“I hate a
chore.”—Lord Byron
When I’m in bed with Zozo, I’m nervous. Zozo is the French mistress of Boston billionaire Hazelton Turnbull “Hard Turd” Harding IV, a man whose displeasure it is dangerous to incur, and the father-in-law of Marcie Harding, who is, how shall I put it, my support in life. Discovery by either would mean ruin, but Haze would have me killed.
Zozo, however, tiptoes into my chamber and slips in next to me nude before I can gather my thoughts.
“I can do whateverything you like to me,” she says.
“I’d like you to piss off.”
Zozo wants you commit acts upon her by which she will then affect to be shocked. She wants you to hurt her so she can say “T’aime ca, uh?” She is exquisitely passive, and inserts her submissiveness under one such that one is drawn against one’s will into exploiting it.
Why do I do these things? All I really want is to sleep.
“Did you enjoy that?” I say, when I roll off.
“Extremely much. Now that Haze is gone I can come to you every after-day!”
English is an adventure for Zozo.
“He won’t like that.”
“I can just fuck him off.”
“He’ll turn me over to his bodyguards.”
“That would be much more worse,” she agrees.
I give her a little shove onto the floor. “Bye.”
When I’m in bed with Darleen I feel used. Darleen is Toad’s teenage wife, though in sophistication she’s more like age seventy-five. The young are like that, don’t you find?
Toad looks like something, if it were growing on your skin, you’d spray it with liquid oxygen. But despite his short bumpy greenishness he was an eminent ladies’ man, and could succeed where handsome, elegant, accomplished men—like, for example, oneself—would not have thought of trying.
It wasn’t just that he’s rich. I mean, who would dare to look like that unless he was rich? It was something he secreted, some enzyme that disarmed the prey. Darleen was the only woman ever to show immunity, and he therefore became her prisoner.
She is so disappointed that Toad didn’t turn into a prince when she kissed him that her every act is one of revenge, most especially her ravishments of myself.
Everything he does offends her. She was stung by a jellyfish and he, thinking ammonia was the thing, outed hose and peed on her—which not all women like. For Zozo it would have been fine. Just now, engaged in the act with Darleen, he had taken a selfie, and she had stomped indignantly from the marriage bed.
“Without even be ablin’ to warn me!” she said. For Darleen, too, English is an adventure. “Where’s that dumb-bum gonna put that picture?”
Indeed, Toad is of a vulgarity as pronounced as my own and we are, for perhaps that reason, friends, so to speak.
When she protests these outrages by stealing into my quarters for succor, I believe is the word, I can muster no meaningful objection. A little change is nice.
“Toby,” she says, relaxing in my arms after the first round, “why don’t we go away together?”
I shake my head firmly. “I want my mommy.”
“I can take care o’ ya! You’d be surprised!”
“I don’t want to be surprised. I want my mommy.”
When I’m in bed with Marcie I swim in the sea of mommy, her soft blonde flesh and reassuring aromas, her strawberry secret essence, madonna with her child.
“Toby,” she says, “do you love me?”
“Of course I do!” And who’s to say I don’t mean it? I like women of a certain, what, maturity. Someone to wrap yourself up and go to sleep in.
She’s no Einstein, but then one isn’t an Einstein oneself. IQ-wise, we match! She is beautiful; I am irresistible. I have no money; she has lots.
“Give me a huggymuggs,” I say.
She is under the covers doing me an oral favor when Toad bursts in and yanks them back so hard she nearly bites me.
“Where’s Darleen?” he says.
“Toad, you almost cost me my manhood.”
“Was she here?”
We look up at him, double-exposed.
“Toad, this is embarrassing.”
“I’m sorry,” he tells Marcie, and replaces the sheet with what tact he can manage, veiling her insulted modesty.
I peer under it to indicate that she may resume.
“Goodbye, Toad.”
And he sulks out.
Asshole.
She gets my engine restarted and I am just finding myself when Haze throws the door open and rips the sheet off. We watch it float to the floor.
“Haze,” I say, “there are times when I’m available to talk. This might not be one of them.”
But he stands there, hands on hips, unapologetic.
“Haze!” says Marcie. “Do you mind?”
“Where’s Zozo?”
I attempt solicitude, but my eyes betray mirth. “Can’t you find her?”
“No.”
“Did you look under the bed?”
“I give you money to feed this leech!”
“So?” says Marcie. “I don’t even give a care!”
“He does nothing but lollygag!”
“All part of the service.”
He smiles like he’s brushing his teeth, picks something out of his nose and puts it in the ashtray. We look at it.
“Check the closets,” I say. “We can wait.”
“May I say something to you that I truly mean?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Eat your nose!” says Marcie. “You big phony-baloney!”
He goes out and slams the door.
I nod at her that she may continue and, as she nuzzles me back into a sense of my value, Zozo eases herself from under the bed, gives me a lingering wistful glance, and slips out.
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