Hahrper & the Thing: A Funny Dirty Horror Novel

By Jeff Hylton

Steven Isaac Hahrper has devoted his life to the absurdly romantic pursuit of women he barely knows. What Hahrper doesn't know, is that he is haunted by a terrible monster...an ancient Thing which feeds on Hahrper's senseless, fathomless lust.

When Hahrper tires of hollow affairsand meets a woman with whom he could share true lovethe Thing refuses to let Hahrper go. True love contains no nourishment for the Thing. And It will not lose Its fantastic meal-ticket Hahrper.

And, oh, what high jinks ensue...Terrifying visions. Devastatingly erotic visions. A full-length pornographic, yet moralistic Dr.Seuss-style story. Trips to fully-realized personal hells for Hahrper and all his friends. More naked women than even Hahrper could shake a stick at. And, of course, a climactic battle fought atop a fifteen hundred foot replica of Hahrper's own medium-sized pink penis.

All this pulse-pounding, boob-filled action is accompanied by such timeless Steve Hahrper-penned songs as: "Scrumdillyicious Poontang", "Magnet Face", "Why There Must Be Titty-bars In Heaven:", "On The Slopes Of Sarah", and "All Roads Lead To My Dick"...to name a few.

A modern fable about the triumph of true love...and the boundless idiocy of the human male.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 19, 2000
• ISBN: 9781475900491

Jeff Hylton

Jeff Hylton co-wrote the shows THE ELEPHANT MAN - THE MUSICAL, GALILEO'S TELESCOPE, HOPE and JOYCE!!(as in DeWitt!!). He also co-wrote A COUPLE OF BOOBS (aka THE BOOB MOVIE), which is coming relatively soon to a multiplex near you. The best thing he will ever do is marry Christa.

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All Rights Reserved © 2000 by Jeffrey L Hylton

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press an imprint of iUniverse.com, Inc.

For information address: iUniverse.com, Inc. 620 North 48th Street, Suite 201 Lincoln, NE 68504-3467 www.iuniverse.com

Cover illustration © 1996 by James Riggs Used by permission

ISBN: 0-595-12570-0

ISBN 978-1-4759-0049-1 (ebook)

Contents

-From-

-Some place in hell-

-Not a devil-

-Knows where-

-It sauntered-

-One crimson-skied day-

-It sniffed at the blood-

-Sky-

-Said-

-"Love’s in the air"-

-Come, lovers,-

-Come hither-

-And play-

-A creature of vision-

-A thing-

-With a plan-

-And lovers of love-

-Were-

-Its prey-

-It’s poisoned-

-The life’s blood-

-Of many-

-A man-

-Come lovers, come dither-

-Be gay-

-The hell-Thing would say-

-Come lovers, come wither away.-

-Through hist’ry-

-And hist’ry-

-It fed on-

-The sap-

-Who loved most of all-

-Saps-

-That loveliest trap-

-That blistr’y hot-

-Myst’ry:-

-The heart overflowing-

-With love-

-From village to village-

-It roams-

-Forth and back-

-Its raiment-

-A rainbow-

-Its soul-

-Deepest black-

-To pillage-

-The spillage-

-From hearts-

-Overflowing with love-

-It follows-

-The foolish-

-With hearts-

-Overflowing-

-And mind s so unknowing-

-Of love-

-The most foolish love-

-Fool-

-The Thing would-

-Select-

-Then silently therework-

-Its power-

-The foolhardy fool-

-Would his-

-Fool-stuff-

-Perfect, and then-

-He-

-The Thing would devour-

-His feelings-

-Deflower-

-Some lovers don’t know-

-Love gets sour-

-Come-

-Lovers, come blither-

-All day-

-Dumb lovers-

-Come hither and pay-

-’Twill-

-Stoke up your soul-

-’Til you bake-

-With-

-Desire-

-’Twill wrench-

-Out your heart’s-

-Gut-

-To string up Its lyre-

-’Twill leave you-

-With nothing-

-But need for-

-The fire-

-And gaily ‘twill play-

-As you roast on the pyre-

-The pyre of your senseless desire-

-Come, lovers, come dither; be gay.-

-Come blither all day-

-Come, lovers, come wither away-

-Away-

-Come, lover, come-

-With her…Away!-

-For through all-

-Its powers-

-And through all Its sin-

-And through all Its dark-hearted wiles-

-And Its grin-

-The Thing, oh-

-It envies the love-

-That you’re in-

-So fight-

-To your love-core-

-And then-

-You can win-

-If true love it is that you’re in-

About the Author

For two (2) remarkable Jims: Gambill & Riggs

-From-

In this lobe of the Universal Mind,

or

In this facet of the Jewel of All,

or

In this compartment of the Eternity Train, before time.

Before life, death. Before joy, pain; love. Before idiocy, mistrust.

Before polemics, politics, plastic surgery, professional sports. Before alliteration, before mediocre prose, from the vast river of some molten substance, a substance before lava, there sprang a claw. Talon-like, it explored its range of movement in these forming physics, felt its own remarkable strength.

It flexed, opened, clutched nothing, groped…Found purchase on a turbulent forming shore. It pulled the rest of Itself free from the burning torrent, instantaneously assessed where It found Itself this time.

The Thing was born once again.

It breathed deep, and smiled that terrible smile. A smile that caused unsuspecting hearts to ache still, on the other side of some other universe.

It knew that, eventually, there would be what It needed here. There would be obsession and passionate lust; deep ridiculous feeling.

It could wait.

It summoned the bird, which sprang, like its Master, from the molten flow, and alighted, maddeningly colorful, on its Master’s round, humplike shoulder. The bird waddled across the Thing’s thick, yet scrawny neck to the Thing’s other shoulder—which was thin, like a gnarled branch. It was no match at all for the Thing’s other, humped shoulder. The bird’s Master was as strangely, as disturbingly put together as ever.

Then, in a language before language, the bird cawed, shrieked: There will be richness of feeling here, Master.

The richest, It responded through those awful teeth.

And they waited.

-Some place in hell-

Hahrper’s bottom itched.

He looked around and found himself, yet again, in a ridiculous, uncomfortable, potentially life-threatening situation for love of a perfect woman he did not know. Not lust, dammit—love. Well okay, maybe not love. Maybe a kind of love-lust-love. Or lust-love-lust. Hahrper didn’t know what it was. He didn’t care to question it. He knew it was deep and real, whatever it was. This was not base, not common. Hahrper’s infatuations were pure, divine and grand. His unhealthy obsessions holy. And he served them. Ever. Unflaggingly. With gratitude, and respect.

He was serving his latest one right this very second.

Right in front of him was an undulating androgynous man, naked except for a smattering of plastic blue dots whose method of attachment begged more scrutiny than an okra-fed, Kinsey Scale-fearing former Southern boy like Steven Isaac Hahrper cared to give a male body which was not his own. The writhing, polka-dotted man broke Hahrper’s melancholy reverie, awakening him to the smoky, rancid reality of this latest ludicrous predicament.

The name of the place in which he found himself? Grunt. The name of the band, which obviously had not been told that punk died all those years ago on 23rd Street? The Seething Rectal Lesions. The name of the woman, the Her for whom mild-mannered Hahrper was here in the bowels of New York’s nightlife? Alexandra.

Alexandra. Jesus-love, the name alone was enough to make you forget to breathe…And this Alexandra, as so few Alexandras do, earned and filled her excruciatingly beautiful name.

Now, where would she be?

Not down here with the grotesque groundlings.

Blue Dots rotated in Hahrper’s direction, one grayish pierced nipple sporting a puce button on which was written the timeless cautionary nugget: Know Thyself, Freakish Queen. Blue Dots’ glazed eyes met Hahrper’s own unremarkable brown ones. Blue Dots’ thick tongue snaked out over its lush, black lips, reminding Hahrper of the dryness of his own perpetually chapped, oddly shaped (top too thin, bottom too thick) lips. One of Blue Dots’ exquisite, long-nailed hands slowly caressed its tight, blue polka-dotted, washboard stomach, drawing Hahrper’s own clunky, hang-nailed paw to the bulbous vestige of his former paunch, which refused banishment, no matter how many sets of crunches were done, or how much ice cream and cheese skipped.

Know Thyself, Freakish Queen.

Steven Isaac Hahrper knew himself, he thought. Surely, by now, he knew nothing if not himself. It would be one of life’s great ironic tragedies if, after so much time spent inside his own head, he were ignorant of himself. No. He spent far too much time laughing at himself to not get the joke. Or, if he got it, mightn’t it be possible he would instead cry? Well, he spent a silly amount of time doing that too. So, yes. The pathetic joke of his life, the laughable pun that was Hahrper (get it? Hah-rper?) was not lost on him. He could probably even explain it to a blonde, if pressed.

Know Thyself, Hahrper.

Hahrper.

Hahrper.

(How many hours of his life trying to explain the superfluous h he himself did not understand?)

Know Thyself.

He knew nothing if not himself:

Physically, Hahrper was an experiment in the overrun, mundane realm between mediocrity and beauty. Not too hard on the eyes; not a God. A tad freakish in certain ways, (the bad posture, the overbite, the mismatched legs) but, who wasn’t? Never going to play muscle-boy, shirtless volleyball on a beach. Never going to take anyone’s breath away on sight. Never going to produce an involuntary and lust-filled response of any kind, from the activation of stomach acid, to a spontaneously uttered oof. He was just a reasonably good-looking guy, who prided himself on not being hung up on how he looked, while doing everything within his power to look as good as he possibly could.

Mentally, (and most importantly, for it was with his mind that he wooed and won Her), he was better equipped than most, and eternally grateful to the God of whom he was consequently incapable of believing for this truth. The over-active gray pudding in his skull was both the bane and blessing of his existence. He was almost constantly impressed with his brain power. He was almost constantly frustrated by his limitations…the ability to conceive, but not quite grasp. But, he realized, it takes a superior mind indeed to acknowledge its limits, and excel therein (always, always expanding, pushing). He was, without exception, constantly entertained. By himself. By his own dismaying capacity for irrational love-lust-love. (Was there any other kind? Was there rational love? Yes. He had read about it. It bored him.) Hahrper was endlessly entertained by his countless Quests for irrational love-lust-love.

Spiritually. Well, he had taken a lovely day-trip once to the vast, wind-blown wasteland that was his spiritual center. A simultaneously moist and arid place peopled with the rotting carcasses of the unquestioned, embraced faiths of pre-youth. Sad. Genuinely sad, these creatures, these dead faiths. Sad to themselves for the possibility of a rich, faithful life lost; sad to Hahrper for their inability to conquer, even hold their own with his mind. He wouldn’t be going back there. He hadn’t even bothered to have the snapshots developed. Hahrper often took his metaphors too far.

Emotionally, it merely and always depended on how the Woman Quest was going. And Great God Brain both realized and acknowledged that it was never as good, Hahrper never as happy, as when it was not going well. That was when that most seductive, most addictive of drugs: misery—was flowing freely.

As now.

Jesus, what was he doing here?

He had never gone in for the club scene. Not at all. He hated them. He hated how they made him feel. His discomfort of choice was to be found only inside himself and at the toying mercy of Her, whoever She happened to be this month. (Alexandra.) But this was not just a club. It was one of those things known as an after hours club. A club for people for whom normal clubs were not horrible enough. A sweltering basement in Tribeca overflowing with what looked like refugees from a Clive Barker novel: the disenfranchised exotica of some half-forgotten sisterworld. Dressing up, playing at transformations to escape the pain of merely being human.

Why needed they escape? Why couldn’t they embrace the pain? Feed on it, thrive on it and in it, like Steve? Not that it was his place to judge anyone, but, Jesus Christ, look at these people:

Blue Dots had been eclipsed in Hahrper’s line of sight by someone Hahrper privately christened Fruit Boy. This was hardly so politically incorrect as it may seem. The creative young man was wearing nothing but fruit. A shirt made from cherries, tied together and trimmed with dainty bunches of white grapes. A skirt made from ripening bananas, and featuring one particularly well-placed (and, in Hahrper’s modest experience, ridiculously large) cucumber. Hahrper hoped to the God in which he did not believe that it was all plastic. But then Blue Dots began

eating some of Fruit Boy, and Steve decided it was time to attend to the business at heart, at Mind.

Where, oh, where would Alexandra be?

-Not a devil-

Hahrper scanned the dark, smoky room, trying not to be distracted by any of the ur-individuals around him, nor by any of their arrhythmic contortions. Maybe they dressed like this so nobody would notice what shitty dancers they were. Hahrper was white to the core, but at least he had a few moves he felt all right doing before the third beer…Concentrate, Hahrper. You are not here to hate the world. You don’t have to leave your groovy pad for that. You’re here for Alexandra.

Her very name again worked its disorienting spell on Hahrper, and he found himself mouthing it lovingly, tasting the syllables. This mild ecstasy was broken by an eye-contact with Fruit Boy, who was mouthing something back to Hahrper, which looked for all the world to him like the word ‘armistice’.

Hahrper broke the gaze and scanned the dark, smoky, low-ceilinged room for any sign of the elusive siren that had led him here.

She was not dressed like the rest of the clientele, and perhaps by virtue of that, he could spot her through the throng. At the moment, though, Hahrper could see nothing for the enormous peacock headdress which now bobbed between him and most of the club, as Peacock Man had joined the Fruit Boy/Blue Dot party. Peacock Man was wearing only the enormous headdress and a thong, Hahrper noticed with disdain. As

Peacock Man clumsily turned in Hahrper’s direction, he placidly noted that the stuffed neck and head of an actual peacock had been neatly sewn to the front of the man’s thong.

No woman is worth this. And Hahrper considered making his way back up the dubiously puddled stairs which he had only recently descended to get here, and abandoning his Quest. But no. He had never given up. Never. Oh, he had been rejected, many times. But few of these rejections had been final. In fact, the number of times he had not ultimately gotten what he wanted from his quarry could be counted on his dick. That’s right: once. And she. a Jennifer of all things, a common, garden variety Jennifer. she still robbed him of his rest on the occasional lonely night.

Hahrper would not give up this night.

Across the room, amidst the decorated crowd, a terrible smile widened.

Alexandra had not been required to wait on the lengthy line of over-coat-cocooned underground butterflies outside, so it would appear that she had some sort of juice with the proprietorship. Or she was possessed of some celebrity, which Hahrper hoped was not the case. Not that celebrities were unattractive to him, quite the opposite, but when you’re with a celebrity, you get photographed, and Hahrper did not like being photographed with his conquests. That sort of permanence had no place in the scope of his romantic world.

He had been with a lower-tier movie actress once for what to him was a long time, months, and when the paparazzi (leeches of the lens his gay friend Philip called them) had found out that he was somebody, too, their picture was suddenly everywhere. Hahrper disliked people knowing who he was if he hadn’t told them himself. After their inevitable break-up, he had taken shameful pleasure in the decline of her career, which insured that their affair, and that he, would be quite forgotten.

In the interest of full disclosure, he still, on occasion, took shameful pleasure in late-night, pause-heavy viewings of the soft core, shower-scene thrillers she now appeared in, and which popped up from time to time on his video store shelves.

So, celebrity or no, and it was probably no, as Hahrper was well-versed in pop culture, and knew of Alexandra only as his Her, perhaps she was in a VIP room. Did places like these have VIP lounges? Did they have bathrooms, Hahrper’s bladder asked him. Maybe, he answered, but we’re not going to find out.

Hahrper hadn’t had to stand on the lengthy line of freaks-in-waiting outside either, thanks to a little help from the good editor of Poor Richard’s Almanac. Hahrper was rich. Not quite Hollywood rich, and certainly not real money rich, but rich enough, all the same. And, having found the distribution of hundreds to be an impressively foolproof technique for getting what he wanted, he bellied up to the bar, flashed a Franklin at the paisley-pelted caveman of a barkeep, and prepared to quiz him on certain pertinent points.

Great costume, the shaggy bartender said. Hahrper pondered this. He was wearing what he always wore: solid button-down shirt, groovyish tie, dark blazer and mid-career jeans. The barhunk was right. It was a bold choice for Grunt.

What can I get ya? the barhunk asked, making love to Hahrper with his slightly crossed eyes.

I’d like little more in life right now than a seven dollar Miller Lite, Hahrper said, scrutinizing the man’s eyes for some flicker of intelligence, so he might know how to proceed. Ah, connections were made. The man at least faked amusement at Hahrper’s turn of phrase.

Twelve, he said.

What? asked Hahrper.

Twelve dollar Miller Lite.

Even better, smiled Hahrper, glancing in the sooty mirror behind the bar at the writhing mass of feathers and beads behind him.

You’re paying for the atmosphere, offered the barhunk as he turned to fish out a bottle, treating Hahrper to the sight of the second-hairiest back he had ever seen.

More than you know, Hahrper answered, trying with all his modest will power to look away from the hirsute spectacle. But the man’s remarkable fur was like a car crash, Hahrper could not look away. And as he looked, he noticed that an entire section of the fur was peeling away, revealing the tan smooth skin beneath. Another costume.

You’re mass-shedding, Hahrper pointed out to the man as he turned back to place the bottle on the bar.

Dammit the barhunk said, looking over his shoulder and spinning once like a kitten chasing its tail. I told Patrick this would happen. Shit. He was unable to reach the offending flap of fur. Can you get this for me? he asked Hahrper, who sincerely wished that he had not.

Sure said Hahrper, trying hard to think of nothing but the way the long, impossibly black gown had clung to Alexandra’s body as he had followed her throughout this evening.

Just stick it back up there at the top, Hahrper was instructed, and so reached across the bar and stuck the flap back to it’s Velcro base, which was somehow mounted directly on the skin of the barhunk’s shoulder. The barhunk shimmied. The hair stayed in place. He turned to face Hahrper again. Thank you. My manager told me that this get-up was too much like a Halloween costume, but I told him to fuck off and that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and he fucked off. And that one’s on me, he said, pushing the hundred back across the bar at Hahrper.

Then this is for you, Hahrper slid the bill back to him.

I’m married, the hunk said, sliding it back.

I’m straight, said Hahrper, forcing the bill into the man’s hand.

Of course you are, the barhunk replied, not letting go of Hahrper’s hand.

No, really, Hahrper pulled his hand free. I’m looking for a woman.

Look, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I really can’t help you with that anymore. But, he glanced around conspiratorially three houses up the block, number 157, buzzer 3E, ask for Joey. And keep this, you’ll need it, he handed the hundred back to Hahrper.

Hahrper smiled and took a hefty swig of his complimentary beer. Look. Not that I’m above begging you to pimp for me, but that’s not what I meant. I am looking for a specific woman who came in here a few minutes ago, and I wanted to ask you if she might be in the VIP room, and this, he shoved the hundred back across the bar is for your help.

There was a brief pause as Hahrper watched the hunk consider arguing further, then accept his good fortune, stuffing the bill instantly and deftly somewhere within his paisley fur toga.

It is why I’m here, after all, apologized the barhunk, actually blushing. And we are saving for Patrick’s operation. I said to him ‘Gym, love, gym.’ But, God love him, he’s not going to go to the gym, so liposuction it is. Do you know we’re not going to be able to fuck for a month after? And him thin again…Irony! Thank you. They call me Skwirl, and I spell it phonetically…Just one step in the process of fitting in here in the lost world. So, straight person, how can I help you?

About fifteen minutes ago a woman came in here. Black evening gown. Normal womanly height, luxuriously flowing black hair, serviceable body, riveting eyes…Her name’s.

.Alex, Skwirl finished for Hahrper. Your conspicuous boner is for Alex. She’s the owner’s boyfriend’s cousin, but I don’t think she’s his first cousin, if you know what I mean.

Hahrper had no idea what he meant.

Ope, duty calls, Skwirl referred to the dwarf in the powdered wig who had stepped onto the other end of the bar and was holding forth his empty glass with reverent longing. Half a second, breeder boy. He skated away to serve the diminutive lord.

Hahrper watched him go, and took advantage of this interruption to catch his breath. Skwirl was an asphyxiating conversationalist. Hahrper liked him a lot.

A movement in the crowd behind him caught Hahrper’s eye in the blackened mirror. Or, rather, a lack of movement amidst the badly dancing costumed dozens leapt out at him. In the middle of the river of rhinestones and leather there was a lone figure who was not moving with the crowd. And what a costume. This standout outcast had taken his transformation seriously: He wore the brightly colored, form-fitting stereotypical costume of a medieval court jester…but what the colors were, it was impossible for Hahrper to say. They seemed to keep changing, or, rather seemed to co-exist simultaneously, their vibrancy limited only by Hahrper’s powers of perception. And, looking closer, the costume suddenly seemed to Hahrper to be no color at all, but a black and white richer than any colors Hahrper had ever seen. It was also impossible to tell where the man’s glowing white face ended and the tri-pointed jester’s cap began. And the body of the man. Surely no one could actually be that tall, that oddly-proportioned…But it was the mouth that most captured Hahrper’s attention. It was enormously overlong, seeming to wrap halfway and more around the man’s skull, filled with teeth and teeth. Shark numbers of teeth. Outlined with a pair of thick, snakelike black lips, which seemed to course with an unhealthy moisture.

Hahrper’s gaze drifted up from the fissure of a mouth to the piercing eyes of the man, of the Thing. He—It was staring directly at Hahrper, directly into him.

Hahrper turned from the mirror to the actual crowd behind him, to look directly at the remarkably costumed man. But as he met the creature’s gaze head on, It turned away from him, joining the movement of the stumbling, bobbing crowd. But Hahrper could swear It, he. It winked at him as It turned away.

Oddest of all, Hahrper could have sworn he had seen this Thing before.

All thoughts of this particular party freak were banished from Hahrper’s diligent mind in the next instant, however. For, as the jester-thing turned from Hahrper and danced away, Hahrper’s line of sight across the smoke-filled room was cleared, and he saw his Her. Alexandra was sitting in the lone corner booth directly across from the bar where Hahrper stood. She looked forlorn. Her awkward grip on a cigarette betrayed the fact that she was an infrequent smoker. Her placid expression after a belt of bourbon betrayed the fact that she was a seasoned drinker. Hahrper approved of both. She was ripe.

Somewhere amongst the sea of boas and g-strings, the terrible, long smile, about which Hahrper had already forgotten, widened even more. And its owner, reveling in this virtually unprecedented chance to show Itself in public, slid back against a wall to watch the show. It inadvertently met the gaze of a mustachioed fairy princess who would go home later that evening and kill his lover’s cat. But Hahrper was the show. The best in so very long. Perhaps ever.

I see you’ve spotted her, Skwirl said from behind the bar. She’s a sweetheart to be so beautiful. And you’re in luck, because she only plays the fag-hag when she’s been dumped. When she gets Cosmo’ed up and crawls to Tony and Guido, she’s completely available.

Hahrper turned back to the goodly young man in the fake body fur, but his mind’s eye never left Alexandra.

Anything else I should know? he asked.

I hear she’s a screamer, Skwirl said conspiratorially.

Hahrper’s absurd and hypocritical sense of chivalry kicked in, and he leaned in much too close to the young man, looking more foolish than intimidating. You don’t have to cheapen her or me with that kind of talk. You can’t even hope to understand what I feel for her.

I also hear she’s not easy, Skwirl said, looking around uneasily. I’m sorry. It’s a miracle I can get around at all, what with both my feet in my mouth all the time. I didn’t mean anything by it. Good God, I don’t mean anything almost ever.

Hahrper backed down immediately, feeling like a medium-sized fool, and hoping that Alexandra had not been looking his way. It was one of his big selling points that he wasn’t a normal guy guy. No, I’m sorry. I could use another of these, he finished off his beer in a swallow, grimacing at the taste. Hahrper was not a big drinker. It got in the way of his Quests. And one of whatever Alex drinks, please, Badger.

He shoved another hundred across the bar. The hunk took it without argument and provided another twelve dollar Miller Lite, and a bourbon and Diet Coke, which was Alex’s inexplicable drink of choice. Skwirl, the barhunk said, pretending like he was going to make change.

Hahrper touched his arm to stop him going through the motions. I know, Hahrper said. Keep it.

He picked up the drinks and prepared to make his way across the floor. But before doing so, he flashed Skwirl the smile that had won him a hundred hearts (and two hundred luscious boobies) and said Thanks, Skwirl. I mean it. And he meant it.

Hahrper turned suavely and walked directly into a six foot eight, muscle bound black man wearing nothing but a motorcycle helmet and a diaper, emptying the entire contents of both the drinks onto the rippling ebony skin of the man’s chest.

He looked across the room to see Alexandra and her companions looking directly at him and laughing heartily.

-Knows where-

Another hundred prettily extricated Hahrper from this embarrassment. The hundred was not paid to the besmirched Biker Tyke, but to Peacock Man, who was the only freak in the immediate vicinity who readily volunteered to lick the soaked diapered giant clean, which was what the diapered giant wanted in recompense for his trouble. Hahrper was exceedingly happy that he was not required to provide this service himself, as the giant’s vice-like grip on the back of his neck had initially made him think he might. But, God bless commerce, everyone parted friends. Biker Tyke and Peacock Man parted close friends somewhere around eleven o’clock the next morning.

Hahrper chanced another glance Alexandra’s way, and saw that her companions had finished enjoying the spectacle that was his clumsiness, but that the Her herself was still looking at him. He participated in an instantaneous auto-debate over whether to look away, giving the coy impression that he had not been looking at her, but only in her general direction, or to continue the look, to make unmistakable eye contact and to return her ravishing smile with his innocently rakish own. The ridiculous crowd pressing in against him made an eloquent rebuttal for taking the strong road, the fastest road to resolution (and away from Grunt and Grunt’s grunts). Hahrper met Alexandra’s gaze, stare, actually she was staring at him. He smiled warmly at her. She continued smiling back, looking at him over her glass as she finished another tumbler of caramel-colored icky swill.

A turning point had definitely been reached. First contact had been made, and this was the moment when the next step must be taken. The question here and now was who would take it? Hahrper was always prepared to do anything necessary to further the process, his pride mattering to him far less that his throbbing cock, but patience and observation were integral components in knowing how to proceed. And…they were smiling…Smiling at each other…And…

YES! She motioned for him to come over to her. The siren beckoned. Hahrper’s work had just been reduced by a fraction somewhere in the neighborhood of seven-eighths.

Hahrper made the international hand signal for ‘just one minute’. At least Hahrper made what he thought was the international hand signal for ‘just one minute’: index finger extended upward, arm slightly raised just in front of the torso, gentle double pump of the