Medusa resisted the urge to feed him to a passing shark, but she didn’t because she really did need him.
“If you want all the candy pearls in the ocean, you’ll do as I say, you dirty whiskered son of a cat fish!”
Already shaking from pearl withdrawal, Latticus was in no mood to argue. By the time they arrived at her pleasure pearl, he was beginning to tremble. Suddenly mating with a snake lady didn’t seem so dangerous anymore.
“The water is ready. All you have to do is swim in first.”
Latticus would have done anything for a pleasure pearl in that moment.
“Now?”
She turned up the temperature dial on the side of the pearl.
“O.K., now it’s safe.”
Latticus swam through the tiny black hole in the side of the pearl and disappeared into the hot bubbly water inside.
Medusa listened intently for several minutes, but all she could hear was the popping sounds of the bubbles.
She called into the pearl.
“Latticus?”
“Yes?”
“Are you O.K.? Are you burning?”
“No. I like it. It feels good in here. Can I have my pearl candy now?”
“Yes, Latticus. I’m coming in now, and you can eat every single pearl in my hair as we mate. It’ll all be over before you know it.”
Medusa reluctantly swam behind Latticus into the bubbly pearl. She knew with an idiot like that she had better hurry, lest he forget how to mate at all.
The egg fertilization went off without a glitch and Medusa and Latticus emerged from the trap door exit with completely new bodies. Half mermaid, half dog. They were the first two Mer Dog. They were the first two humans. From that day on every fish in the sea choosing to mate in Medusa’s underwater mating pearl would be transformed by the power of black water magic into the loins of the humans to be born on land.
Medusa and Latticus kicked their new feet and merrily swam to shore.
Finally it was time to seek her revenge. Finally it was time for victory over Loch Ness. There was only one problem; they couldn’t remember a thing. Medusa had the temperature in the mating pearl entirely too high.
All memories had been erased. They were just two dumb dogs with souls full of snake eggs waiting to hatch at the first sign of loin warming.
And as if matters couldn’t get worse, they didn’t even have each other. Upon exiting the pearl they unwittingly swam in two different directions, ending up on two completely different beaches, and knowing nothing of the existence of the other.
Medusa’s diabolical plan dissolved in the fizzy surf of the steady tide. She was not only a failure – she was completely clueless to the fact that she was a failure.
She was so incredibly dense that King Loch Ness had to plant a poison apple tree, dress up like a snake, and coerce her into eating the apple. The apple restored her memory and finally she recalled her original diabolical mission. She found Latticus, fed him a poison apple and once again King Loch Ness had worthy opponents.
“WAIT A MINUTE!” Big Jean stopped the story.
“So you mean to tell me that King Loch Ness was dressed up like the snake the whole time? He wanted the first two humans to eat the apples? That’s deep.”
“I suppose, Big Jean. I’m feeling sleepy now. Let’s read more tomorrow.”
But Big Jean was just getting started.
“So let me get this straight … I’m a Mer Dog?”
“According to this book, we both are.”
“You know it makes sense. People go around humping like dirty little dogs all the time. We humans really are dogs. That little kid that sent you this book, she’s right. She’s right about everything!”
“I feel like a dog alright – a dog in a kennel. Now, I’m ready to get some sleep, Big Jean. Sweet dreams doggie dog.”
“Dog Pound!” Jean shouted, which lead to fifteen minutes of barking throughout the entire cell block.
But no amount of barking could stop Daphne from sinking down into the ocean of dreams she so desperately longed for.
Within minutes she was so far away from it all – her little cage and her metal bed. Once again, she perched on her rock flipping her mermaid fins and feeling the sun on her face, and marveling at the turquoise water. But something different caught her eye this time. She saw a face in the distance, and it was barely above water.
Was someone drowning?
She dove in the water and quickly swam to the face.
“Sarah?”
It was Sarah Battles, and she was drowning.
“Help me,” she cried out as water poured in her mouth as she gasped for air. Unable to keep her head above water, she was beginning to panic.
Daphne took hold of her from beneath her arms and attempted to lift her out of the current, but Sarah pulled Daphne farther and farther under water until Daphne was drowning, too.
Having no other choice, she let go of Sarah, shot to the surface, and gasped for air even as she choked and gurgled up the water from her lungs.
She shot up out of bed in a cold sweat with her hand clutching her throat. “Sarah,” she whispered. “Why won’t you let me rescue you?”
RAINING TAMPONS
The whole town was in a stir the day Daphne Delray made bail, making it the worst day on earth to buy tampons.
Further adding to the shame of it all, her father Rex bailed her out.
Rex sighed as he slowed the car, “Will Piggly Wiggly do?”
Anything would do.
Daphne grabbed the cap off Rex’s head and pulled it so far down over her eyes she nearly tripped over a display of canned peas.
It had never been an easy thing to buy tampons in the small town of Sterling Heights.
Not today, though. She was certain no one had seen her this time, but she was wrong. Even with a gigantic fish net hat pulled down over half her face, her beauty had not gone unnoticed.
She stopped Haiku Makanura dead in his tracks.
With a single glance, he entirely dropped his original mission of picking up eggs and milk for his mother.
Now the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen was right there. So close. She was on the other side of the aisle.
He slid a box of Captain Crunch to the left to create a peep hole.
Wow.
She was like a work of art … a work of art who was determined to leave the store with a box of tampons in under thirty seconds. She didn’t take the time to decide whether or not she wanted cardboard or plastic, heavy duty or wings. She grabbed the little box like a bomb and ran.
NO! Haiku wanted to shout.
He couldn’t let her leave.
She rounded the corner, finally coming down his aisle.
That’s when he realized that a six-foot island of Tampax was the only thing standing between him and the girl of his dreams.
No time for fear, he did the only think he could think to do.
Reaching into the arsenal of more than a decade of martial arts training, he fly-kicked the tampon display with a round-house kick straight out of a Kung Fu movie.
Boxes flew in the air in every direction.
It was raining tampons in the Piggly Wiggly.
Daphne had never felt quite so confused.
She spun on her heel and sprinted towards Rex and the getaway car as if her life depended on it.
“Hey, sir! I hope you plan on picking all that up!” a bushy bearded fellow in a red smock bellowed.
“Only if you tell me who she is.”
Through the window he could see Rex speeding away in the getaway car.
To a bystander, it would have appeared that they were robbing a bank.
“Daphne Delray? She’s about to go to prison for meth, man. I don’t know if I’d go there.”
JUDGE BRUNSON
Judge George R. Brunson hunched over his desk mulling over the Delray case for what seemed like the millionth time.
A voice inside his head told him she deserved the maximum s
entence, but his gut feeling said something entirely different.
He looked up at a sterling silver frame displaying his lovely wife Mary Beth and his only son Samuel. It made him sick to his stomach to think that Daphne could have been planning to sell that meth to his precious son Samuel.
Her trial was set for two weeks away, and with the amount of meth in possession, he could even try her as an adult.
She could get as much as ten years if he felt it necessary, and with the direction their community was heading in, he was beginning to think drastic measures would be necessary after all.
Daphne Delray was pumping pure poison out onto to the streets of Sterling Heights, and it was about time somebody put a stop to it.
BAD NEWS
“Ms. Battles I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
Sarah Battles was so tired of bad news.
As a counselor, that’s all she’d ever heard was everyone’s problems, and for the most part she enjoyed the distraction from her own train wreck of a life.
Today was different, though.
Today she had to face HER own problems. There was nothing or no one to hide behind anymore.
It was obvious it wasn’t Dr. Parson’s first trip to the bad news zoo since he patiently awaited her answer without the slightest bit of urgency.
Sarah swirled around in his swiveling chair reading the plaques on the wall as if she really cared about his credentials.
He seemed to stare through her with chilly blue eyes that were so pale they were almost white.
She finally threw her hands up.
“Let’s go with the bad! How bout it?”
He took a deep breath and let his gigantic white eyebrow roll down over his nose like a wave crashing over the shore.
“Ms. Battles the bad news is you have malignant cancer, but the good news is that it is still in a treatable stage.”
Sarah found it hard to believe that either of those statements could be labeled good news.
In fact, Sarah Battles was beginning to believe to there was no such thing as good news – not for someone like her.
Only yesterday she’d found a rogue pair of lacy red panties lurking about her husband John’s travel case. Of course she had no time for accusations as she was on her daily quest to get three kids to three different schools on time and with lunches … before racing to work through 8 o’clock traffic.
That evening he’d informed her that “the money wasn’t adding up,” and they’d be moving their family of five to a small apartment in a bad part of town. “But don’t worry. It’s temporary,” he assured her.
“Are the panties temporary, too, John?” she wanted to ask but held her tongue for the sake of the three sets of innocent ears tuned into every word.
“O.K., so what? Start chemo? I’ll lose my hair, right?”
“Mrs. Battles I’m afraid you’ll lose more than your hair. The cancer is only treatable if we remove the entire breast.”
CHICKEN SALAD DISASTER
Sarah arrived home at 2:35 p.m. She wasn’t exactly in the mood to go back to work after her little trip to the bad news zoo.
She let out a deep breath and hit the garage door button on the sun visor. What a day.
The garage door rumbled open in slow motion, as if to reveal a game show prize, but it wasn’t a prize.
It was John’s green Ford Explorer.
Being a realtor, it wasn’t out of the norm for John to be home early afternoon, but he hadn’t parked in the garage in over a year.
Ever since he bent an axel backing over Lily’s Barbie Jeep, he’d found a nice curbside shade tree with a 360 view.
But John’s parking habits were the least of her concerns. How would she tell him she was soon to be a one tit wonder?
As if their marriage hadn’t suffered enough of a blow after three kids, chopping off a breast was no way to reenergize a dwindling sex life.
How would he react?
Would he pretend to care? Would he feign compassion while really wondering what NFL team to bet on?
The door was locked.
Also unusual.
She fumbled with her keys, dropping them twice before angrily flinging open the door.
The house smelled like fish sticks.
A pair of Spider Man underwear were dangling from the kitchen faucet for no apparent reason.
A pack of powdered macaroni cheese left a yellow trail to the bathroom.
What the hell? Purple Kool-aid had congealed on the counter top in the shape of a camel.
Nothing made sense.
She tossed her purse onto the one clean spot on the countertop. Apparently, someone had missed it.
She trudged up the stairs, hoping for a nap before the kids got off the bus. According to her calculations, she’d have forty five minutes if she skipped a shower.
She swung open the door. Once again, it seemed to move in slow motion. Once again, there was no prize behind the door - only the principal of Immanuel’s Sheep High School bent over the headboard doing it doggie style with her husband.
He was completely naked except for black argyle socks that reached midway up his pale skinny calves.
She wore nothing but her signature pearls. He pounded her with his all too familiar jerky motion, causing the pearls the slap against the headboard with no particular rhythm.
Sarah’s lunchtime chicken salad sandwich made a comeback in partially digested chunks that flew across the room, smacked John right in his pale white naked ass and splattered rancid chicken across the woman’s heart-shaped face.
The two dirty dogs froze in position as the liquid chicken streamed down their adulterous bodies.
Sarah would never understand what provoked her next move.
Maybe intuition …. Maybe pure instinct, but without skipping a beat, she jerked the pearl necklace right off the woman’s neck and sprinted down the stairs and out the door.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” the woman’s high-pitched scream carried throughout the neighborhood as Sarah sped away.
Those pearls must have been expensive - REAL expensive, but that wasn’t why Sarah did it.
It wasn’t for the money. It was for revenge.
HAIKU AND THE TIGER
After giving grocery store guy five dollars and a joint for Daphne’s address, he now found himself crouching like a ninja in her hedges.
I’ve clearly resorted to stalking, he thought as he peered around the trash can, but coming to that realization did absolutely nothing to stop it.
Catherine and Rex pulled slowly out of the garage. Obviously Rex was driving. Catherine was clearly dressed for a dinner date.
He counted to ten before magically appearing out of the bushes, and he could hear his heart beating in his ears when he rang the doorbell.
Daphne answered with her hair twirled up in a towel turban and mascara streaming down her face.
“Can I help you?”
Clearly she didn’t remember him.
Not wanting to introduce himself as the ‘tampon guy,’ he was rather at loss for words.
“I’m Haiku. Like the poetry.”
She stared at him blankly.
“And …”
Think of something. Think of something, dammit, he cursed in his mind.
Physics. She was in his Physics class.
“I need to borrow your Physics notes.”
“My notes are terrible. Mostly doodling sunshines and hearts.”
“But I was absent, so I’m sure it’s better than nothing.”
Daphne was quickly catching on and found it all rather amusing.
She could see sweat beading at his brow.
“Come on in and have a seat and I’ll go grab them. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to go put on some clothes.
Haiku didn’t sit down.
Instead he paced nervously the entire time she was upstairs changing.
She finally returned downstairs in a sundress carrying a pink notebook full of bubble
letters and hearts.
“Thank you so much …. I mean, wow … I REALLY appreciate this.”
She was suppressing a laugh.
She’d never seen a guy so grateful for a pink notebook full of hearts.
Glancing down at his open book bag, she noticed a pair of boxing gloves and a puppy dog collar.
An awkward silence ensued.
For the first time in his life, he was speechless.
Daphne threw the dog a bone.
“Our test is Thursday. You want to stay and study. I’ll make some coffee and you can look over my notes.”
“Yeah, I would like that. I really need to study.”
Nothing could have been farther from the truth.
Haiku’s I.Q. tested higher than genius by the time he was ten years old. A child prodigy, his teacher’s compared him to Einstein and the local media took notice.
By the time he was thirteen, he wrote a paper on the physics behind black hole stars that wowed the community and landed him on the front page of Science Daily magazine, but Haiku could have cared less. He only wanted to break things with his hands.
With perfect scores on both the ACT and the SAT, his performance garnered him nationwide attention and made him the pick of the litter for every Ivy League college in the world.
But Daphne didn’t know any of that. She’d never actually watched the news.
“So ….”
She grabbed her book bag off the hook by the door. He followed her to the terry cloth sofa behind the glass-top coffee table where she began creating a cozy little study station.
Nervous, he sat down and opened the book.
For the first time in his life, not a word made sense.
She had scrambled his brain cells.
“I’ll be right back with the coffee.”
Suddenly aware of an embarrassing problem, Haiku used her pink notebook to hide a very inappropriate and involuntary display of manhood. It was a phantom boner.
She handed him a purple coffee mug that read MY BITCH.
He laughed nervously, attempting to sip the coffee while balancing the pink notebook on his lap as a cover up.
Soul Snake: Two Thrones, One Queen Page 6