use an elevator, Gwen plunged down the stairs.

  But the lobby was deserted. She ran out onto the street and fancied she saw two small round objects rolling around the corner. She hurried after them and found herself in an alley behind a row of shops. The night was windy and damp. She shivered and wondered how her breasts could stand it. Up ahead, a door was just closing. Gwen ran to it, pulled on the handle and found it unlocked.

  There was a small step up into a short hallway. Light leaked out from a doorway up ahead and she moved toward it. The muted thump of an insistent disco beat grew louder with every step she took. Gwen peeked around the edge of the doorway into a storeroom lit with Christmas lights. A disco ball made out of foil candy wrappers hung from the ceiling. Somewhere a stereo pounded out “Do You Wanna Touch Me?” by Rod Stewart.

  Dozens of detached body parts cavorted about the room. There were penises, pussies, breasts, mouths, and even a couple of asses. She spotted George and Gracie off in one corner, wobbling lustily up and down the shaft of some rampant dick.

  Shocked, Gwen started toward them, wading ankle-deep through bundles of bobbing flesh. George and Gracie froze in their cavorting, their nipples swiveling to face her like dark brown bull’s eyes. They made a little squeal she didn’t know breasts were capable of and darted for the doorway.

  She ran after them. George and Gracie were remarkably swift for having no feet. They were out the back door before she could catch up with them. Gwen burst through the doorway and completely forgot about the step. She pitched forward, landing hard on the concrete. Groaning she lifted her head and saw a pair of men’s brown oxford shoes. She gasped, staggering to her feet. “Hey, careful now. You okay?” said the guy, and she got a vague impression of light brown hair and a white shirt. He put his hands out to steady her, but just grazed her sleeve as she fled down the alley.

  She never did catch up with George and Gracie, but they came home sometime before dawn, and when she awoke, there they were, looking pretty much as she would have expected. Grimacing, Gwen got a good lather going on her body puff, closed her eyes, and scrubbed.

  Late for work again, Gwen charged into her bedroom and grabbed panties and pantyhose from the clean pile by the bed. But she couldn’t find a bra. She definitely needed a bra. She rummaged around in the bottom of the closet where she generally threw everything she didn’t want to deal with. She really had to clean this mess up, she thought as she tossed aside a butterfly net she’d had since she was six.

  Finally she found a black lace bra she’d bought back when she was still with David. It was far from ideal. Under the circumstances, she’d prefer full coverage and reinforced straps, but there was no time to worry about that. She sniffed the bra to determine if it was clean enough, decided it was, and put it on.

  After work that day Gwen and her friend Tammi browsed through racks of bras at Target. They both worked at J. Thomas Design, Tammi in sales, Gwen in accounts receivable.

  “I can’t believe you put up with that crap from Charlie Axel, Gwen,” said Tammi, tilting her curly brown head to one side and flashing her a glistening lip-gloss grimace. “I don’t care how great a designer he is, he wouldn’t call me a lower life form and walk away from it.”

  “I believ
e his exact words were, ‘I won’t put up with this constant badgering from some low-level bean counter,’” Gwen corrected her.

  “Yeah, after he dumped a foot-high stack of memos and specs on your desk and told you to sort through them yourself. And you probably will. Why does that guy have you so whipped? Don’t tell me it’s the artist thing.”

  Gwen shrugged. “He is talented,” she admitted. “His multi-media piece, ‘Bart Simpson’s Guernica,’ won first prize in a juried show at the Pierce Gallery.”

  Tammi gave her a sour look and changed the subject. “So, what’s the occasion for new lingerie? Could it be the ice age has ended at last? Do you have a date? Who is it?” Tammi grinned and elbowed Gwen in the ribs. “Is it the new guy in accounting? He’s got a cute butt.”

  Gwen shook her head. “It’s not for a date. It’s for my breasts.”

  “Well, duh!” Tammi held up a leopard print underwire with black lace trim and eyed it critically.

  “No,” Gwen shoved aside a frothy lavender concoction and pulled out a white cotton sports bra. “I mean I need something more substantial, something . . . architectural, if possible.”

  Tammi cast a doubtful eye at Gwen’s bust line. “I don’t know if they make those kind in your size. You usually don’t see those ‘foundation garment’ grandma bras in anything less that a 40 C. Besides, you don’t need it. All you need is a little underwire, a little shaping.” She took the sports bra from Gwen and hung it back up again. Twisting her bangle bracelets she shrugged and said, “Maybe a little padding?”

  Gwen rolled her eyes. “I need a lot more than that.”

  Tammi frowned. “Oh come on! What are you complaining about? You’re beautiful.” Her mouth quirked in irritation. “You wouldn’t have any trouble finding guys if you’d just get out a little more. Which reminds me, Buzz wants to go to Moosejaw’s next Friday for dinner and drinks. He’s got this friend Tom, and I was thinking, he could bring Tom, and you could join us.” She wiggled her eyebrows.

  Gwen sighed and turned to the Playtex stand, rifling through the cardboard boxes, trying to find something in her size. “I don’t think so, Tammi. I’m not much in the mood for dating right now.”

  Tammi rolled her eyes. Her chewing gum gleamed pink between her whitened teeth. “Gwenny, I love you, but you have got to get out of this rut.”

  She was in a rut, Gwen admitted to herself. She’d thought it was a comfortable rut, but now that had changed. You could hardly describe a rut in which your breasts were detaching from your body and getting into God knows what as being comfortable. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go.”

  That night Gwen sat cross-legged on the floor of her closet, rooting through old clothes and boxes still packed from when she’d moved here after her breakup with David.

  In a far corner of the closet, beneath a red sequined dress Tammi had talked her into buying, she unearthed a carefully sealed cardboard box about the size of a bowling ball. For a split second she had no recollection of it, and then, like the sinking of an unsinkable ship, her mind capsized, plunging into remembrance and giving her a good long look at the rest of the iceberg.

  She was seventeen, and she was going to be a famous sculptor.

  Unbidden, Gwen’s hands peeled back the tape on the box.

  She loved the smooth, slippery feeling of wet clay, the act of molding it in her hands, the damp earth smell and the rich golden-red color.

  The flaps of the box squeaked against each other as she pulled them open. The newspaper rustled and fell away like shed scales as she lifted the statue out.

  Sitting in her room at night, naked in front of the mirror, seeing herself . . . touching herself . . . as a woman for the first time. In art class the next day molding the clay with her memory as a model. Forming her face, her body, with her hands, exploring herself as she sculpted the figure. And when she was finished, her art teacher, Mr. Teslop, standing over her, telling her that it was “exquisite” and “very advanced.” Her body rushing with pleasure at his words. She quickly agreed to his suggestion to enter it in the district art competition.

  And she won. Oh, how sweet it had felt, standing there in the Menamanee County Convention Center as the judge tied the blue ribbon around her statue and she smiled into popping flashbulbs and they ran her picture in the paper. Her statue went on display back at the high school, right in there with the football and wrestling trophies. She got a little jolt every time she passed it.

  Gwen sat cross-legged on the floor of her closet and held herself in her lap, running her fingertips over her tiny clay face, her shoulders, her breasts. Trapped in their new, full coverage bra, George and Gracie tingled. What pleasure it had been to feel the clay taking form in her hands, to see a thing of beauty and to think, I made that.

  And then came the next day. The last day of her sculpting career. Walking to civics class with her “friend” Charlene Ryans.

  “Oh, is that your statue?” asked Charlene as the display case came into view. And Gwen’s own prideful, foolish, “Yes.”

  They paused before the statue as Charlene peered at it, and Gwen’s heart swelled with more pride, more idiotic self-satisfaction.

  “Oh my God, Gwen,” said Charlene and Gwen prepared to receive her admiration for this great work of art. Then Charlene turned to her and said, “Is that you?”

  Gwen’s big, swollen prideful heart was ripped right out of her. Her face went red. Charlene laughed, and very loudly in the crowded hallway cried, “Oh my God, Gwen, you sculpted yourself naked. It’s a self-portrait!”

  Soon after that her sculpture was removed from the case of honor and returned to her in a square cardboard box. But long after it was gone, the statue haunted her. She was “Boobs” Bramble after that, all the way through high school.

  Gwen sighed and put the statue back in its box. She was about to close it when she hesitated, and then all at once, not giving herself time to consider it, she took it back out, ran into the living room and set it down on the coffee table. She stood back, waiting for what she didn’t know, an explosion, or Charlene Ryans pounding on her door. But nothing happened.

  Moosejaw’s was a new wilderness-themed restaurant next to Costco.

  The menu was sprinkled indiscriminately with game in much the same manner as the walls were festooned with every kind of backwoods paraphernalia imaginable. There was even a stuffed bear standing just inside the door, a box of menus wedged between its paws. Gwen had to admire the logic. There was something about sitting beneath an owl rowing a birch bark canoe that made eating boar empanadas seem normal.

  “So I said, the best way to maximize your potential is to proactively pursue advantageous opportunities and contacts,” said Tom. He was in his mid-forties with wavy chestnut-brown hair and freckles. “Be an evangelist of your product. People can’t resist a prophet, or a profit. Hey, I like that! Be a prophet of profit.” He whipped a Palm Pilot out of his breast pocket and jotted his bon mot down. “I’m collecting all these inspirational sayings for my book, 101 Things To Do When There’s Nothing You Can Do. See, the first lesson is, there’s always something you can do.” Tom took a drink of his Rusty Nail and leaned closer to her. “Look at me. Two years ago I was at rock bottom. My second marriage had just fallen apart, I owed the IRS $75,000 in back taxes, and I hated my job. Now thanks to Maxway, I’m living proof that no dream is out of reach if you can identify it.” He fixed her with a manic stare. “Do you have a dream, Gwen?”

  George and Gracie stirred inside her bra, and Gwen crossed her arms to quell them. “I — I don’t know,” she stammered, but obviously her breasts were of a different opinion. They quivered and surged. She tightened her arms.

  “It’s okay,” said Tom, “I was afraid at first too, but realizing what you really want is the hardest part. Once you do that, the rest is easy.”

  George and Gracie wiggled beneath her entrapping arms. “No, really, I’m very happy.”

  Tammi snorted. “Yeah, right.”

&nb
sp; Gwen’s breasts gave up trying to pry free from her arms and started sliding down instead. George made a break for it and Gwen grabbed at her, elbowing her wine glass in the process. The glass twirled on its base and Gwen reached for it, her fingers glancing off the rim and knocking it off orbit. The glass tumbled to the table, spilling Chardonnay across the nachos with venison and sage sausage.

  “Oh!” cried Gwen as George and Gracie squeezed through the bottom of her bra and rolled out from beneath the hem of her blouse. She thrust her hands into her lap, grasping for their warm, pliable flesh, but they tumbled free. Gwen ducked her head beneath the polyurethaned raw oak table, but it was dark down there, and the pale mound beside Buzz’s shoe was only a crumpled paper napkin.

  The rest of the evening was agony. Gwen kept spotting her breasts everywhere; in the bric-a-brac on the walls, on people’s plates. She nearly had a heart attack when Buzz uncovered the rolls, and her quail and wild asparagus croquettes were a trial to her.

  Finally they were down to coffee and Gwen thought she might get out of this with only minor humiliation. Buzz and Tammi were discussing their plans for Labor Day, and Tom was calculating the tip on his Palm.

  “We’re either going to Four Bears Water Park or Six Flags,” said Tammi. “Six Flags has better roller coasters, but Four Bears has all the water slides and stuff — Oh!” Something over Gwen’s left shoulder caught Tammi’s eye. “Oh look! I hadn’t noticed that before. That’s really funny!”

  “Geez,” said Buzz. “I’m surprised they can get away with that. This is supposed to be a family place.”

  “Wow,” said Tom. “I guess it’s a girl bear.”

  Before she even turned around, Gwen knew what they were looking at. George and Gracie had been found. She craned her neck around to look, and there they were, each nestled in a crook of the bear’s arms. By now other people were pointing and murmuring. Laughter ran through the restaurant as more and more people noticed that the bear was wearing Gwen’s breasts.