Beat 67: And May the Wonders Never Cease
How does the old saying go?
Something about a stiff upper lip?
Ah, the exact context escapes me at the moment, but I suspect I’ve no
troubles following through with such advice.
Not surprisingly, Lloyd
couldn’t bring himself to move his upper lip, much less the rest of his
body. And remarkably, it didn’t have
anything to do with the chair he’d been bound to; he had near-complete control
over his neck and above, but he still couldn’t cry like a panicked emu
(whatever that sounded like). He could
only sit there and stare, and hope that his face had frozen into a smile. It hadn’t.
It couldn’t.
But that was fine. Because Sheila smiled back at him.
But as bad as her smile
might have looked, her eyes proved worse.
Infinitely worse. She’d tossed her glasses aside, and beyond a
few frizzy bangs and shadows dimming the upper half of her face, her orbs had
long since been revealed. And they
hardly even looked like eyes; her irises looked painted on, a slapped-on blotch
of brown at three-quarters the usual size.
They didn’t reflect light, or refract, or even absorb it; it was as if
they outright erased anything that
came near them. The skin around them
seemed to recoil in their presence, and her eyebrows -- tensed into slanted lines,
and looking to climb as far away from her face as possible -- made her look as
if she wanted to cry. Then again, so did
her eyes. So did her smile.
But no one wanted to
cry more than Lloyd. And he might have,
if not for the crippling, paralyzing, pants-saturating fear. Then again, with Sheila around that might
have given her grounds to leave him in the buff.
“I’m really pretty,
aren’t I, Lloyd?” Sheila asked, with her mouth moving up and down like a
nutcracker’s. “You said so yourself
yesterday -- and it meant so much to me.
So many people think I’m ugly…so many people…but then you came and
proved to me what I knew -- what I should have known all along. I’m a pretty, pretty girl. So pretty.
So pretty. So pretty. So pretty.”
I’d very much like to know when my life became a horror movie, Lloyd
thought. And if possible, how to avoid making it as such.
“It’ll be okay,
Lloyd. Everything will be okay. I know what happens next. First, I love you. And then, I make you fall in love with me. And then we have beautiful children together,
and we live happily ever after! It’ll be
like a fairy tale come true! And the
fairies’ curse will be lifted! And
you’ll love me even more!”
“Miss O’Leary!” Lloyd
shouted at last. “This is much too
extreme! I’m having a hard time
following your motivations, much less your end goals -- from what happened
yesterday, I would have figured that the fairies’ curse was what gave you such
a robust form. If that’s the case, then
what good will it do now? You’ve already
fully matured, and I’ve already explained that I’ve approved of your body.”
Sheila’s head started
to tilt. “But that’s just it,
Lloyd. I do want the curse to be
lifted…because it’s not just on me. It’s
on my whole family. And what kind of
mother would I be if I gave birth to a child with a twisted body? Especially if he had to live through as much
bullying and ridicule as I did?”
“Miss O’Leary --”
But Sheila just put a
finger to her lips. “It’s time for you
to eat up, Lloyd. I need you at your
best if we’re going to have our fun. You
and me…we’re going to go far. We’re
going to go all the way. All. The. Way.”
Lloyd stared blankly at
her. “…To the circus, I hope. There’s just something magical about the
trapeze.”
Sheila’s brow started
to twitch; whether it was because of Lloyd’s fear-born silliness or her
revolting face muscles, he couldn’t tell.
She just stared back at him -- and then, all at once, tore her shorts
off her body.
“M-Miss O’Leary! Show some decency!” Lloyd wailed. Of course, that didn’t stop him from zeroing
in on the lacy red undies she’d proudly borne.
“I heard that men are
more attracted to women in red,” Sheila explained. She tugged her jersey upward; sure enough,
her breasts came bouncing down, somehow managing to stay restrained behind a
rosy bra (and as Lloyd quickly noted, her little ensemble covered just a bit
less than yesterday’s). “If that’s true,
then I bet I can get you all fired up -- and give you the hottest meal you’ve ever had.”
“Well, I hardly think
so, given that the omelet has likely cooled considera- ohhhhhhhhh, you mean because of your body. All right, I follow.” Lloyd nodded a few times. “Wait, WHAT?!”
“Get ready for your
main course, Lloyd. I’ll fill you up
real nice.” She turned her back on him
and started for the plate.
That Left Lloyd ample
opportunity to struggle and clamp his eyes shut. “No!
No, no, no! This is too much for
me, Miss O’Leary! It’s too
scandalous! Too raunchy! Too much for my fair maiden’s heart to bear! Why, just think of the poor impression we’re
leaving on the masses! This is not the
activity high school students should be engaging in!” He opened his eyes and looked up at the
ceiling (and a mosaic of him looked back).
“Granted we’re not officially high school students at the moment, but
semantics are hardly a sticking point in the eyes of…”
He looked back at
Sheila -- and had to force himself not to laugh. The omelet sat just a few feet before him…but
Sheila didn’t. She just kept bumping
around on the sides, scraping and knocking over her possessions as she waved
her arms about. “I thought I left it somewhere around here,” she muttered.”
“Miss O’Leary? You, uh…you can see at least a little bit
without your glasses, can’t you!”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!
I totally can, so shut up! It’s
not like I’m legally blind or anything!”
Sheila started to snort and sniffle once more, and the smile she’d
painted on her face had long since started giving way. “You just wait right there and enjoy your
sexy breakfast!” She took a step backwards,
and fell onto her bed -- and knocked a Lloyd statue into her shin in the
process. “Ow! Damn it!”
“Just reach out with
your left hand and you’ll find the --”
“You be quiet! You just…just…I dunno, start getting your
back ready or whatever! I’ll be there in
a minute!” Sheila sat up and stroked her
shin, and then started her clumsy search once more. “I can smell it. I can smell it, because I made it with extra
love!”
“No, wait! Don’t -- watch out for the --!”
Too late. Sheila’s foot caught a power cord, and she
tripped over. She crashed against the
floor -- with no shortage of cushions, thankfully -- but the fall brought with
it a tall lamp that slammed into the back of her head. “OW!
Son of a…!” She dragged herself
upward with a growl, but in her haste (and rage) the cord started to tie itself
around her.
“Move your foot left --
now your leg over and up -- no wait, don’t move your hand there, it’ll just --”
“I’m FINE, Lloyd! Just fine!
So fine!” It took every ounce of willpower for Sheila
to squirm free of the cord that bound her…and her squirming knocked a few
statues down onto the floor. Not that
she cared; she just climbed to her feet, the frustration scribbled all over her
face and her lungs (among other things) heaving. “Okay!
NOW it’s time for that breakfast!”
“No, don’t! There’s a broken piece there that’s --”
Another ignored plea --
and another disaster. Sheila stepped
onto a statue’s head, and slipped on it like a banana peel. To Lloyd’s shock, she actually took a brief
flight…one that ended as soon as she crashed head-first into the far wall. “Are you all right?” Lloyd asked.
No answer, of
course. Just another groan from
Sheila…but a groan that didn’t last long.
“Aha! I found it!” she said with
a swell of pride. She lifted her hand
into the air -- and with it, a wad of cardboard Lloyd. “This is it, Lloyd! Better get ready!”
“Miss O’Leary…” Lloyd couldn’t help but laugh. “And I was just wondering to myself where the
comedy in my life had gone. Here it is!”
“Well, it’s about to be
a romance!”
“I’d wager it’ll stay a
comedy if you’re about to feed me cardboard.”
“Wha…?” Sheila had to shove the cardboard into her
face to be sure -- and when that didn’t work, she just shuffled it around in
her hands. “Oh, you’ve gotta be -- oh,
the hell with this!” She shoved a hand
between her breasts and started fumbling around inside; after a half-minute’s
time, she pulled out a trio of cookies.
Smashed, flattened cookies, but cookies all the same.
“How much stuff do you
keep in there?” Lloyd asked. But it was
a question he immediately regretted; the sound of his voice drew Sheila’s eye,
and with it she strode toward him (though she stepped on a fork in the process). Somehow he couldn’t find her nearly as
intimidating as he had before; she looked about ready to burst into frantic
tears back then, and now she’d already started pooling the waterworks.
“I’m gonna get you this
time, Lloyd!” Sheila boasted, just as she finally managed to wrap her hands
around Lloyd’s arm. “Yeah! There you are! Oh ho, yes!
You thought you could…” She ran a forearm across her nose, letting a
good pint of snot flow across it. “You
thought you could get away from me and sexy time? Not a chance!
This time I’ve got you right where I want you!”
“Oh, right, I’m
supposed to be scared for my life, aren’t I?”
“Yes! I mean, no!
I mean…” She moved in front of
him -- and then, she started stamping a foot against the ground. “St-stop making this difficult! I’m not very good at this!”
“At what? The hostage situation, the sexy time, or
seeing things an inch away from your face?
I’m not trying to be facetious; I’m genuinely curious.”
Sheila stared emptily
at him.
“Come to think of it,
how well do you cook? I seem to recall
some cookies in the kitchen that --”
Sheila didn’t bother
answering him. She just took a seat atop
Lloyd’s legs, ready to give him the (backup) sexy breakfast as promised. “N-now go ahead and open wide…s-s-sweetheart.”
Unfortunately, Lloyd
could do no such thing. Because at the
moment, Sheila had made a grave mistake; with her vision having bottomed out,
she had no ability to judge her distance.
And with that lack of ability, she’d scooted in much too close to
Lloyd. Close enough to give him a face
full -- and then some -- of her other cookies.
“Hmsgssmhgrmmfhmfdmgrfff!”
he exclaimed.
Sheila pulled back, and
slid off his knees onto the ground.
“Wh-what did you say?” she asked, turning as red as her evening apparel.
Lloyd -- with his neck
bent a great deal backwards -- offered her a smile. “I said this is a great way
to die! I suppose now I can leave this
world without regrets.” He shifted
forward as far as he could. “Wait, are
you actually embarrassed? How do you
expect to make merry if merely giving me a tour of your mountains leaves you
flustered?”
“D-don’t…don’t be so
mean…!” she growled/snorted. “I’m doing my best here…wha…wh-what do you want
from me?!”
“Maybe a nice
discussion instead? I would have thought
that the fairer sex would prefer a slower pace, rather than springing headlong
into the merriment phase.”
Sheila bowed her head,
as if taking in Lloyd’s words as sage wisdom.
She didn’t, of course. She just
grabbed the cookies and shoved them into Lloyd’s mouth (or as near it as she
could, at least). “Taste the love, damn
it!” she roared, forcing him to chew and swallow whatever landed inside. “TASTE MY LOVE!”
And indeed, Lloyd did
taste her love. He swallowed the
cookies, leaving only chunks and crumbs atop his face -- and he stared plainly
at Sheila once he’d finished.
“Did you…did
you…d-d-did you like them?”
Lloyd tilted his head
to the left. He tilted his head to the
right. He tilted to the left once
more. And then, he looked back at
Sheila. “Did you make these cookies
yourself?”
“I did. It’s my first batch ever.”
He turned his head to
the left. “Ah. That explains it, then.” And then a waterfall of puke burst from his
mouth.
Sheila could barely
even make out the stream, but she knew the sound. And the smell. And with those in mind -- with Lloyd heaving
in spite of barely even digesting her desserts -- she could only think of one
thing to do.
She fell to her knees
and burst into tears.
“UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
she wailed, pawing at her face. “It…it
wasn’t supposed to be this way! I was
gonna…we were gonna…WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Lloyd turned to face
her. “Now hold on there, Miss O’Leary!”
he pleaded, even though he could feel his stomach about to rupture and erupt
once more. “We aren’t quite done with
each other yet! I’m sure there’s still a
way for us to --”
Sheila stumbled
backwards onto her bed. “I…I did
everything she told me to,” she moaned.
“What did I do wrong?”
“I beg your
pardon? Who exactly is ‘she’?”
But yet again, Sheila
just ignored him. “…Do over,” she
blurted. She leapt off the bed with her
sparking rod in hand. And the next thing
Lloyd knew, everything went black.
It was going to be a
long sleepover.
TO BE HEARTINUED…
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