nearly lost my life when you took to the water. I forgot I didn't know how to swim. Never did get the hang of it
"
"Wait a minute," said Melampetta, licking the hairless hollow of his armpit, "let me get this straight -"
"Careful! My ribs -!"
"Yes, I see. Some exhibit, you are, old fellow! You're like one of those mythical inside-out creatures mentioned by Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia in his postural studies of metempsychotics. They could use you as a foldout in an anatomy book. But, listen, do you mean to say that this fairy with the weird locks who liked to keep a magical menagerie and play spooky games with little boys -"
"Puppets "
"Yes, well, like turning houses into tombstones and playing dead and conjuring up pallbearers and corpses and other such ectoplastic doodlings - do you mean to say that she gave all this up to pack school lunches and do the laundry, pick up toys and give baths -?"
"Actually, she oiled me down "
"She abandoned fairyhood to be a mamma - ?!"
"Well, my mamma. It seemed to be something she had to do. Though later of course she changed into a goat."
"A goat "
"Yes. With blue fleece. That's how I knew it was her."
"Madonna! And udders hanging down the size of a theosophist's behind, no doubt?"
"She stood on a white rock in the middle of the sea trying to stop me from getting sucked up into the maw of the monster fish. Or maybe leading me into it, I couldn't be sure. It was the last time I saw her. Alive, that is "
"She died? Again?!"
"Well, she just became something else." How could he explain this? That, in effect, she became the house he lived in, the social order he embraced, even, in a sense, the universe itself at its most ineffable, its most profound "But before that, I found out she was dying in hospital, too poor to buy a crust of bread. I sent her all my money. Everything I had. And with that she came to me at last sort of It was in a dream " He was feeling very dreamy right now. Alidoro was tonguing vigorously the insides of his thighs as though to urge them back to youth again, while Melampetta was sliding up and down between hip and armpit with long soothing strokes, carefully circling the sore spots, making him feel almost like a ship at sea, awash in an airy foam. "It was beautiful "
"I don't know," sighed Melampetta. "All this melancholical hello and goodbye, all this gruesome hide-and-seek over an open grave, tombstones popping up like mushrooms - it sounds to me like either she was trying to cork up your ass with a motherlode of guilt, my dear Pinocchio, or else she had a terrific scam going."
"I know. That's how it seemed to me at times. And I haven't told you everything, either." He offered the old watchdog a replying sigh, and mostly in gratitude, for her tongue seemed to have spread out and was lapping him all over now like a warm wet towel. "Whenever I was a bad boy, for example, she seemed to go limp and cold and fall down with her eyes rolled back. It was really scary!"
"Oci bisi, paradisi ," snorted Alidoro from between his thighs. "Remember that one, Mela? 'Gray eyes, paradise ' "
" 'Black eyes, hot romance ' "
" 'Blue eyes make you fall in love ' "
" 'White eyes make you shit your pants!' I know, I know - but how many times will it work? Once? Twice? This babau, this bugaboo, must have pulled her routine as often as she brushed her fangs. If I may say so, it seems to have taken you forever to eat the leaf, my friend!"
"I was a slow learner, Melampetta, as the world knows. But I'd suffered a lot of births and rebirths myself, I was used to the idea. I was a very lively piece of wood, you know, before the man I called my father - my primum mobile, as you might describe him - turned me into a puppet. Then the assassins hung me and the Fairy brought me back to life again.
"Wait a minute," said Melampetta, licking the hairless hollow of his armpit, "let me get this straight -"
"Careful! My ribs -!"
"Yes, I see. Some exhibit, you are, old fellow! You're like one of those mythical inside-out creatures mentioned by Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia in his postural studies of metempsychotics. They could use you as a foldout in an anatomy book. But, listen, do you mean to say that this fairy with the weird locks who liked to keep a magical menagerie and play spooky games with little boys -"
"Puppets "
"Yes, well, like turning houses into tombstones and playing dead and conjuring up pallbearers and corpses and other such ectoplastic doodlings - do you mean to say that she gave all this up to pack school lunches and do the laundry, pick up toys and give baths -?"
"Actually, she oiled me down "
"She abandoned fairyhood to be a mamma - ?!"
"Well, my mamma. It seemed to be something she had to do. Though later of course she changed into a goat."
"A goat "
"Yes. With blue fleece. That's how I knew it was her."
"Madonna! And udders hanging down the size of a theosophist's behind, no doubt?"
"She stood on a white rock in the middle of the sea trying to stop me from getting sucked up into the maw of the monster fish. Or maybe leading me into it, I couldn't be sure. It was the last time I saw her. Alive, that is "
"She died? Again?!"
"Well, she just became something else." How could he explain this? That, in effect, she became the house he lived in, the social order he embraced, even, in a sense, the universe itself at its most ineffable, its most profound "But before that, I found out she was dying in hospital, too poor to buy a crust of bread. I sent her all my money. Everything I had. And with that she came to me at last sort of It was in a dream " He was feeling very dreamy right now. Alidoro was tonguing vigorously the insides of his thighs as though to urge them back to youth again, while Melampetta was sliding up and down between hip and armpit with long soothing strokes, carefully circling the sore spots, making him feel almost like a ship at sea, awash in an airy foam. "It was beautiful "
"I don't know," sighed Melampetta. "All this melancholical hello and goodbye, all this gruesome hide-and-seek over an open grave, tombstones popping up like mushrooms - it sounds to me like either she was trying to cork up your ass with a motherlode of guilt, my dear Pinocchio, or else she had a terrific scam going."
"I know. That's how it seemed to me at times. And I haven't told you everything, either." He offered the old watchdog a replying sigh, and mostly in gratitude, for her tongue seemed to have spread out and was lapping him all over now like a warm wet towel. "Whenever I was a bad boy, for example, she seemed to go limp and cold and fall down with her eyes rolled back. It was really scary!"
"Oci bisi, paradisi ," snorted Alidoro from between his thighs. "Remember that one, Mela? 'Gray eyes, paradise ' "
" 'Black eyes, hot romance ' "
" 'Blue eyes make you fall in love ' "
" 'White eyes make you shit your pants!' I know, I know - but how many times will it work? Once? Twice? This babau, this bugaboo, must have pulled her routine as often as she brushed her fangs. If I may say so, it seems to have taken you forever to eat the leaf, my friend!"
"I was a slow learner, Melampetta, as the world knows. But I'd suffered a lot of births and rebirths myself, I was used to the idea. I was a very lively piece of wood, you know, before the man I called my father - my primum mobile, as you might describe him - turned me into a puppet. Then the assassins hung me and the Fairy brought me back to life again.
Similar Books
