Wendy’s competition.
“Hello there,” she said, her voice as full-bellied as she was.
“Have you got a minute?” She waddled in without waiting for an answer. “I’m Eudora Kelly.”
He opened his mouth to introduce himself.
“You’re Kip, if I’m not mistaken. My man will be going up against you tomorrow.”
“True. Look, according to the rules, you and I shouldn’t be talking.”
She approached him. “Rules are made to keep sneaky people in line. We’re both above board. At least, I am.” Her voice was edged with tease, a quality that turned Kip off, despite the woman’s stunning looks. “Besides, even if I were to tell Moe what you and I talked about or what we did—which I won’t—it’s too late for him to counter it onstage, don’t you think?”
“Ms. Kelly, maybe you’d better—”
She touched his arm, her eyes intent on the contours of his shirtsleeve. “I’ll tell you what surprises he’s planning to pull tomorrow. How would that be?”
“No, I don’t want to know that.” He did, of course, but such knowledge was off limits. She knew that as well as he.
“They say you’ve got new technologies you’re drawing on. A background in the movies. Maybe next year, you and I could pair up.”
Kip reviewed his helpers, looking for a blabbermouth.
No one came to mind.
“In fact,” she sidled closer, her taut belly pressing against his side, “maybe right now we could pair up.” Her hand touched his chest and drifted lower.
“All right, that’s enough. There’s the door. Use it.” His firmness surprised him. It was rare to encounter audacity, rarer still therefore to predict how one would respond to it. He took her shoulders and turned her about, giving her a light shove.
She wheeled on him. “You think you’re God, you spin some dials and flick a few switches. Well, me and Moe’re gonna wipe the floor with your ass tomorrow. Count on it!”
Then she was gone.
The back of Kip’s neck was hot and tense. “Jesus,” he said, half expecting her to charge in for another try.
Giving the workstation a pat, he prepared to leave, making sure that the locks were in place, the alarms set.
“Fool jackass,” Eudora said. “The man must be sexed the wrong way around.”
“Some people,” observed the judge, his eyes on her beach ball belly, “have a warped sense of right and wrong. They take that Sunday school stuff for gospel, as I once did long ago.”
“Not me, Benjamin. I knew it for the crock it was the moment it burbled out of old Mrs. Pilsner’s twisted little mouth. Ummm, that feels divine.” It didn’t, but what the hell.
Benjamin would be pivotal tomorrow. No sense letting the truth spoil her chances.
The judge’s moist hand moved upon her, shaky with what was happening elsewhere. Soon he would yank out his tool, a condom the color of rancid custard rolled over it like a liverwurst sheath. “Yeah, I wised up when I saw how the wicked prospered,” he said. “How do you do it, Eudora? This is the third sexy babe in a row. Your yummy little siren is calling to me.”
“She wants it, Benjamin,” said Eudora.
Perv city, she thought. It would be a relief to jettison this creep as soon as the crown was hers. Three wins. She would retire in glory and wealth. At the first sign he wanted to visit, she would drop him cold. No bridges left to burn after her triumph. Let the poor bastard drool on someone else’s belly.
Benjamin groped about between the parted teeth of his zipper. Eudora said, “That Kip person’s going to spring something.”
“Who’s he?” asked the judge, pulling out his plum.
“You know. The ultrasound guy that Wendy bubblehead is using. Scuttlebutt says he’s doing something fancy.”
“Ungh,” said Benjamin.
Eudora pictured Kip’s office receptionist, her hand shaking as she took Eudora’s money. She was disgustingly vague and unhelpful, Maisie of the frazzled hair and the troubled conscience. All she gave off were echoes of unease: he has this machine, I don’t know what it does, but it’s good because he says it is and because they both look so sure of themselves after her visits. Worthless!
“My baby girl’s getting off, hon.”
“Me too,” he gasped.
“You’re a sweet man,” she said. “Show us your stuff. Give it to us, Benjamin, right where we live. That’s it. That’s my sweet Benjamin Bunny.”
Benj really gets into it. Eudora’s bellyskin is so smooth and tight, and as hot as a brick oven. He smells baby oil in his memory.
Eudora has no cause for worry, he thinks. Moe Bannerman’s a stellar technician. What Moe’s able to do to tease naked babes into vivid life onscreen is nothing short of miraculous.
Benj conjures up the looker inside Eudora’s womb by recalling what hangs on his bedroom wall, those stunning images from Life last year—better than the real thing though a boner’s a boner no matter how you slice it.
He dips into Tupperwared coconut oil, smearing it slick and liberal upon her belly, as he does upon his condomed boytoy. Oil plays havoc with latex, he knows, but Benj isn’t about to get near impregnation or STDs.
Benj bets Moe Bannerman wil carry his experiments in vividness forward in the coming years. Headphones wil caress Benj’s head as he judges, the soft gurgle of fetal float-and-twist tantalizing his ears, vague murmurs coaxed by a digital audio sampler into a whispered fuck-me or oh-yeah-baby.
Or perhaps virtual reality will come of age. He’ll put on goggles and gloves, or an over-the-head mask that gooses his senses into believing he’s tasting her, the salty tang of preemie quim upon his tongue, the touch of his fingertips all over her white-corn-kernel body.
Benj shuts his eyes.
Eudora starts to speak but Benj says, “Hush,” and she does. This time the rhythms are elusive but there, within reach if his mind twists the right way. The beauty queen to be is touching him, indeed she is, those tiny strong little fingers wrapped about his pinkie. Her eyelids are closed, the all-knowing face of the not-yet-born, lighting upon uncorrupted thoughts, unaware of and unbothered by the sensual filtering imposed by society on the living.
Her touch is as light as a hush of croissant crust. This, he thinks, is love: the wing-brush of a butterfly upon an eyelash; a sound so faint it throws hearing into doubt; a vision so fleetingly imprinted on the retina, it might be the stray flash of a neuron.
With such slight movements, love coaxes him along the path, capturing, keeping, and cultivating—like a seasoned temptress—
the focus of his fascination, so that the path swiftly devolves into a grade, hurrying him downhil and abruptly thrusting him into a chute of pleasure. He whips and rumbles joyously along its oily sides once more, once more, ONCE MORE!
Mummy mine,
I’m writing from the convention center, just having come offstage from Round One, where our little dolly garnered her first first! I had a hunch I’d want to disgorge all these glorious pent-up emotions into my momma’s ear. So I brought along my lilac stationery and that purple pen with the ice-blue feather you love so much. Here I sit in the dressing room with the nine other contestants who survived Round One. Ooh, the daggers that are zipping across the room from Eudora Kelly, whose kids won the last two years. Methinks she suspects we’ve got her skunked!
Baby’s jazzed, doing more than her usual poking and prodding. Kip just gave me a peck (would it had been a bushel!!!) and left to check out his equipment for Round Two. If I were a teensy bit naughtier, I’d mention how much fun it is to check out Kip’s equipment, ha ha ha. But you raised a daughter with that rarest of qualities, modesty. Besides which, it would be unseemly to get too much into that, Willie being so recently deceased and all. But life goes on. Oh boy howdy, does it ever!