A Wild Rose Romance

Her hair speaks Orange Crush.  Anna Marmalade hits Golden Gardens hard.  This high hurricane from lower Alabama drenches the parade of Seattle ladies, pallid and poky.  “She’s insane,” the women whisper, sharpening their kitchen knives. But the boys line up.  Once a hopeful choochoo train of Nigerian Norwegians, their frat lives suddenly feel flimsy, flat--in short, a sham. Then Molly Fang, a Hong Kong hawk, arrives in her jade-green Jag, to snatch up Anna Jam and jet with her to Broadway for some beer. There, they sip Bud, swap spit, and buy a gram of bud from Bud the pretty busboy.  They now appear back in the Jag, where they suck bong smoke, grope, then dash to Molly’s palace by the lake in Windermere. Naked, glowing in Windermere moonlight, they splash in Molly’s fishpond--flush, rich with goldfish and muck. Anna shouts: “The greatest aphrodisiac is cash!” Moon-mad, she and Molly rub flesh and lick and suck lips and nipples.  They smear cool mud all over each other’s hot body.  Now only their eyes shine--moonstruck. “You’ve taught me mad mud-love,” says Molly.  “Let me teach you the art of Greek sponges, hot water, perfumed shampoo.” In shower steam, in pulsing water, in the dim peach- light of the wet pink room, embracing, the two lovers stand, both pissing.  Muddy water mixed with piss swirls at their feet.  Molly spies a tiny red and blue tattoo on one of Anna’s white thighs, and drops to her knees to kiss and bite it.  Tasting blood, Molly quivers, ecstatic.  Anna jumps back and screams: “You Chinese vampire viper bitch, eat this!” Squeezing a bottle of pink shampoo, Anna pumps gobs of the gooey fluid onto Molly’s face, tits, and hair. Anna slips, falling.  They wrestle on the floor.  Their rumps roll over and over.  Then they stop.  They stand and stare at each other, smiling.  Both so clean now--a red rose and a black rose trembling in the rain.  Their bellies barely touch.  Molly whispers: “Time for bed, if you dare.  Perhaps I will kill you, Miss Blue Eyes.” “Yes, yes,” Anna hisses, “I’m so fucking ready to be bled.” In perfect darkness, the naked lovers slowly rise, climbing a corkscrew staircase, up to Molly’s nest. Anna, expecting ARABIAN NIGHTS, begins to fantasize: plush carpets, purple curtains, a silver chest stuffed with gold brocade, a crystal chandelier ablaze, a circular bed big as a hog pen, the very best French champagne on ice in a golden bowl, silver trays laden with fried chicken, yams, collard greens and ham hocks. They enter the room.  It’s pathetic.  Anna surveys the place--confused, frowning; Molly cackles and padlocks the door.  A dim red bulb dangles from the ceiling. Near a naked mattress on the floor--a long pine box. Anna flops, tits up, on the narrow bed, feeling like a lost child.  “I’m so weak, so thirsty,” whispers Anna. Meanwhile, Molly hops around the mattress, squealing like a hog in heat, and from the box retrieves a bandanna-- blue silk, star-spangled--two dusty bottles of Chinese beer, which she opens with her teeth, and a banana. “Sit up, Anna.  No need to be a corpse, just yet.  Take these.” While Anna chews the yellow fruit and sips the brew, Miss Fang, bandanna wrapped around her head, is on her knees praying to a carving of a cobra, a voodoo doll she’s picked up in Miami on vacation.  She springs to her feet and glides through the red gloom, a bamboo broom stick tucked between damp thighs.  Then she flings the stick at the dim red bulb.  It shatters.  A flash of white light.  Anna shudders.  Suddenly everything’s gobbled up by darkness.  “Anna, my goddess, my golden gash, are you ready to receive an alligator?” Anna hears swamp birds screeching, hum of bees, the splash of something horrible hitting water--the mutilator who creeps in dreams and shadows.  She smells decay: stench of dead fish, orchids, drunk frat boy, rapist, satyr. Molly’s fingers, twin rivers of roses, begin to play with Anna’s long toes, swirl up her legs, and flow across her belly, breasts, neck, face; then they flip Anna’s body over.  Fingernails, little thorns, go pricking gently everywhere--shoulders, spine, ass, thighs. Then Molly’s mouth attacks.  Anna’s breathing deep and slow. Molly stops.  Anna turns to reach for her.  Anna tries to find her, but Molly’s hiding in the dark.  Anna calls for her, but Molly’s quiet.  Anna’s fear intensifies. She’s so alone.  Her mind breaks.  She weeps.  Molly falls on top of Anna like a boa constrictor.  With her thumbs in the honey pot, her tongue in the jam jar, Molly crawls inside of Anna, turns her inside out.  Free, Anna comes and moans, and her moans go on and on.  “O you! I love you, Molly, marry me,” Anna coos, and then succumbs to sleep.  Next day, Molly Fang, attorney-at-law, flew to the court house, filed a few pre-trial motions, spent half an hour at the gym perfecting her abs, had a two martini lunch with her real estate broker, sent emails all over creation announcing the wedding, sold some stock, updated her last will and testament, bought a ring for Anna (huge ruby), made plans for shedding her law practice, phoned Charlie her twin brother in L.A. and by 3 PM was driving through the Arboretum, heading for Anna and Windermere.  Meanwhile, Anna’d found her way to the kitchen and was sipping brandy with the maid. Molly handed Anna the ruby ring and a huge bouquet of wild red roses.  She proposed.  Anna accepted.  The maid stayed, and they had three-way sex right there on the kitchen floor. In sunshine flowed wine and barbeque smoke, in shade flowed weed, coke, smack, et cetera.  The fiery bride wore an extravagant Gilbert Adrian, a Greta Garbo gown. Her long red hair flamed as she danced beside the shore. In a snakeskin jacket by Bill Blass and baggy pants, brown silk, Molly floated above the spastic crowd, her proud head rising higher as the summer sun sank down. At twilight, Charlie fired off rockets.  Old Winifred, high priestess of the Cult of Latter-day Witches, called out from the end of the dock: “Let the fucking music be dead!” The lovers joined her, said their vows.  Obviously enthralled the crowd fell silent.  Then Molly Fang and Anna Jam tore off each other’s clothing and, bare-assed, cannonballed from the dock.  On their backs, holding hands, they swam-- bare legs rhythmically churning--towards the rising moon. Lawn speakers blared Aerosmith cuts until some goddamn neighbor called the police, who arrived and--too soon!-- shut the wedding orgy down.  Anna wept and drank a beer. Up at dawn, Molly made a decision.  That afternoon she sold her estate on the lake at Windermere and bought a bungalow above a beach on Vashon Island, where the honeymoon continued.  She and Anna’d appear in short-shorts, and pick up treasures or pretty trash on the beach; then take them--for a threesome or a foursome--to bed. It seemed like such innocent fun--a simple cash on the futon type of deal.  But late one night Molly said: “I perceive that we are turning into pigs.  We degenerate!” And Anna added: “If the mud gets deeper, we’ll be dead ducks.  We must do something drastic.  But what?  Create?” “Yes, we’ll kick it up an octave, from Venus to Neptune,” Molly said.  “To aquire a new life we MUST sublimate.” Their new life began.  They smashed bongs and bottles.  Soon, all was study, practice, meditation, and green tea-- gallons and gallons of strong green tea.  Morning, noon, and night they worked and peed.  Anna drew and painted.  She became a master of the dream, the surreal.  Her art started selling in Pioneer Square.  Molly’s specialty was composing for, and playing, the cello.  Her pieces were part Bach, part blue-grass, part Kung Fu.  At Benaroya Hall her first concert stunned the critics (she played topless).  “Such heart! Such a weaving of traditions!  Such exquisite tits!  I call her a wonder!”  wrote one dog.  The transmutation of pig swill into nectar was an inspiration to us all. While there’s no doubt our lovers reached a higher thrill-- composing, playing, painting, or writing their memoirs-- it must be said, at certain lunar phases, they can still be moved to smooch and grope in sleazy Broadway bars, by Love that drives the sun and other stars.

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