Fractious

by Carrie Lynn Barker

  I did wake up in the middle of the night when I heard the raucous sounds of two people happily humping in the grass just off to my right. All I could do was smile and let them get it on. Cu deserved it anyway, if only for bringing me so far. I'd done pretty well in keeping myself alive, too.

  The next day though, we took the promised detour into the woods to see Roger and his gang of Goat People. We didn't even need to be kidnapped to find our way back; Bob had a great memory for such things and found the unseen path back to the clearing of huts.

  "She left," Roger said when I asked what happened to Crista. He was wearing the same pink pants he'd had on when we first met him, but with a flashy silver lamé shirt this time. He looked like a disco ball at an Easter parade, but that didn't make him know anymore than he did.

  "Why?" I said, not really surprised.

  "Dunno," he said.

  "Did she say anything?"

  "Not to me," was Roger's answer.

  "Did she say anything to anyone else?"

  "Not to me," Roger said.

  I slumped my shoulders. "Well, if you think of anything, let me know, huh?"

  "Not to me," Roger said.

  I went to join Cu and Fiacha, who were sitting in front of a group of shrieking and shlooming Goat People. At the least, the Goat People lingo had not changed in the slightest in the time we'd been away. Cu and Fiacha both looked entirely confused and I don't blame them. The Goat People were gesturing and shlooming up a storm, but I began to wonder if they even knew what they were saying to each other. I didn't bother to question them on this, but just sat beside Cu. I wouldn't have understood the explanation anyway. "She's gone."

  The Goat People continued their conversation as if I wasn't even there.

  "Crista?" Cu said.

  "Yeah, Crista. Who do you think I meant?"

  "Who's Crista?" Fiacha said.

  "A girl I know," I said.

  Fiacha caught my eye and raised a well landscaped eyebrow. "Just a girl or the girl?"

  "She might have been the girl," I said. "But I fucked up. I do stuff like that."

  Fiacha put a gentle hand over mine. "If she likes you, she'll be back."

  I snorted in pure Bob fashion. "Won't do me any good. We aren't staying here."

  Fiacha gave me her tenderest smile, and I understood why Cu liked her so much. She was so pretty, for a Tuatha Dé. "Tell me about her."

  So I did. I told her everything from the beginning, which was a story she actually had never heard. I told her about getting mugged by Al and his buddy and getting knocked in the head. I told her about my two week hiatus from the world, and of eating flour paste. I told her about vomiting. Then I told her about seeing Cu for the first time in the park. I told her about being dragged into Cu's tree. Then something occurred to me. "Hey, Cu?"

  "Hey, Fractious?" he said back.

  "You said there were only three portals into my world, right?"

  "Into America anyway," Cu said, raising more questions in my head that I didn't have time to ask.

  "Okay, so one is in Watts. One is in Intercourse, Pennsylvania." Fiacha giggled when I said this, for which I don't blame her since you can't blame anyone for giggling at that word, but I ignored her to say, "How come the one in New York leads into your house?"

  "That's just where it leads," Cu said.

  "Into your house?"

  "Into my house," Cu said. When he saw my curious expression, he sighed. "The members of my family have been the guardians of that portal for centuries. Generations, even. My great, great, great, great etc. grandpap didn't even know there was a portal there when he built his house. Nobody knew there was a portal there. When he fell out into New York one day after tripping over a fish, he realized that there was a portal in his house."

  "Wait," I said, holding up a hand. "He tripped over a fish?"

  "That's what he got for leaving it on the floor," Cu said. "But anyway, since the house was already built, he took it upon himself to force the rest of his descendents to be the guardians of the portal."

  "But who's watching it now?" I felt seriously concerned for my world.

  "Nobody," Cu said. "I locked the door on my way out."

  "Oh," I said, relieved. "Good. But somebody pulled Crista into this world. Are you sure you locked it?"

  Cu thought for a moment. "That mighta been Ogma."

  "What in the hell is an Ogma?"

  "He comes to feed my cat," Cu told me. "He has a key and he likes to wander around New York when I'm not there to stop him. He probably saw Crista in the park, fancied her and brought her here. Though I have no idea how she got to Tara."

  "Wait," I said, holding up a hand. "You have a cat?"

  Cu laughed and shook his head. "I hate cats! Filthy buggers. Why would I have a cat?"

  I was baffled, and rightly so. "But you said Ogma comes to feed your cat."

  "That's what he thinks he's doing. He puts out food for the cat, hangs out for a bit then goes home."

  I raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't he wonder why the cat food just keeps piling up and nobody eats it?"

  "Oh, it gets eaten," Cu said.

  "By whom?" I said, intrigued.

  "By Ogma, of course."

  "Of course." I sighed. "Anyway, so the New York portal in your house comes out in Sinatra Park. Where does the Watts portal come out at?"

  "The portal to Watts comes out at a bus stop in the worst part of town."

  "A bus stop?" I repeated, gulping. "In the worst part of town?"

  "Yeah, where else would it be?"

  I shrugged, not wanting to think about it. "And the one in Intercourse?"

  "In a sexual therapist's office."

  "Of course," I said.

  "Of course," Cu echoed, grinning fit to split.

  * * *

  chapter 14

  We had dinner with Roger and the Goat People. Once again we were surprised and very thankful that we were not going to be dinner, but either way we were getting used to the strange ways of Roger and friends. The Goat People cooked up a pig they'd killed somewhere in the woods, which quite possibly might have been one of the things that would eat you slowly I had been forewarned about, and they gave the whole pig to Cu, Fiacha and myself. Bob refused, turning up his nose for a good hour until they brought him a lovely spread of wheat germ. He gobbled that up then asked for more. Luckily, the Goat People also had a good supply of apples, otherwise I was afraid Bob was going to pretend to starve, and Bob happens to be a pretty good actor. But they did and he didn't, so it was a good night after all.

  We slept soundly in different huts. Cu and Fiacha took a hut generously offered by a couple of the Goat People, and the joyous sounds of their humping and thumping could be heard all around the clearing. I bunked with Roger, which was a bad idea since he wanted to hear our entire story, from beginning to end. I told him everything, starting at the very beginning with my birth and ending with the two of us lying in our separate beds, me telling him our entire story. Then he made me repeat the parts with him in it. Then he made me describe him in detail. Then I had to tell him again how we'd killed Amergin. THEN he made me repeat the parts of the story with him in it. Then the sun rose.

  Exhausted from telling tales and from complete lack of sleep, I staggered out into the clearing to a good, hearty Goat People breakfast. When they served goat cheese, I didn't even ask. Nor did I taste it, although Roger ate a whole block of it without even one question. He must have been used to that kind of thing after spending so much time with the Goat People. At least they didn't serve anything that had Roger's name in the title. So I just ate my cereal and milk without another thought. When breakfast was over, Cu and I announced that we were leaving.

  "Just one dance!" Roger exclaimed, pleading and pouting.

  "Okay," I said. "Just one."

  I didn't know he meant with me.

  While the Goat People pounded their drums and tooted their horns, shrieking and shlooming to the beat, Roger spun me around in diz
zying circles, making me feel like I was about to lose my lunch, and I hadn't even had lunch yet. When the song was over, he patted my butt, gave me a hug that I returned, while thinking about the time when he'd saved my life, and said goodbye.

  He seemed genuinely disappointed that we were leaving, but we knew we had to get back to the king in Murias. As Cu, Fiacha and I mounted up on Bob and rode out of the clearing, Roger waved like a princess and cried phony and highly dramatic tears.

  When Roger and the Goat People were out of sight, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Not your type?" Cu said from behind me.

  "No," I said. "He's cute, but he's not my type."

  Cu laughed quietly while Bob picked his way down the invisible path and back to the main trail that would take us back to Mac Gréine and the township of Murias. We followed that path until I recognized the place where I'd gotten lost. I told Bob to turn down the other trail. He knew the way. This had been the way to his home, after all, and he snorted his excitement at seeing Lug, Lug's grandmap and Bobette, the other horse who'd been there at the time when I'd first met Bob.

  To my surprise, Lug was there. I hadn't really been expecting him, but as it turned out, he had been waiting all this time for us. He still had my watch strapped around his skinny waist. By the way it had chaffed away at the shirt he was wearing, leaving a bare spot around his middle, I had the feeling that he hadn't yet taken it off, and I said as much.

  When he saw his old friend, Bob, Lug pretended not to have heard me and said, "Hey, old fella!"

  Bob whinnied, snorted and stomped a foot, bending his nose to nuzzle Lug. Lug put his little arms around Bob's nose and gave the horse a kiss.

  "And hey to you guys, too."

  Cu strode up to my old friend. "I'm Cu of the king's guard and this is Fiacha, my lady friend."

  Lug raised both his eyebrows at Fiacha and took her hand to kiss it, Gomez Addams style, working his way up her arm, much to her delight and Cu's chagrin. Fiacha took it in stride and moved away before Lug could reach her face, but Cu was fuming.

  I realized I had to do something before Cu went ape shit and beat the crap out of Lug for moving in on his girl.

  "Where's your purple uniform shirt?" I said quickly.

  "Oh, that?" Lug chuckled. "I traded it to a young woman who got lost here, oh, I'd say about four days ago. Isn't that right, Grandmap?"

  The old woman suddenly appeared from out of her home. She moved in just the way I remembered, slow and determined, and her eyes were still that same foggy white. "Is that Guy I see?" she said as she moved timidly towards me, unsure if it was really me because she couldn't see for shit.

  "You don't see me at all," I said.

  "I do too!" she insisted, pointing her cane in my general direction.

  "Oh yeah?" I said. "What color are my eyes?"

  "Purple?" was her response.

  "Wrong," I said with a smile she couldn't see. Then I picked her up and brought her as close to my face as I could.

  "Whoa there big boy!" she said, whistling as she did so. "You're damned tall!"

  "Now what color are my eyes?"

  She squinted and got as close to me as physics will allow. Her nose was right up against my cheek. "Green?" she said.

  "Correct!" I said before I carefully put her down.

  "See, I can see you fine." She put her hands on her hips, with her cane sticking directly out behind her, and stuck out her tongue. "Now, you want dinner?"

  "That's okay," I said. "We just came by to return Bob."

  "You got Bob with you?"

  Bob snorted and nuzzled her with his nose. When he moved away, she was drippy and soaked with snot. He snorted an apology.

  "It's okay, buddy," Lug's grandmap said.

  Bob turned his attention to Bobette, who gave him a sensual whinny. Then Bob looked back at Cu and me. He gave a snort, neighed and stomped a foot, then neighed again.

  "Really?" I said. "Are you sure?"

  "You traded fair and square," Lug said. "Besides, we still have your ponies, and they're pretty handy."

  The two ponies were standing behind Bobette. I only noticed them when they stuck their heads out from behind Bobette's legs.

  "Hey, ponies," I said, waving.

  They neighed in response. I wasn't too surprised to find that I didn't understand them one bit.

  "Wait," I said. "How did you get our ponies? Didn't we leave them with Roger?" I said to Cu.

  Cu shrugged. "I dunno."

  "The girl brought them," Lug said. "She said she got lost on the road and ended up here. Said the ponies weren't of any use to her anymore, so she left them here."

  I echoed Cu's shrug. "Whatever. So I guess we're square then, huh?"

  "Bob wants to stay with you, so Bob stays with you." He hitched up his watch belt. "Plus, I'm not giving up my belt. I love this thing."

  Bob licked my face, leaving shiny streaks of saliva on my cheeks. I didn't care; I just rubbed my head against his side and left a wet patch of hair in my wake. Then Bob licked Cu, who used the leg of my pants to dry himself off. I didn't even care. I was just happy to be keeping our little rag tag group together. Bob had become a handy part of the crew. Then a thought struck me. The girl Lug had mentioned had to have been Crista. Why didn't I think about that before?

  "What did you trade with the girl?"

  Lug pointed.

  I followed the line of his finger. Slung over one of the posts on the far side of the corral was a leopard print bra with pink lace trimming. I recognized it from the orgy city of Tara. It had been encasing Crista's ample bosom and matched a pair of panties. I hoped she had kept the panties but hadn't the courage to ask.

  "Not sure what I'm going to do with it," Lug said, pulling at his chin. "She just wanted some food, but I told her that wasn't enough for such a prize as that. Plus she gave us those two ponies without asking for anything else. I bet that spotted, stretchy thing will keep the Slow Eaters from Grandmap's house really well."

  "Slow Eaters?" I repeated.

  "Yeah," Lug said. "Didn't she tell you about the things that will eat you slowly?"

  I nodded.

  "Well, what else would you call them? Slow. Eaters."

  I shrugged. It made sense.

  Cu cleared his throat. "Anyway, we best be off. We need to make it to Tara by dark."

  "You really want to stop in Tara?" I said.

  He gave me a mischievous grin, his eyes flickering in the direction of Fiacha, who was closely examining Crista's left-behind bra. "Hell yeah, brother!"

  I rolled my eyes. I should have known. We thanked Lug and Lug's still nameless grandmap. I didn't even bother to ask him what he'd done with my shoes and socks. My feet had long since forgotten that they'd been barefoot since our first meeting and they didn't care that I didn't ask. Then we were off again, bobbing along on Bob's bareback back, headed for Tara and orgies galore. I secretly hoped we'd run into Crista. And not just for the orgies.

  * * * *

  We didn't.

  Run into Crista, I mean.

  Tara was pretty much as we'd left it, right down to the Tuatha Dé woman who was still, even days later, humping the wooden post. Much to my surprise, Cu didn't even give her a second glance, although he did give her a first. Fiacha paused to watch the spectacle for a while, scratching her head as she did so. Cu let her look for a bit then pulled her away, whispering something in her ear, most of which I didn't catch. Although I'm positive I did hear the word "water" slip from his lips.

  We headed down the road in the middle of the town, past sexual innuendoes and positions I couldn't have dreamed up in a lifetime. I even saw Ken, Crista's old partner, doing the wild thing with a pretty Tuatha Dé woman, though she had nothing on Fiacha. He spied me and gave a friendly wave in my general direction, but it was obvious that his attention was mostly other where.

  We got a room at the inn, the same inn where we'd had drinks the last time. We had to share a room but I knew what Cu and Fiacha
wanted to get up to and volunteered to sleep where ever I could find a place. Cu protested, but I managed to dodge three swings of his bright green top hat and he relented. Bob agreed to sleep in the stables. We went down to the bar later in the evening for dinner, where we met up with Nemain again and his talking parrot. Since I had no more wickets, which was a thankful thing since I really didn't want to have Tom Cruise's likeness in my pocket ever again in my life, I ended up sitting down without a pint of beer before me. I pouted and the parrot took notice.

  "Hey ugly!" it squawked. "What you sad for? 'Cause you so ugly?"

  "I want a beer." I gave the parrot my saddest look ever.

  "Why ask me? I poor."

  "You're a parrot," Nemain said. "Of course you're poor." Then he suddenly threw a woolen blanket over the cage. The bird instantly went silent.

  "That really works?" I waved a hand in front of the blanketed cage.

  "Guess so," Nemain said. He yanked the blanket off the cage and the bird instantly squawked, "You ugly!" He put the blanket back over and the bird went dead silent again. He did this a couple more times until I told him to stop.

  "You asked." Nemain lifted his empty palms in his version of a shrug.

  "Sorry I did." I folded my arms on the table top and set my chin down on them.

  Nemain apparently felt sorry for me, for he called out, "Bring me a pint of beer, wench!"

  A wench appeared with a pint of beer.

  I reached for it but Nemain pulled it quickly away from me. "You want beer, you pay for it." Apparently he wasn't feeling sorry for me.

  "We killed Amergin," Cu said out of the blue.

  "Seriously?" Nemain said, eyes wide with disbelief.

  "Yeah," Cu said.

  Nemain sneered at him for a moment, and then grinned broadly. He opened his arms to the room and yelled, "Now who's gonna pay that wizard bastard's tab?!"

  I didn't particularly care.

  "I do have this." From the pocket of her shift, Fiacha produced an emerald the size of my nose.

  "Where'd you get that?" Cu said, his eyes as wide as the emerald was large.