Wal-Mart Goes Down

By hughgee

“Oooo-aaaahHHHhhh” came the sound from the other side of the door.

Another moment and Melanie came bounding out, all smiles, impishly cute, her distended swollen lips and the big shnozola the only things big about her. Then there were those thighs to consider. And the attitude. Cocky. The girl was confident if nothing else.

“What was that?” asked Fred. Fred looked and acted like his namesake from Scooby-Doo: big and blonde and cowardly, which was why he’d agreed so readily to Melanie’s suggestion that she “go in first and have a look around.”

The two were former rank and file employees of Mert’s Department Store, formerly downtown Ebor City’s only department store till Wal-Mart bought the place out. Now they were up in the penthouse suite of Wal-Mart’s posh corporate building, trying to exact their revenge for being laid off.

“What happened to that big guard in there?” gulped Fred. Fred had since become a plumber’s apprentice since he’d lost his job to the corporate Fascist takeover. His hands were still blackish from the grimy pipes he had to haul up freight elevators of building not unlike this one; otherwise he was dressed, well, just like his cartoon namesake. Even the gay scarf. You wonder whether he realized it or not.

Melanie took him by the arm, led Fred down the hall. “I took care of him.”

“How?!”

“Come on. We’ve gotta get those documents.”

She meant secret documents linking Sam Walton to huge contributions to the Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party well into and after the commencement of WWII.

Fred stopped her at the next door. “How ‘bout this one?”

“Let me go in,” she said.

Fred gulped again. A big, chickensh#t, cartoony gulp like you get out of Vince McMahon whenever one of his wrestlers has the goods on him in the middle of the ring, except Fred’s was sincere. Fred really was a chicken. Secretly, he’d hoped she’d say No, say let her go. She did. Her brown eyes flitted and batted him away and a big smile and then there’s Fred alone in the hallway once more.

Melanie was five feet tall. When she wasn’t taking classes at Ebor City JC, she’d taken up ballerina dancing part time now that she was fired. She had the build: tiny, lithe, barely a hundred pounds soak and wet, but her thighs bulged like two fat and bronzed chicken breasts in that brown flowery summer dress.

“Oooo-aaaahHHHhhh” came the sound from the other side of the door again, this time followed by a dull thud now that Fred had his ear glued to the door. It opened.

“Not there.” Again she closed the door behind her.

“What happened?”

“C’mon,” she tugged.

Fred followed but was more inquisitive this time. “So what happened in there?”

“Hm?” Melanie tugged him down the hall, quite evidently playing stupid.

“Who was it?”

“Some guy.”

“Some GUY?”

“Yeah, they got like Wal-Mart stormtroopers up here or something. We gotta move.” She hustled him along.

“So what did he SAY?”

“Nothing,” she quipped. “Not too much.”

Another door.

“This could be it,” Melanie observed. “We have to find the one with files from the 40s.”

“M-m-maybe you should let me go in this one.” Fred couldn’t believe he’d said it.

Melanie smacked her naturally collagenated lips in disapproval.

“Come on, I’m the guy. I better.” Fred was really feeling his oats today.

She rolled her eyes. “I know,” she said. “That’s the problem.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. You want at ‘im, he’s all yours, tiger. Go for it.”

Fred didn’t like how she automatically assumed there was somebody in there. Still, it was somebody’s office. There probably was.

Fred hesitated. Too late. Can’t back out now. The marbled door opened without a creak. Fred entered. There before him, behind the desk, sat the biggest, baldest man Fred had ever seen in his life. He had an iron jaw with a cleft chin that stuck out like the bumper on a squad car and he had a black Oliver Hardy moustache just like Hitler.

“Who are you?” the man demanded.

Another gulp. “Oh, no one.” Fred backed out quickly, closed the door.

The door flew open. Oliver Hardy Hitler on steroids, still demanding to know who this guy was.

“I’m-I’m n-nobody,” stuttered Fred.

Seizing the moment, doing it seductively, Melanie sauntered in between the two, cooing something about big, strong men.

“What a big, strong, handsome man!” was what she did in fact say, moving in closer, closer, sensuously closer to the bigwig at Wal-Mart in the office doorway—murmuring still, “Oh, you drive me crazy, handsome men”—then a vice closed in on him from below the belt.

Fred saw it, saw Melanie’s hand close around the big man’s package. It was easy, she squeezed and made it look easy in those slacks he had on. Tiny angry fingers and a man on the line, not even time enough to squirm, just an “Oooo-aaaahHHHhhh” and he was down. Not just down—he was out, too.

“Let’s search the office,” she said, looking back at Fred.

Fred was aghast. “What’d you DO?!”

“Squeezed his nuts,” she answered impatiently. “What’d you THINK I did?”

Fred stood with mouth open, pointing down at the man. “That—that—that ain’t normal.”

Melanie was nonplussed. She stood cocking her head at Fred. It was obvious she wanted to get a move on it and Fred was really cramping her style. “What?” she said finally.

Fred pointed again. “That!” Melanie raised and slapped both hands in exasperation on her bare oversized thighs. “Balls hurt. What about it?”

“Yeah, but—but—“

“Oh, sh#t.” Melanie gave in to the realization she’d have to explain to get this doorknob moving again. She pointed at Fred’s crotch a few feet away.

“Look, there’s nerves in there—easy to hurt—you know that.”

Dumbfounded, Fred could only nod with his open mouth.

“Well some of those nerves, if you pinch ‘em right, causes a guy to pass out. Now let’s go!” She walked back, grabbing Fred by the arm.

“Wait—" Fred was in a protesting mood. “I don’t have that.”

Melanie cocked her head like an inquisitive puppy up at him.

Fred’s voice fell to a peep. “Do I?”

“You certainly do, now come on!” She tugged. Again she tugged. Nothing. Fred couldn’t believe his ears.

“Bullshit!” he finally protested, pulling her back, completely out of character for him. He couldn’t stand the thought. It was too much. She was too little. This couldn’t be true. The fear of his own vulnerability caused him to momentarily grow a backbone and he stupidly chose this moment to hold his ground.

“Look, we’re gonna get caught,” she chided.

“I don’t have that shit. I don’t.”

“Oh, sh#t,” Melanie echoed herself, then, reaching down, grabbed hold of Fred’s crotch, fending off his forearm then closing the pink-nailed vice.

“Oooo-aaaahHHHhhh.”

Thud.

“Fine, you get caught. That’s your business.” Melanie sauntered away, stepping over the prostrate gentleman in the doorway. She would find those files. Wal-Mart would go down if she had to bust a million balls along the way.

Toes of Cruelty (revised)

By hughgee

So I started seeing this girl and it turned out she had the ugliest toes on the face of the earth, right. Seriously, they were “man toes.” By that I mean they were all knobbly-knuckled and kind of long and spindly. They were hideous. I probably never would have dated her in the first place, had I gotten a look at those things earlier. Ugh…

I tell you, they were bad. You ever see a guy’s toes when he’s got his second toe in from his big toe extending out way longer than his big toe? Well, she had that. Awful. Just nasty. They didn't fit on her, either. Everything else on her was so demure, so earthy, so smooth and soft.

So I started teasing her about it one time we were out at this semi-fancy restaurant. Little did she know it was my “precursor” to ending things with her. Yeah, I started teasing her, telling her, jokingly, how “manly” her toes were. Well, she got this serious look on her face, like she’d been all through this before. I was kind of taken aback by her reaction: she didn’t get upset or anything; she just said something about how her toes “were good for some things I’d never dreamed of before.”

I said, “Yeah, right. Whatever.”

Then I felt her foot up in my crotch, underneath the table. She was sitting opposite me in this one booth. I shuddered but she told me “sit still” and then I felt both feet. I felt her toes working away at my fly. She scrunched down in her seat—while the waitress was away, of course—and was really concentrating. After only about 30 seconds or so, sonuvagun if she didn’t manage to undo the button of my pants; another 30 seconds or so of her biting her lip and scrunching down into her seat and she managed to pull my fly down—all with her toes, mind you.

“Whoa, how’d you do that?” I cautiously asked her. By this time I was nervous—this was a public place, remember. I started fidgeting with things around me—the salt shaker, the jelly packets and what not. I figured this was her big trick, but she assured me this was nothing. Then suddenly I nearly gasped as I felt one of those cold, ugly toes touch my naked belly skin as it hooked over the elastic of my underwear and yank downward. A second later I DID gasp out loud as I felt her whole cold other foot protrude downward into my drawers—and sonuvagun, in one deft motion it kind of “scooped” out my balls so that they hung out over the elastic of my underwear as she let go with the other foot. For a moment she let her feet down again, leaving me to hang out all over the place, suspended and jutting upward and outward by the constricting elastic. She sat up and giggled into her fingers a second. I must have been blushing like a bastard. I’m sure I was. I was uneasy as hell. I tell you, I was glad it was a kind of a fancy place—a place that had tablecloths. ‘Cause I don’t think a lack of a tablecloth would have stopped this brassy gal, had we been at, say, a McDonald’s or something. No, subsequent events were to show me this much and more.

I admitted, sheepishly, that “Okay, I give it to you. Nice trick.”

“No, silly,” she tittered over her fingers hiding her face. “That’s not it.” It looked like she knew something I didn’t. I didn’t know whether to be turned on as all hell or to be scared shitless. When I saw her scrunch back down and felt her cold feet up in me again, well, scared shitless it was. I saw the waitress give us a glance but then go over to another table.

Man, they were cold. I kept thinking that, reminding myself how ugly the feet that were touching me were. I did that so as to force myself not to get hard. It only was partially successful, seeing as how if there was any bubble gum underneath these tables, the end of my Johnson would’ve been rubbing up against it right now. She was still tittering, ever more so fidgeting away down in her seat, and man she was really furrow-browed concentrating over whatever she was doing with her feet. And what she was doing with her feet was taking place at the base of my protruding balls: she had those ungodly toes of hers poking and prodding upwards and into my sack, lifting them up, stretching them out, then---

WHAM!

I have never felt such pressure exerted before on any part of my body. And you’re talking to a guy who’s done all the usual: I’ve hit my thumb with a hammer, I’ve dropped a 10-lb. plate on my foot at the gym, I’ve done all that stuff. But when this gal tightened the noose around one of my balls with her toes, I thought I was going to die.

I exhaled mightily and fearfully…and helplessly.

“Ooo—sorry. A bit too hard,” she apologized. Seemed so damn sincere about it, too.

I felt the pressure ease, and then… heaven. I can’t explain it, but I’ve gone this far, so I reckon I better try. What I think she was doing—what I THINK she was doing, ‘cause I was a bit out of it, mind you—was rubbing two of those ugly toes of hers together, chirping-legged-cricket style. Must’ve been her big toe and that big, long ugly sucker next to it. Oh my, oh my. She had a toe-vice grip on my left nut, right behind where it attaches to the nerve or whatever, and she was rub, rub, rubbing away.

I began to moan aloud and to my great consternation—I couldn’t control it.

She giggled. The bitch was doing a lot of giggling. "I learned it in summer camp," she whispered, dipping her head, a splash of her hair to the side, to mean what was occurring under the table.

Right about when the waitress came over finally, she eased up a bit when she ordered herself the most expensive steak in the place. Then the waitress turns to me. But the bitch across the table, she goes and increases her pinch-pressure, rub, rub, rubbing intensified rubbing like all get out, it felt like, and all I could get out, all I could say, well, moan, really, was, “Toes….tooooes….”

Giggly-giggle, snicker-at-me city.

The waitress all looking at me like I was nuts.

“He needs a little more time to think about it,” my gal tormentor told the waitress, who was more than a little nonplussed. I still don’t know if she had a clue what was going on under the table but it causes me more than a little chagrin to think that maybe she did.

When we were alone again, the gal got a glint of ire in her eyes. She started asking me what was it I was saying about her toes.

“N-n-nothing,” I said, softly. I was mesmerized by what she was covertly doing to me still.

“You said they were ugly,” she snickered.

I wanted to answer. I wanted to. But what could I say? She had me. I’d said it. Should I lie? It might get me in more trouble. Should I be honest? No. No. Anything I said could be used against me. And from what pressure I’d initially felt, the last thing I wanted—the last thing I wanted on the face of the earth was to feel that pressure around the tether to my balls again. But my lack of answer, my silence, turned out to be worst of all.

Pressure. Ungodly, cruel, cruel, CRUUUEL pressure!

“Ugly?” she sniffed. “You think they’re ugly?”

“N-n-n” I tried to get out. I was trying to say “No” but it wouldn’t even come out.

Those toes—those bony, knobbly knuckles. They were doing a number on me, killing me, hammering bone to knuckly bone into the nerve tethering me to my left ball. Her hard, unyielding feminine toe knuckles against my soft, manly, sensitive nerve endings.

"Could pretty toes do THIS?" she hissed.

I never stood a chance.

I raised my hands, I splayed my fingers, I surrendered and I choked out words of surrender, acquiescencing to her power, her knobbly, knuckly-toed power.

She let go and my face fell into the table, cheek first on the cold table top. There I was panting for breath. I saw her sideways, the motioning of her jiggling butt cheeks as she walked away, on out of the restaurant, her man-size flip flops flapping on the floor. Never have I experienced a break up as rough as that one. Never.

And you're talking to a guy who's been divorced.

Thelma and Louise and an Important Anatomical Lesson

By hughgee

Thelma and Louise were off, running from the law, and they were low on supplies. Turning off the freeway after having successfully, albeit momentarily, dodged the smokies on their tail, they headed into a residential district of suburban Ebor City, Thelma at the wheel. They needed a few things; Louise said she knew how to get them.

“Turn here,” she quipped icily. “No. Nothing. Make a right up here.”

“Louise,” Thelma started, “don’tcha think we oughtta be high-tailin’ it? They’re gonna have a ‘copter up any second now.”

“Dammit, I want me a Snapple. Can’t go on no road trip without me havin’ a Snapple.” Louise chuckled. So did Thelma. Then the two of them, reading each other’s thoughts simultaneously, chimed in unison, “GARAGE RAID!”

So that was it. Open garages, looking for one of them, just one, with one of them dee-luxe garage refrigerators. Lots of folks had them. Lots of folks in cozy suburb streets like this one. Thelma was on board.

“Make a left,” Louise ordered, then: “There’s one. Ho’-dee-do’! Ho’-dee-do’!”

“Here?!” asked Thelma.

“Yes, here! Now pull over.”

Thelma’s surprise wasn’t over the open garage, wasn’t over the big, fat goldenrod Maytag they both were spying now; rather, Thelma balked even as she laid on the brakes at the fact that it was occupied. Very occupied. Inside the garage was some broad-shouldered teenager, working out on some gym or some such contraption. The kid was buff. Looked just out of high school; possibly home from college.

Louise hopped directly out of the convertible Mustang as soon as it was parked alongside the curb. Thelma followed around from her side, exiting more conventionally via the driver’s side door. The two walked up the neatly-mowed front lawn to the nonplussed student-athlete type. The kid had stopped grunting a sec, waiting to see what this could be about, seated up on his weight bench thingie, admiring the figures of the two ladies in the Summer sunlight, noting their age. 30s. That one’s late 30s. Sweet, he thought, I do old.

“Louise, you sure about this?”

Louise ignored this, and flashed an amiable, Southern-belle smile with the first clack of her heel on the driveway leading up. She waved a parade float-debutante wave then entered into the shade of the garage. Thelma followed.

“How y’all doin’?” greeted Louise in a fake Southern-belle drawl, still coming on.

“I’m all right,” the kid said. Then, parroting the accent in an attempt to ingratiate, added: “What can I do y’all for?”

“Well, we was goin’ grocery shoppin’, y’see, and we just thought we’d stop on in.”

Grocery shopping? Louise still coming, clack, clack, clack; Louise right up on him now, him still seated, and him just about thinking There’s something strange about this, either this lady wants it, or she’s just lost as can be, when suddenly Louise flashed a sinister grin instead of the sweet alluring smile and she reached down and grabbed him by the balls.

“UH-UH-UH!” the kid shook and he spluttered, standing to with legs splayed over both sides of the weight bench as Louise pulled upward. She had a whole handful and she had only just begun to squeeze: the kid’s loose terry-cloth workout shorts made the whole job very “handful-friendly.” The body connected to the balls—all bi’s and tri’s and quad’s of him--was thrown into instant paralysis.

The boy’s chin shot straight to the garage rafters, exposing the bobbing, vulnerable Adam’s apple to Louise’s cool exhaling breath, so close in was she, imposing her will on the boy, doing it with a graceful ease. She didn’t turn her lips away for several seconds, even as she gave the command to Thelma, murmuring: “ Oh Thelma darlin’, why don’tcha see what kind of leftovers we got in that ‘fridge, huh?”

Thelma went to it. There were tons. They even had Snapple. Diet peach. Thelma found a folded-up paper bag to the side, unfolded it, and began ransacking through items, tossing the goodies into the bag with haste.

Door. Coming from the house, it just opened and out came a balding, middle-aged man in shorts, black socks and shoes, and a sweaty wife-beater white tank top. Too dark for him to see right away, the man started, “Hey, Johnny, when y’gonna be-" he stopped, backed up a step in the doorway, then said in embarrassment, “Oh, sorry. Didn’t realize you had company.”

Thelma froze. But the old man saw what Thelma had been doing; a look of understanding and anger came over his furry brows. He rubbed his 5 o’clock shadow. She was cleaning him out!

“You stealin’ stuff?” he said stupidly. His face grew red. “You stealin’ from me?” He turned to what must be his son. “Hey, Johnny, these here friends of yours?”

It was then that he saw it. The back of his son’s shaking head, face to the ceiling, standing on tip-toes. The other girl—other lady—Why’s she just standing there, smilin’ at me like that?--he saw where the lady’s other hand was. His son’s cement-rigid body blocked the view from the wrist down, but he understood. With horror, he understood it all at once. He rushed at Louise like a storm; had to save his son first, his first white-hot thought.

“Why you dirty—!”

The rest of his sentence with all the expletives loaded linguistically within was abruptly cut off, his breath leaving his body in a gasping torrent of wind like air from blown white-wall. He had been stopped in his tracks and was hunched over at the waist where Thelma’s hand had snuck over and got him too in a vice-lock. He heaved and he panted. Thelma and Louise exchanged raised-eyebrowed looks at each other over his bent bulk, as if to say 'well, we’re in it now'. Both ladies hung onto their prizes and neither man budged, but when the old man got up the breath, he growled epithets meant for the women at the floor of the garage, the only view Louise’s slender right mitt would allow.

“How y’doin’ there, Thelm?” said Louise, smiling.

“Well, NOW what?” asked Thelma through clenched teeth. The old man tried to break away but another tightening of the tendons in her wrist subdued him back down to size momentarily. She was clearly having more problems with the older man than Louise was with the younger. The young man hadn’t budged; it was as though he’d been turned into stone. He couldn’t even look his Medusa in the eyes, yet Louise had yet to break a sweat, whereas that same old forked stress vein down the center of Thelma’s forehead was starting to bulge up as she hung on for dear might to the old dude’s sackful of surrender. “Some gals have to work for a living,” she wondered aloud.

Louise laughed.

“Okay,” she began finally, working out a plan. “Tell ya what. On the count of three, kick ‘em in the balls and run.”

Thelma’s eyes widened. “THAT’S your plan?!”

“Always worked before,” retorted Louise, still very much enjoying herself despite it all.

Thelma acquiesced. She nodded.

“Okay,” began Louise, “One…Two…THREE!”

WHUMP. WHUMP.

Two men down. Thelma had delivered a pulverizing snap-kick, perhaps more swift and brutal than it otherwise would’ve been were she not legitimately fearful of her own safety. Oops. Sorry. Well what can you do? Her adrenalin was on full-alert. The old man was out of commission at least. And for the foreseeable future too. Louise, with the weight bench in her way, had stepped back, slipped her foot out of her pump, and kicked sideways and straight-in, her Dacron white half-sock swiftly if not powerfully boffing the boy dead-center in the front of his billowy shorts, and down he went too.

Father and son squirmed on the ground in various stages of the fetal position.

There was plenty of time now.

Thelma and Louise stepped around the men and picked up their belongings. Their belongings. They were they’re belongings now. No man was going to stop them.

Driving off, flipping a U’ey in the street, headed for the highway, headed west. Louise looked happy; she was now at the wheel. Thelma looked chagrinned. She was still perplexed.

“Louise, what the hell was that?”

“What?”

“What just happened?”

“What about it?”

“Them men we just hurt.”

“What about it?” repeated Louise. “Get a guy in the balls and he falls down. No big mystery.”

“No—not that. How come—well—how come mine was so harder to lasso down than yours was? I mean—shit, mine was 50 years old or something.”

Louise’s tired response: “Young balls.” She seemed more interested in glancing at the rearview mirror.

“What?”

“Young balls.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Louise turned to Thelma, then back at the road, then back to Thelma, then back and forth again, trying to explain something she thought everybody knew, an axiom of utter triviality: “Boys—when they hit puberty—when they’re at their sexual peak and all that stupidity, y’know?”

She turned. Then back to the road. Thelma was listening.

“What is it—18, 19 they’re at their peak?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

Louise gestured with one hand, the other holding the wheel. “And for us it’s 30-something.”

“Yeah, like now?” joked Thelma.

“Yeah,” laughed Louise. “Anyway, you get a guy at his peak, say 19, 20, 21 years old, and his nuts’re bigger, that’s all. Bigger balls, more pain. Shit, I barely squoze that young buck back there. You see how easy I had him?”

“Yeah, I saw that” said Thelma, absently letting it sink in. “Da-amn,” she murmured.

A pause. Tires rolling on pavement, occasionally rat-a-tat-tatting across the center divider raised dots.

Then, “Louise?”

“Yeah.”

“Next time we go grocery shopping, you get the old guy.”

Louise laughed, then they both laughed, driving off into the sunset.

The Future Does Not Look Bright For Men

By hughgee

The year was 2064 and women were kicking men's asses all over the place. No, actually, that's not right. What they were in fact doing was kicking their BALLS all over the place. Folks, what we are looking at here is very much a matriarchal society where men do what the hell they are told and women are the tellers.

Let's digress. How did it happen?

It was through the "new" sport of karoxing that society itself was revolutionized in terms of gender roles. Now, as a sport, karoxing, or the KAPKA (Kick Ass Pro Karoxing Association, est. 2031) was not all that innovative. All it was was a melding of karate with a certain Marquis of Queensbury rule of boxing--the "10 count." Yeah, I know, ridiculous that it should change society like that. But the funny thing was, it did.

What happened was, sure, for awhile there, as expected, men ruled the roost in the karoxing ranks; then a funny thing happened in 2049: a little gymnast girl named Susan Walker learned how to kick guys in the balls. Boom. History was changed just like that. With the flick of a foot. Well, okay, so there were a lot of flicks.

"Suzy" was an accomplished gymnast in college; she was also something of a raucous tomboy. It was just in her nature. At the age of 18 her first boyfriend took her to a karoxing match and, after having a few beers, and while her boyfriend had gone to the head, she hopped into the ring and accepted the going challenge of a karoxer named Carl "Machismo" Jenkins. Yeah, I know, tough name.

Wow.

Now, the thing about Suzy was, she was little, but she was a stoutly built gal--picture this: typical gymnast chick, but stockier than average. Ok, ok, you want a better mental image. Here you go. http://bbgroups.tlcnet.com/files/7/108/The.Kind.of.Gal.This.Story.is.About.jpg. Now, that's a bit what Suzy looked like. Just a bit. Only stockier. You take Mary Lou Retton, you take the incredible looking gal in the first attached pic, you combine them, put their muscle together, and more or less you have Suzy Walker's physiognomy. Hell, she was a little studette fireplug.

Which wasn't good news for Carl "Machismo" Jenkins because, though he was able to knock her down a couple times, given her drunken state and given her robust little figure, she was able to weather his kicks and punches until she suddenly was able to end the match with a brutal, and I mean brutal, kick to his nutsac.

Something happened that day. Suzy liked what she did. She felt great, triumphant. She got rid of her boyfriend, hired a trainer, and became the first female karoxer. She soon found that she could defeat any guy she fought. You see, what Suzy had stumbled onto was a little anatomical advantage that females had in the sport of karoxing. That advantage was this: No male on the face of the earth could get up before a simple count of "10" if he was hit in the nuts in any way, shape, or form, and if you as a female had a stout enough figure to take a couple shots from a guy and still get up, you had the necessary time to land your coup d'grace and win the match.

Ok, ok, side note here for you futuristic history macho unbelievers: Yes, on occasion, a guy might get up after 20, 30, 40 seconds and angrily defeat the person who's just grazed his nutsack. But no man can do it in 10 seconds. Indeed it was almost found by 2064 that a strong gust of wind could put a guy down for the 10 count, or so it seemed, thanks to Suzy "The Mocker" Walker.

Oh, I forgot to mention the nickname deal, didn't I. Well, okay, I'll do that. Remember I said she was a tomboy, right? Remember I said, I think my words were "raucous tomboy" right? Well, Suzy, once she gained confidence, and had beaten a few men with simple, sometimes even grazing nut shots, well, she took to making fun of them. Yeah, she did. Sometimes it was because she was already drunk before matches, sometimes just because her personality type thought it was amusing. But whatever the reason, Suzy Walker soon earned the nickname "The Mocker" by teasing, tormenting, humiliating, degrading, and yes, mocking the hell out of every and any nut-clutching guy she'd dropped to the canvas.

What would she do? Geez, where do we start. It was galling what she would do. She would on occasion, standing over a stricken male opponent, feign clutching her own crotch, feign bending over involuntarily, feign facial expressions of woe and agony, then stand up laugh and walk away to a neutral corner and watch the prostrate helpless male get counted out by the referee. Sometimes she would stand over her defeated opponent and hurl down cooing invectives at him in a baby tone voice, pronouncing her L's as W's, etc. Oh, wait, I should mention, on occasion Suzy wouldn't leave it at that. Yes, on nights when she felt particularly cruel she would stand in her neutral corner while the referee counted the ball-cupping man out, and if the man looked at her she would blow kisses at him and wink and yes, sometimes grab her crotch and feign pain down there and feign facial expressions of agony and feign bending over involuntarily etc. etc. You get the picture? Okay, the gal turned into a bitch for guys. But hey, she was very soon a hero to young women, okay all women.

And...sporting type women soon learned that the sport of karoxing offered them a one-up on men, and more women began entering the ranks of this "macho" fighting sport, they began having their arms raised in triumph by male and female referees alike, and men, well, they began falling down defeated to the canvas in droves for 11 or 12 seconds at a time. The bottom line: Suzy "The Mocker" Walker was KAPKA karoxing champion for 12 years straight, folks, so it wasn't a fluke.

Suzy ended up retiring with a record of 59-2-4 (she'd lost to and/or fought to a draw six female opponents, never having lost to a male) after a knee injury in a routine hovercraft accident in the year 2060 and, after taking a couple years off and stepping back and observing how women had become so empowered all throughout society, all thanks to her, well, Suzy got involved in the sport of karoxing again, this time from the vantage point of a trainer.

What happened was, Suzy felt guilty. After all the guys she'd dropped to the canvas with ball blasting kicks, punches, knees, slaps, and even the occasional desperate head butt, she felt guilty looking back. She was mellowing out, and she remembered the helpless and pleading facial expression of Mickey Wilson after she'd got him in the corner and kneed him; she remembered the look of alarm and panic of Rick Sanders as he slumped down after a snap kick caught him dead on; she remembered guy after guy she'd destroyed; and, on top of it all, she'd seen the effect her feminine triumph in a previously male-dominated sport had had on society. She saw how females rose to the highest ranks now in most any endeavor because they were (finally) being appreciated as the more valuable and superior and less vulnerable sex.

But she felt kind of bad about that. Yes she did. She was 43 now. Hormones were changing. The kinder, gentler Suzy "The Mocker" Walker was coming out.

And she wanted to make it up to the male side of the species, she wanted to make amends with them. When she saw Craig Pedersen swinging away futilely at the heavy bag in the gym one day, she knew exactly how she would go about it too.

Craig Pedersen was a Renaissance statue walking. He was a chiseled, muscular, tall, imposing male specimen, in his early 20s, sandy brown hair down to his shoulders, and what huge shoulders they were. Craig was around 6-3 and he weighed 215, and had next to no body fat. Suzy approached him and made him her pet little project.

Suzy was soon training Craig at the sport of karoxing. Her plan was to make men sure of themselves again, make them not feel so bad, so pathetic, about having such a glaring weakness about themselves. After all, they were still physically able to lift heavier weights and all that, right? Suzy aimed at making Craig the next karoxing champion, and she dedicated herself for two years in this quest, day in, day out, in the gym.

She taught Craig subtle ways to protect his groin, what angles a female might aim for, etc. Craig was awesome, a helluva specimen. Sometimes in sparring sessions with Craig where she herself held the attack padding and let Craig wail away on it, commanding out orders at him, she nevertheless could not help seeing telltale openings in his defense. She would tell herself little things like, "Ok, he's looking ok, but I could've dropped him there, I could've dropped him there, I could've gotten him there..." etc. She told herself, she convinced herself not to worry about Craig's occasionally letting himself be open for the groin shot, After all, he was a helluva specimen, very imposing. Plus he hit the practice pad like a truck!

Finally, after the two year training period, Suzy did what any good fighting trainer does. She scheduled her fighter Craig in a match against the most flagrant cream puff she could find.

Her cream puff opponent proved to be Jenny Gilmore, an 18 year old brand new karoxer, who looked more like a nerdy bookstore cafe boy's wet dream than any fighter. Indeed, Jenny herself looked like she belonged at your local bookstore cafe, she looked like a nerdy bookstore chick and all, but maybe it was that nerdy, lame looking sugar-bowl haircut. What was even more unusual, and more unathletic, about Jenny, was the fact that her tits were inflated beyond belief beneath her karate gi. (http://bbgroups.tlcnet.com/files/7/108/The.Kind.of.Gal.This.Story.is.About.jpg).

What the hell made her ever enter the fighting world, anyway? Suzy Walker wondered. Of course, Suzy knew it was her own feminine dominance in the sport in the preceding two decades that made any young woman think they had the stuff, though. But Suzy had to laugh over this gal. This gal did not belong fighting. To say Jenny was ungainly was one helluva humongous understatement.

The match began, the bell rang, the ref said "get 'em going" and Craig vs. Jenny began. It was comical. Craig towering over Jenny, Craig so lithe and strong and intimidating. Jenny could barely find her way across the ring without tripping over her own two feet. Maybe it was the fact that she couldn't see the floor underneath her huge tits.

Craig proceeded to deck Jenny one, two, three times. Jenny was crying. Her corner, while considering throwing in the towel, one last time urged Jenny to get the hell out there, whereupon Craig knocked her down one more time, and surely this would be the last time, Suzy had chosen her opponent right. Suzy had done her good deed for MANkind, reminding men of what they used to be, etc. etc.

Funny thing happened though. As Jenny the big-titted little nerdy girl was falling on her ass for the last time under the reign of blows from huge strapping stud Craig, Jenny's foot came up. If you'd had omniscience, or at least if you had binoculars, you might have seen Jenny's baby toe, her pinky little baby toe, fly up and graze big muscular Craig on his left bulging hanging testicle.

Suzy knew the look instantly. She saw Craig's eyes kind of glaze over and look off into unfocused land, she saw his body curl inward, she saw his hands cup his scrotum. Damn if Suzy didn't know that old familiar look, as Craig sank to the canvas, a sinking ship. Trouble was, nobody had seen the blow.

Craig got up on the count of 12. Gee, that's great Craig, thought Suzy. Just a couple seconds too late, you big dumb bastard. Thanks for wasting my time.

Jenny, the goofy, ungainly little big-boobed nerdy girl was a jumping and jutting all over the ring, triumphant. Her boobs looking like hovercraft airbags as they rapidly blew up inside her gi on the upswing of her jumps, then her boobs deflated as she hit the ground. She was a jumping, goofy nerdy girl.

"I won, I won" she goofily cried. Jenny stopped jumping after the fifth time, however, as her their heaviness of her tits started to seriously hurt her, and she swung her arm across to brace them, to lift them, to shelf them up and protect them from any further painful gravity drops. The nerdy chick was out of breath from gravity drop breast pain as much as fighting. Suzy was disgusted in the weakness of her fighter, having been defeated by this ridiculous gal.

Craig came over to the corner, tried apologizing to Suzy. Suzy initially embraced him, bringing him into her arms, seemingly comforting him. Then, she suddenly brought her clenched fist up and slammed it upwards into the hanging balls of her ex-fighter. She hit him hard, she hit him old-style. It was the old ball killer Suzy's fist which nailed Craig, and he wouldn't be rising for a little while. She saw Craig go rigid, his eyes go wide as though suddenly terrified, she saw him curl inward clutching himself, fall down in that old familiar fetal position on the corner of the canvas. Then, leaning over the ropes, leering down at him, she said, her old taunting self coming out, "You wasted two years of my time Craig. I just took away 15 minutes of yours."

Suzy left for the locker room, her sandy brown pony tail bobbing up and down. An old familiar picture of confidence, of sexual superiority.

Tall Pete Goes Down Again (revised)

By hughgee

(sorry, Pete, but this one's a good one. And I didn't make you out to be an idiot this time. In fact, if you hadn't got wailed in the balls, you'd probably still be kicking some serious arse in this story. Just don't mess with this waitress again, that's all...)

I went into my favorite haunt of days gone by. Myrtle’s Roadhouse. Never did get the low down on Myrtle but Sam the bartender was still there working it. The place hadn’t change—except for one thing. Big Ed. Big Fast Easy Ed was nowhere to be found. Big Fast Eddie was the bouncer, or had been. Strange, thought I, parking my butt at my same old stool as ever. The same seedy sorts were here. The place was known for fights breaking out. Well, occasionally anyway. And from the looks of this crowd, one could break out now. Bunch of riff-raff. Some things never change. But Ed, Eddie, Fast Eddie. Where was he? I looked and looked again. Nope. Not like you could miss the guy. Ed was 6’7” and had played football at Alcorn State. Did a little wrestling, did he, did ol’ Ed. Ed used to pimp the occasional betty for me, back when we called them betties, not bitches. No, something had changed. And not just that pretty, young waitress. Waitresses were always coming and going. Co-eds from Alcorn. Nothing new about that.

“Hey, Sam,” I called. He made like he was pouring me the usual, Sam Adams on tap, and I didn’t hardly stop him. But that’s not what I really wanted. Big Ed was my hero.

“Hey,” I called, “Where’s Big Ed?”

”Gone,” he replied, not looking up from the tilted, filling mug. “Didn’t need ‘im no more.”

I looked around the bar again. All these treacherous faces. Then, turning back to receive my glass of suds, I said, “Could’ve fooled me.”

“Oh, we got a bouncer, all right,” he reassured me, adjusting the terry cloth white bartender’s towel draped around his neck. Then, chuckling, sighing heavily, he continued. “Yep, we still got a bouncer.”

“Who?” I asked. “Where? I don’t see nobody.”

“There,” he pointed.

I looked and the only thing standing in that direction was the new waitress, Li'l Miss Flavor of the Month.

“Where?” I asked again.

He looked peevishly at me this time. The guy was busy. Then, motioning with a shake of his head in the same general direction “You’re looking at her.”

“What?!” I responded incredulously.

“Don’t no shit happen ‘round here no more,” Sam said in his vintage-Sam, jacked-up grammar, then went back into the kitchen, through that greasy, creaking old door with the metal plate at the bottom, leaving me there to turn around, examining this waitress, still wondering what the hell he meant.

Just then, noise. Big noise. Noise like old-style--commotion at one of the tables over in the back corner.

“Yeah--bullshit!” roared some dude.

I ain’t good with voices, but with faces I’m tight, and sure enough, I recognized the guy making the ruckus when he stood up. Tall Pete. Good ol’ Pete. I remember that guy. How could you not? The guy’s huge, been coming here since before I was old enough to buy beer, which is about when I first started coming here. I used to think it would’ve been bitchin’ to see a fight between old Easy Ed and Tall Pete. Pete was the one guy who could’ve taken him—maybe. Still wearing those old long-sleeved red flannels like a lumberjack. Still the same flat-top.

“Well you wanna make something out it—C’MON!” Tall Pete roared in his deep, intimidating baritone. Four beers, he was a pussy cat. Eight, he was a mad man. Yeah, I remember Pete. Been working out some more, quite obviously. Good ol’ Pete. Same like always. 6’4” or so, angular but ripped. Well he was a helluva lot more ripped than even I remember. I went to college, he hit the weight room. He leaned over the table at some other guy, really bearing in there. The guy was bald and big but kind of fat and no way could he have been a match for Pete. Nevertheless, being drunk, no doubt, the guy wasn’t exactly backing off, and he stood up and shoved Pete back, catching him off guard, sending Pete reeling back off to a table off to the side almost.

“Hey, man,” the dudes at that table complained. One fierce look from ol’ Pete and they shut the hell up though.

Shit. Here he comes.

BANG!

Pete decked the guy, just like that. The guy went down but not out. Dude, the guy could take a punch. He was getting back up. Tall Pete was just stepping around the table to see what else the guy had, laid the guy out for good, that whole section of the room was scooting screeching chairs and circled up mini-mayhem, when—no way. In comes that waitress! She was actually trying to separate the two.

The other guy was on his feet again; rubbing his jaw, but the little lass was there now in between these two buff dudes, both of whom towered over her like Godzilla vs. Monster X over Tokyo.

She couldn’t have been more than 5’3”, she wore the same old red and white showboatin’ hillbilly gingham mini-skirt dress Sam still puts all his waitresses in, oversized doily white apron with the big red ribbon spread over, and red pumps clacking on the black linoleum muffled by Sam’s trademark sawdust he’s still spreading around this floor to hide the peanut shells and whatever other shit people throw out or throw up or whatever. Onyx black hair done up in a bun at the back, pretty and somewhat exotic face with a slightly protruding narrow jaw line and a bulbous big nose, large, dark, round eyes with long black lashes girded over by strikingly furry thick eyebrows—sans tweezers mayhaps a unibrow—she looked a little middle-easterny-looking, which is strange for these parts, and though she was a little on the short side , she was also slender and long-limbed, with large-ish hands and feet, not like some sawed-off gals who’re all torso and can still tip the scales. This gal couldn’t’ve been more than 110 pounds or so. A very incongruous sight to behold, this slight little girl trying to break up a fight between these two behemoths.

This one guy wanted no more part of Tall Pete, that was clear. The guy was turning around, still busy rubbing his jaw, and walking the opposite direction, turning back, headed in the direction of the Men’s Room. Tall Pete was really soused. I usually never saw him like this. He was a guy who usually liked keepin’ it cool, but he was going after the guy.

Just then he stopped though. Just when he was going around the waitress, shoving her aside with a big paw, ol’ Pete just stopped dead in his tracks. Not only that, it looked like…well, it looked like he started giving her a hug or something, like they were embracing. I thought, 'What the hell?' His back bent forward and his head and neck suddenly craned over like that, over the gal’s shoulder, and then his countenance was cradled right on her shoulder, rather gently and softly, too.

Did he know this girl, this little waitress? I couldn’t see what was going on too good so I stretched a little forward on my barstool.

Shit. Now I saw. No way. No shit. The little gal had him by the balls. Holy smokes. I wouldn’t have thought she could get such a good grip, what with his thick-looking Levi’s he was wearing, but then I could see she had a couple of fingernails really digging in there. His face was turned to the side and his cheek was resting on the back of her shoulder blade, his face was facing me and it looked like he might’ve been drooling. She was calm, totally, completely calm and in control about the whole thing and she was apparently whispering something in his ear. Tall Pete must’ve been listening. Don’t see how he couldn’t have been. All the fight had gone out of him.

Sonuvabitch, I thought, he looks like he just swallowed a brick or something.

Just then, after she told him whatever she told him, she starts back-stepping it towards the door. Same front door where I’d just come in from, Sam’s old-style swinging saloon front doors that creak like old football players’ knees. She’s backing it on up, backing it on up, and she’s taking Tall Pete with her, all right; she’s taking Pete by his balls. Holy shit. She’s pullin’ and he’s followin’. Boy does he look silly. Okay, he looked real silly; all hunched over like that, his pelvis leading the way. Like a retard winning the hundred yard dash, leaning half-back, half-in to break the tape. On his face was submission, shock, and awe. And maybe a bit more drool, I couldn’t tell.

She went through the doors and there goes Pete right behind and then them two were gone, and then I hear some giant, shriek of a howl out there, way out in the parking lot not three or four seconds after they’d left. She’d done something. She’d done something to him. Something bad and it came from Pete. Poor frickin’ Pete. I couldn’t believe this. I don’t what, but she did something. A few guys were looking out the window but not me. Call me a beer connoisseur but nothing gets me away from a Sam Adams. Not even an unusual sight like this.

I finished my beer and the gal came back around that time through the swinging saloon doors, entering to a few admiring cat-calls and a timid congratulation here and there. She went back to serving tables and I ordered another. Well, it wasn’t long before I finished that one, and believe me it was even less long before I ordered another, and sonuvagun if I didn’t go a finish that one too. I was on a roll.

I don’t know how long it was, I don’t know how much time had gone by. 30 minutes maybe. I don’t know. I had a nice buzz going, liquid courage in my veins making it a helluva lot easier to forget what I just saw. Anyway, the doors swung open again—and there was Tall Pete. He looked himself again. Big, tall, foreboding and pissed-off. Guess he passed that brick.

“Where is she?” he demanded. He was breathing heavily and was quite obviously in a rage.

“Oh, shit,” some dude said.

Some other guy, a little guy—think it was Danimal Johnston—yeah that little squid’s still makin’ it up this way—well he gets up and tries taking Pete by the arm, motioning back out the door, saying, “Pete—Pete, now you know you don’t wanna do this. C’mon, let’s go outside.”

Pete shook Danimal off like a horse ridding himself of a fly; he takes a few more steps towards the middle of the room.

“Where the f#ck is she?” he again bellowed.

The gal was outside the side door, serving it up at the patio. They still got a few tables outside there where they serve pub grub and chips and what all. Well anyway she had just come in and Pete spotted her and she spots him. He pointed at her, and spat shot through his teeth as he growled out some incoherent threat like you’d expect from a rabid dog, more bark and spewed fomenting saliva than words. Poor ol’ Pete was loaded. I’d never seen ‘im like this.

The waitress, still unmoved if you’re going by just pure facial expression, methodically sat her serving tray down and took a few measured paces toward him, then did one of them pre-combat, stiff-legged, air-striking karate poses where they go “HAH!” and that’s what she did, right after stepping out of her pumps and standing on the linoleum and sawdust in her bare feet.

“Oh, shit,” I heard another male voice say.

“Pete, Pete,” said another. “Pete, get outta there, man.”

“Oh, shit,” I heard again from somebody else.

Sam himself goes, “I can’t watch this” from back behind me, behind the bar there, then I hear the kitchen door swing open and shut. Sam. Always was a bit squeamish when it came to this stuff. But then again, wasn’t too keen on seeing a girl get beat down neither.

Most of the room gathered in a circle, so I couldn’t see shit again. Guess I gotta get off my duff, thought I. I wormed my way through the crowd—and just in time too.

Pete was in some kind of a southpaw, lurching, boxing pose and he took a drunken roundhouse, hairy-fisted swing at this gal which she ducked, and then she came up with—sonuvabitch—she came right back at ‘im with the scariest foot I ever saw.

I wouldn’t have thought she could have kicked a man in the balls from where he was standing and from where she was standing, Pete being smart enough even when drunk to stand to the side in front of her. But f#ck—she did it. She nailed ‘im. Holy shit, she got him all right. Pete was down and out. Oh man, he’s out of commission for who knows how long. Somebody call a doctor or something.

A hushed and cautious “Oooooh” reverberated through the crowd of all guys.

Some kind of a round house kick from the gates of hell. Dude, she kicked around the side of his hip, right out from nowhere, and her foot went out and then it went up and in and it made a frickin’ loud CRACK on his crotch as it made impact. Them Levi’s were no protection against that even less than before. Shit, you’d need some kind of tank armor. What a frickin’ kick! She just stood there over him and goes right back to her job, picking up the serving tray and setting foot in them red pumps, clickety-clack all over, there she goes. But I’m thinking, Sonuvabitch, what a frickin’ kick! I’m serious. Her leg went all like rubber and she didn’t muscle it in. F#ck, she’d whipped it in, like her foot’s a frickin’ mace or something at the end of a frickin’ chain! And her ankle bone—it was like it was some big ball bearing keeping her foot loose on end. Loose and deadly. Holy shit. It flailed all over loose, toes and bone and big oversized gal’s foot, like the shock of it took some recoil vibrations right after, and before she could set her foot back down. Wow. Wow. I felt a pang of sympathy pain just watching. And I still felt it, watching her walk past me around the bar to the kitchen. I still felt it watching poor ol’ Pete just laying there.

“Guys, get ‘im outta here,” I heard from behind me. Sam again. “Clean up this mess,” he said. His voice was sheepish, subdued. “Let’s get back to havin’ a good time, boys.”

It took two guys to drag Tall Pete out of there, both dragging him by his permanently bent elbows as he clutched away down at his nuts and stared wide and misty-eyed off into open space.

The waitress came back out with a tray of hot wings. She walked past me, going back out to the patio. She said nothing. Just doing her job, that’s all. I saw it now. She could save Sam money. She sure could. Who needs Ed? Have the waitress do his job. I had visions of ol’ big Ed, out on the unemployment line, picking up government cheese. Hey, I was loaded. But I got it. Boy did I ever.

I remember not feeling too good right then. Not feeling so strong, I mean. I mean as a dude, that is. Well, you get the picture. If you don’t, then you don’t have to carry around a sack of nuts between your legs your whole life. Holy shit.

“Sam,” I said, “Pour me another Sam Adams, and make it a double.”

“A what?”

“You heard me.”

He poured and he looked at me. He must’ve seen my sunken expression.

“I know, I know,” he says. “But hey, it’s just business.”

He gave me my beer and I drank. I drank like a sonuvabitch. And I kept my mouth shut.

Tall Pete Goes Down (spruced up, just a bit)

By hughgee

Pierre, South Dakota happens to be world-renowned for it's weird architecture, and probably none is more weirder than the humongous fiberglass Garfield the Cat statue, so huge you can walk under it while it stands on all fours, outside Jim Davis' Cafe. No, it's not the real Jim Davis, just some hamburger cookie guy in Pierre sponging off of his namesake. Anyway, what's even weirder is Garfield the humongous fiberglass statue has balls. Giant balls, resembling the bulbous end of a ball peen hammer, descending down so you can't walk there without crouching way down, and about the size of a small life buoy. The joker who built the thing really must've got a kick out giving Garfield balls like that.

Well it just so happens that Tall Pete was recently driving through Pierre on his way to wherever, and he stopped at old Jim Davis's joint, and sure, he was shocked at Garfield's balls like that. But what Tall Pete was even more shocked at were two very attractive girls near the statue, one quite diminutive, the other a bit more than average size but rather athletic and robust. The athletic girl was the cut up, the extravert, the class clown type for sure. She told the small girl, who had a camera draped around her neck (no doubt to take in all the sites of Pierre) to "Hey, get a picture of this, ha, ha" then the athletic gal ran up under Garfield, right to Garfield's dangling life buoy balls which were at about eye level to her, a scourge of a huge broad smile broke across her face, and she tilted her head and nuzzled her nose and cheek against Garfield's huge fiberglass "sack" while her hand closest to it ran up across it and slapped it smartly. The statue rang out with a TOOOOOOOMMMMMMM from her smack, just as the athletic clowny gal's cheek pressed against the "nuts" and just as the smaller gal took the picture, apparently. The two gals then walked off, evidently towards their car, and Tall Pete was going nuts over what he just saw! He couldn't help but hop out of his own car and follow them for a few paces. He couldn't hear all their conversation, but he heard them laugh a lot and push each other once or twice and then Tall Pete distinctly heard a partial sentence, emitted with uproarious laughter, out of the athletic gal. The gal's words were "Yeah, can you imagine that whole thing falling? ha, ha, ha...." then the gal made like she was a nut-stricken dude momentarily, playfully grabbing herself "down there" and starting falling over against her friend as they walked, till the littler girl shoved her back upright and they both busted up laughing again.

Tall Pete became incensed at this! He would not tolerate this effrontery to maleness. Parking his jalopy, he leapt out, gangly and gawky and full of piss and vinegar. He ran up to the gals, his unathletic, polio-like knock-knees clumsily knocking into each other, huffing and puffing and finally passing and confronting them a couple steps before they got to their car at the end of the parking lot. He wheeled around, halting their progress.

"Hello, ladies, I'm Tall Pete, but most folks call me Numb Nuts."

The little red-haired gal grew petrified and couldn't talk; the taller brunette athletic gal started laughing uncontrollably. She turned to the little gal, snickering, "There must've been a break out at Borstal."

Borstal was the local Pierre nut house.

"Numb Nuts" Pete insisted. "Did you hear or do I have to say it again? I'm bonafide, y'all."

"Yeah, you're bonafide, all right."

"I got it because I can take multiple shots."

"Multiple what?"

"Shots. Listen, I don't like what you just did back there--not if it makes you think Garfield would have fallen down. The fact is, the average male creature can take multiple shots to his balls before falling and he's not that weak."

Tall Pete's galaxy of zits offended the eyes this close, some white-tipped, some scabby red, his gawky protruding Adam’s apple bobbed up and down with every dorky word, the way tall, tall gangly guys' necks sometimes poke right out there at you. His buzz cut hairdo could balance a brown paper grocery bag, a hold-over from his glorious military days, thought he'd been kicked out before boot camp was even finished for "lewd conduct unbecoming of a marine."

The dark-haired athletic gal had heard enough of this gaunt, hysterical, reject freak. "Oh, whatever," she said, as she stretched and reached up and slapped Tall Pete in his crotch with the same hand that had left big Garfield vibrating. Tall Pete dropped to his knees like a stick figure whose calves and feet had just been erased by this gal's passing hand across the chalkboard. He wanted to get right back up, this wasn't multiple shots but his torso was shell-shocked and quivering; at the very first finger-tickling strike, his face had gone from initial stupefaction one second to a twisted contorted grimace the next, as then his body continued to curl in on itself, until he was on all fours on the ground. Tall Pete's head at the end of his pencil neck dangled loosely down towards the ground between his shoulders, just dangling there limp and inebriated with pain, unable to look up and face his feminine conquistadora.

"Oh God I love that. Loll-loll-loll..." she said and laughed, mocking Tall Pete's involuntary head movements with her lolling of her own head, letting her cute face go limp at her shoulders for a second for the amusement of her friend, fixing her face like she had vacant doll eyes. Dead wide doll eyes which looked so pretty on her, but so pathetic on her tall gangly flat-headed male victim--were he able to look up, that is. "I love when their head goes like that," she continued. "Look, he can't even look at me."

"I think you really hurt him, Marybelle. Marybelle, he looks really hurt!" the smaller girl said, sounding genuinely concerned.

"Oh, come on. He wasn't even well endowed down there."

The little gal was laughing irrepressibly now. "What??"

"I felt it--with my fingers--he's got nothing. He's TINY." The athletic gal was trying to press her lips together, but the laughter could not be suppressed, it came out in zipping, whinnying rip-snortings. "Multiple shots, eh?" she called down to Tall Pete.

Tall Pete, unable to answer, moments later felt something touch the back of his exposed neck.

"Oh no--don't," the smaller voice said.

"I'm just gonna see. I wonder if it really works."

"No, don't do that. That's mean. Marybelle."

"Check it out. That video was right. They can't help exposing the back of their necks after a groin shot. They're completely vulnerable. Damn, this is EASY."

"Marybelle, stop, please."

"I just want to see. Hey, he accosted us, remember?"

"Yeah, okay. Hey, you know, you did kind of scare me down there. Why'd you do that, you big dummy?"

With that, the lights went out for Tall Pete.

He could not hear the athletic gal's frightened gasp, muffled by her own hand, "Geez, that was EASY!" He could not hear the bigger gal grab her smaller, shyer friend by the hand and say, "Come on. We gotta get outta here!" Tall Pete could not hear their fading footsteps; he could not even hear them peel out of the parking lot.

He could not know that the athletic gal had made like a karate chop on the back of his neck, just to see if it really worked, the way they knock people out in the movies. It did. His unconscious body splayed out like a scarecrow omelet on the pavement, the gals laughed their arses off as the tires of their car found the street and sped off.

Take a Seat

By hughgee

“Ladies and gentlemen, my next guest is the current champion of the World Wrestling Alliance for both men AND women--”

A catcall, loud and shrill, soaring down from some jackball in the audience.

“Her new book is out, called Kickin’ Butt, Takin’ Names, and is selling quite well, I understand. Folks, let’s welcome…Asia!”

She came out from behind the towering teal talk show curtain in a prim black business blouse affair and if thoughts could be read aloud, the sheen of bulging gray leotards beneath were what beheld the eyes of the entire live studio audience, men and women alike. The most famous female wrestler on the planet, at least for the past 15 Warholian minutes, strutted her stuff on over to the plush seat beside the desk and the old-style mike and the wire running down the side of the desk and all that; the host of the show, Mr. Mike McDougal himself, stood clapping in a pinstriped gray jacket, clapping so hard you’d think the obvious toupee might come flying off any second; aside the desk and scooting one seat down, the previous guest of the hour, the warm-up guest, some up-and-coming comedian who just had a CD come out, well he stood clapping as well, and smiling ear-to-ear too for he got to sit next to this ultra-hourglass beast for the next hour.

She sat down between the two men who sat following her. A couple more catcalls, getting things in order, going through the perfunctory introductions between guest and host, the interview began.

It was typical, trite, talk show affair, so we won’t go into that. We’ll skip a bit.

This comedian guy—well, host Mike McDougal introduced the topic of wrestler Asia’s thighs, made some vague innuendo in passing—and this comedian guy jumped on it, parlaying the reference into a way to worm his way into the conversation.

“Can you cross your legs with those things?” he joked.

Asia looked back across her right at the other guest. For a second she wasn’t sure how to respond. She glared a bit crossly at him. A moment of uneasy silence, a few in the audience going, “Whoooaaa.”

“No, I mean, uh, well,” the comedian fumbled, comically making like he didn’t want to piss the giant gal off. “It’s just that—I’m serious—it looks like it’d be a bit uncomfortable crossing your legs when they’re that big.”

“Uncomfortable,” Asia mused, pensively resting her chin on two fingers, wonder whether to indulge this or not.

The comic continued with his exaggerated show of caution, glancing nervously at the audience, shrugging his shoulders, smirking.

“No, not uncomfortable at all,” Asia coolly replied at last. “How ‘bout you? Can you cross your legs?”

The comic made a joke about it, something about “last time I checked,” etc, etc. He had succeeded in getting the focus of show back on him. And he gave proof of it, that yes, after all, he could in fact cross his legs. He put his foot up over his knee with his calf splayed horizontal, knee pointing off to the side like a man in relaxation is want to do.

“No, not like that,” began Asia. “Like this.” Asia wrapped her right leg over the other, mashing both thighs tightly together, appearing routinely ladylike except for the incongruity of bovine-sized thigh muscles, the tall pump of her black boot bouncing in the air over the one calf still grounded.

An inane, meaningless clap of approval from the audience.

“Well, uh--" began the comedian. “You ladies are taught that, right? Too, um…” He looked over and down at the hips, the wide, distended leotards, then vaguely lasciviously up to the crowd and back at her, then at host Mike, who was playing along in mock chagrin at turn in conversation. “You gals have to do that. You’ve gotta cover up your skirt and whatnot.”

“So?” said Asia.

“So you’re, uh--" another comic, lurid grin up at the audience, “so, you’re trained to do that.”

“That wasn’t the point,” said Asia, a bit peeved. “You asked me if I could do it. Now let’s see you.”

A roar from the crowd, a nervous laugh from the male comic. He followed with dismissive wave of his hands, saying, “I just did.”

“No, you didn’t,” she corrected. “You put your foot up on your knee. Can you do like this?” She bounced the big-heeled boot more vigorously off the other calf, she roiled her muscular wide-load bottom in the chair; the top huge thigh rolled over and ground into its crossed-over counterpart beneath.

The host let it go. He looked helplessly at the audience at where this was headed. The comic looked sheepishly up at the audience to a chorus of idiotic whistles and Ohhhhhs. He’s bitten off more than he could chew and was just feeling it.

“Well,” insisted the lady wrestler, “do it. Let’s see you.”

A nervous pause. He said he would. Another pause. The jackball drummer in the studio band started up with an impromptu drum roll.

The comedian threw one leg over the other, crossing at the pelvis, same as her. He kind of half-groaned, half-sighed when he did it. A more vigorous than ordinary exhale, to be sure. He looked tired, less than comfortable.

“There. Not so bad, is it?” kidded Asia, resuming the bouncing of her boot once more in the air.

“Umm, sure. No problem,” said the comic, the smirk returning.

“Now do this,” she instructed, and began to roll and mash her thighs together with impunity, a touch of muscular force mixed with the graceful motions of a lady merely readjusting herself in her seat.

The comic tried it for a second, and then all trace of the smirk was gone. He stopped; eyes grew a bit wider in true apprehension. He couldn’t do it. Not without an indecorous effort and perhaps if he’d readjusted himself down there first.

“What’s-a-matter, Bob? Can’tcha do this?” Asia continued teasing, bouncing, rolling and mashing her thighs. “What—balls get in the way?”

A roar, then laughter and clapping.

Mike McDougal hid his hand in his face, partly out of laughter, partly out of shame. Would it get past the censors? he thought.

“Uhh—umm—yeah,” admitted the red-faced comic, slightly shakily. Still, he hadn’t given up just yet: his thighs still uncomfortably crossed over in his chair at the hips. He was doing his best “anything you can do, I can do better” routine.

Asia raised her voice, doing her darndest to emulate a ring announcer’s. “Well, don’t go asking stupid questions, ‘less you know what’cher talkin’ about!” At that, she forcefully slapped the top thigh of the comedian.

“DOOOOOOOHHHhhhh!” said the man. Sounded like the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island whenever he’d get hit in the gut.

The man undid his legs and hunched over in his seat, a human armadillo before a live studio audience. What just happened was obvious to all; the audience was falling out of their chairs in laughter and noise.

Mike McDougal howled and turned redder than ever, control of the show momentarily lost.

In the uproar, Asia turned back to him, saying matter-of-factly, “How ‘bout you, Mike? Can you cross your legs? Hm?”

“And let’s go to a commercial!” Mike stood up and shouted. He wasn’t sure how he was ever going to continue this one. Shit, shit, he thought. We got a live one.

When the show returned from the break, the comedian on the left was gone. For those of you at home, he was helped off the set by a couple of crew members. As for Mike, he was about as polite to this lady wrestler as ever he was to any guest, and don't think she didn't notice.

Slap Happy (revised)

By hughgee

True story, my ex-wife and I were in an argument, she was wrong, I was right. I don't remember what it was about, and no, I'm not the type of arrogant idiot guy who thinks he's right all the time. I just sincerely, honestly, remember her being wrong on this one, and at any rate, even if I was such a macho-brained nincompoop, I couldn't have been any more after what she ended up doing to me.

It must have been trivial or I wouldn't have forgotten the specifics; nevertheless, I remember she really pissed me off this particular time and, typical for my ex, she wouldn't admit she was wrong, and you can just forget all about her saying the word "sorry" ever.

So, as I was inwardly fuming at her in the living room of our apartment, I needed to get away from her; I needed to cool off. Thus I went in and took a shower. I think it would have worked in assuaging my anger had I not encountered her in the bedroom immediately after. Something went off in my brain, I don't know what the hell it was, but I pounced right over in front of her, cornering her (big mistake), and I proceeded to rant and vent and point right down at her menacingly to "never do that again" or whatever I was saying. Meanwhile my towel had fallen off from around my waist and had fallen to the ground and I was naked. I realized this at the time but I didn't care. Hell, I was angry, and she deserved it, remember? I'll never forget what happened next.

I suddenly found myself on my knees, on the carpet. It had happened so fast, and it was apparently such a shock to the system that I blanked or something. Almost like I passed out for a split second, and, when I came to a second later, I was clutching my naked nuts, in addition to kneeling in front of my wife's tiny bare feet (she wore a size 5 and a half and had the cutest, most ridiculous looking middle hammer toes in the world). That's when the sensation of pain finally hit me--by then it was already way up inside, in addition to inside my ringing scrotum. I knew she had gotten me in the nuts but I had no idea how. I quickly, hazily, embarrassingly discerned that it couldn't have been a foot (I had been standing in too close to her); it couldn't have been a thump of her knee (it had happened too swiftly, too deftly); no, behind my no doubt wide-eyed vacant stare my cowering brain at last informed the rest of me that one of her hands (she was left handed) had slapped me "down there"--then the rest of me immediately and sheepishly asked back to my brain the following: Just how in the hell could you be so stupid as to threaten an angry woman while standing there with your naked nuts dangling oh so invitingly?

In retrospect, that ball slap of hers on me still scares the hell out of me, and not because it was all that terribly devastating (I was able to get up in about 20 seconds or so); what really worries me to this day was the realization--I somehow realized this even then when it was happening--that my ex-wife could have slapped me even much harder. In fact I don't think she slapped me all that hard, it just was well-placed in that I think she slapped straight up into my dangling "underballies"--ok, ok, you guys all know, that's where we're most vulnerable. Admit it, those straight on shots you see in the movies sometimes, that's nothing; it's the kicks and blows that come straight up into the bottom of your resting sack that really ruin your day.

Oh, hey, here's another reason I don't think my ex slapped me all that hard: at the time I'd swear she seemed surprised: for those few seconds in which I knelt helpless before her, I saw her legs and feet just standing there, not moving; but, more telling was the fact that she said nothing, and believe me, seldom was the time my ex-wife was ever at a loss for words. I mean, gimme a break, you should have heard this chick blab.

Finally, after what I can only guess was about 10 or 15 seconds of vanquished mortification at her feet, she kind of stepped over and around me, and she finally found words to say. She said, "Good I hope it hurts" and left me there in the room alone.

Leave it to my ex to come oh so close to turning me on like crazy, but then completely fumble the ball. She was a load of fun moment to moment in the physical world but she was never a bright light when it came to anything psychological or even just plain smart. Now, had she said "Good, I hope THEY hurt"--well, now, that's a whole different psychological story, and it's specific anatomical mocking like that that could have reduced me to rubble right then and there. I'd have been a quivering mass of man jelly that might never have recovered my confidence again in this lifetime.

Ahem...but I digress.

Addendum: I did get “palmed” “down there” one other time. I was flirting in the office with a little gal. Actually, she instigated it and did a lot more flirting than I did. At any rate, I happened to walk in the coffee room one time when she was walking out. There were two older ladies already in there.

The gal was about 5 feet tall, about a foot less than me. As she passed me, she reached out and “palmed” me, lithely and lightly, up underneath, right where I live. I felt that same sharp shock of pain run up my torso that I had felt a few years earlier at the hand of my ex. I stooped a bit, but the more sobering thing I felt was my knees—they very nearly buckled. I was shocked at how such an absurdly light hit nearly knocked the pegs out from under me again, and I realized for the first time—or at least I had a much better notion—what had happened to me when my ex had so easily dropped me years before. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t know if the other ladies in the office saw it, for they didn’t say anything or react in any way, and truth be told, I recovered and stood up quite quickly. But it gnaws at me, that little, light hit. I’m amazed at how easily I was nearly knocked down. I remember being angry with my knees for being that fragile, and not being able to do a damn thing about it except accept the fact.

And the little lassie? She skipped right on out of the coffee room, knowing full well what she had done. The bitch. Nothing ever came out of it between me and her. Except the fact that I still hate my wimpy, push-button knees.

Quixie Stands Up for Himself (revised)

By hughgee

Quixie shuddered, almost dropping his test tube. Whoa—he caught it just in time. That would’ve been some explosion, he thought. He’d been facing the laboratory window and seen the SUV pull up blaring some No Doubt song.

He watched in terror as she hopped out, pink decorative purse strapped over one shoulder, her hysterically frizzy blonde hair getting wet in the rain. He froze standing. “Oh sh#t,” he muttered, snapping out of it, suddenly. Immediately, Quixie began hiding things in drawers. Papers, pens, pencils, bottles and test tubes, slide trays with specimens on them. “Fit!” he cried, fumbled and shook. “Fit! Why won’t you fit?!”

Too late. The lab door zinged as it swung open.

“Oh, Quixie…hey baby, got my stuff?”

Quixie could feel the little prick hairs of his neck, standing at attention under his collar. He was a big guy, big and sweaty. He fiddled nervously with his pocket protector as she approached.

Audrey Riley. That bitch. Look at her. Just look. A dream in denim. A body like Heather Graham but hippier. Oh man, look at those hips. They jutted. Side to side as she walked, as she got closer, they jutted. They swiveled. They did things that a man’s hips could never do, in pants that were but painted on. She set her pink purse down on the lab table and came closer.

“Hey, Quix. You ready to help me or what?”

He was petrified. What should he do? He’d known this was coming, he’d resolved to put a stop to it, yet, when the moment finally came, he was as pitifully unprepared as before. She was right up next to him now, rubbing on him like a cat. Rubbing her breasts. Not large, really, but those nipples. Oh, those nipples. They were pointing prominently under her pink tie-dyed T-shirt. She’d caught where his eyes were focused.

“Cold in here, eh? Nature’s thermometers. Y’like ‘em?”

No answer. Quixie was too much of a nerd to answer.

“Dontcha ever turn the heat up? What kinda crappy lab is this, huh?”

“Can’t.”

“What?”

“Can’t have heat. The magnesium would react with the calcium residue on those slides. You’d never get a proper reading.”

“There you go again, talking that foreign language at me. C’mon, Quix, just gimme what I’m here for, baby doll. You wanna help a girl out, dontcha?” She reached around his yellow short-sleeve dress shirt and stroked his back. Some undertaking, given his massive girth, also how heavy he was breathing. Quixie was sweating like a stuck pig. His forehead shining like wet asphalt.

“So what did you do for me?” she purred. Then, seeing some scattered papers, “Are those it? Quix, you didn’t even staple them for me?”

“No.”

“Quixie, you know I can’t operate a stapler. Come on, sugar. Do it for me.”

“No. Not that. Not staples. I meant No, I’m not doing it.”

“What?” she roared.

Something had come over him. Something had snapped. Some new resolve. “Look, it’s cheating, okay? Why do I have to do all the work?”

Her blue eyes batted, incensed but seductive, looking up into his. She ran a long red diamond decorated fingernail across his cheek. The kind of cheap nail job you’d expect from a bubble-blowing beautician or street harlot “Because, silly. YOU’RE the nerd, not me. Now are you gonna do it or do I have to hurt you?”

Quixie’s jaw muscles clenched as beads of sweat ran down the side of his face as she caressed his opposite cheek, raising her thick red lips up to collar level with him, her breaths carefully and strategically exhaled onto his neck. “You know you don’t want me to get angry,” she cooed “You remember what that means, right?”

“I don’t care!” Quixie blubbered. “Go away!” He was full bore crying now, but not for long.

Something had happened down there to him again. Something. A knee, a fist. Something. She was mean. A bad girl. She was a mean, bad, bad girl; his mind remonstrated foggily as he suddenly found himself starting wide-eyed at the linoleum tiles of the lab on all fours. There were her feet. Clean white Sketchers, one with green laces, one with pink, shiny silver tabs on the end of both laces. They were walking away.

With her victim down, silent except for the struggled exhalations, Audrey went to the desk and began assembling the papers. It took a couple of minutes. Meanwhile, Quixie began attempting a beaten down balancing act, trying to figure out how he could keep prop himself up on both knees and one hand, while his other hand cupped his stinging nuts.

“I have to do everything, don’t I? What’s it take to get a little cooperation around here, huh?—Hey! Wait just a minute here! This isn’t even it? Quixie! Um, Quix? Where the hell’s my thesis paper? Where is it?!”

She reached down, grabbing his bow tie, nearly choking him as she tried pulled him back upright. “Stand! Stand up!” she commanded. “Dang it, what do you weigh, 300 pounds? You dumb fatso—get up! C’mon!” No use. Nobody could lift this whale of a nerd but himself. Squatting and reaching further, reaching in, her cruel decorative slender fingers found what they were after. Audrey pinched one testicle. “Up!” she repeated. Quixie stood up in rapid fashion, sweating, shaking.

“Please…please,” he said, the second please coming out in falsetto.

“You told me you would have my thesis ready. I have to pass this class. Do you understand?”

“But it’s not fair!” Quixie cried, “I do all the work and you get the same grade! It’s not fair! It’s not! It’s—ah! AH! AAAHHH!!” She’d applied a bit more pressure. Only her thumb and index finger, but to Quixie it felt like a giant heavy industrial crane of some kind.

“Go away!” he shrieked.

She let up a bit. “Quixie, darling, I’m just not getting through to you, am I?”

“Please…please…don’t.”

“Then help me.”

“No.”

Pressure. Oh geez. The pressure. It felt like Wonder Woman had hold of that nut, not her. Not Audrey. Quixie knew better. It was her. It was Audrey. She’d only been doing this to him all semester.

“My mom says you’re a little tart. That I shouldn’t help you anymore.” Quixie’s fat face contorted, exuding liquid like a squeezed sponge. A long black lock of his unkempt hair fell in front of his face.

“When’re you gonna get a haircut, Quix? I told you—get a haircut. You wouldn’t look like such a loser then. Geez, you’re such a NERD!”

“Stop. Please.”

“No. No. I’m not stopping till you get me through this lousy class.”

“But it’s chemistry!”

“Like, duhhhh. Dontcha think I know? It’s not my fault—all this prerequisite crap. I just gotta get through it so I can get that bachelor’s. That’s all I want.”

“What—hotel management? You call THAT a bachelor’s?”

Pressure. Up against this desk, oh my, the pressure, he thought. More than a standing proton in an unstable nucleus could stand, his mind was sure. Quixie’s bulbous countenance shot toward the ceiling and stayed, exposing his throat to her. With her pretty little other hand, she ran five more decorative red fingernails up and down over his naked Adam’s apple as it bobbed. It bobbed when he struggled to swallow. It bobbed when he struggled to breathe. It bobbed helplessly in the wind as he was chagrinned to find that, so long as she’d kept up this amount of pressure, he couldn’t lower his chin. Beads of sweat ran down his neck.

She let up again, allowing him to look down at her. Her face was rather beautiful. He’d “touched himself” thinking about her face quite often. Now again, she was the one doing the downstairs touching on him, however. And that face—that gorgeous face—it was so in close to his. Golden sand hair flares. The aquiline nose, her nostrils flared. She was upset, all right. Inches away upset, and squinting her baby blues. Oh. The sandy gossamer eyebrows, the soothing arc to her delicate chin structure, those soft milky bonbon cheekbones. How could she be so hard and so soft?

“Are you gonna help me or am I gonna have to destroy a nerd today?”

“Please…”

“Look,” she said, more impatiently still, “it’s very simple. You’re a chemistry major. I’m not. But I need this class. You’re gonna help me. There. See how easy?”

“But…but—“

“But WHAT?!”

“Please…please,” he flustered.

“Oh all right.” She let her fingers ease back a bit. “There. Now talk!”

“But…but what’s in it for me? What? You still never said.”

“Oh my. Quixie. Are we still gonna go there?”

He sobbed.

“Look Quix, it’s very simple. I touch you down there, right?”

He still sobbed.

“Right!”

Pressure.

“Aye! AYE! AAAYEE!!” Quixie squealed. “Okay! Okay! OKAY!!!”

“Well, so there. I touch you. Now—does any other girl do that for you?”

They both knew the answer to that one.

“Is any other girl EVER gonna do that for you?”

They both knew it again.

“So there. There you have it. I perform a service which you will never get elsewhere.”

“Yeah, but…but—“

“But WHAT, you damn nerd? I’m getting sick of this.”

“But you only hurt.”

“Of course. What do you think? You think of I’m gonna do otherwise? Quix, look at you. You’re a big sweaty nerd. You gotta take what you can get, buddy boy.”

Quixie cried convulsively. Inwardly, he’d made a decision though. The next time she let up, he was going to act. Finally. At last, he would lash out, fight back, be a man. He, Quixie Poindexter, would be the man he was intended to be. He would show this girl that much. It came. She eased. Oh my, she even let go altogether.

Quixie struck. The man in him took over. He, Quixie Poindexter, this very day, would stand up for himself at last. He swung. He swung again. She moved backwards. They were the kind of swings you would expect from someone like Quixie—arms and fists flying over and over, side-to-side, windmill style, striking with the sides of his palms and with balled up fingers. Amateurish blows which wouldn’t have had much behind them, but given Quixie’s vast, enormous bulk, they did carry something. They drove her backwards across the lab. The ungainly blows striking her side, her shoulder, her arm--her breast. Quixie felt the soft fleshiness. He knew what he’d connected with. Holy smokes! So THAT’S what a BOOB feels like, he thought. He stopped swinging, partly out of excitement, partly out of fear for what boundary he’d just broken, partly out of some immature scientific curiosity—he wanted to see her reaction to that last blow.

What happened was…she winced. Her baby blues, they scrunched up into little half moon slits as she cupped her stricken right breast with both hands.

“Ha—HA! You have owie spots too!” he bellowed. Quixie, with room to move, now adopted a ridiculously exaggerated, hunchbacked fighting posture, one flabby arm up going out and in, out and in, in slow, mailed-in jabs at the air. “Now go away from me!” he wailed. “Get away or I’ll hit you there again! Leave me alone!”

Just then a bomb went off in Quixie’s belly. Quixie saw linoleum squares and tasted molecules of residual shoe rubber. He was back in the womb. Audrey’d sent him there, a fallen fetal failure, gasping for air but otherwise completely silent.

“Not as owie as yours, #sshole.”

He saw rolled up red socks over attenuated ankles, then downwards the pink, petite Sketchers with red and pink striped laces. Weapons of co-ed destruction. His mind pondered the velocity it must’ve been traveling, what happened when the hard-rubber-backed-by-bone collided with the softer atomic structure of his owie bits. His mind was awash with anatomical diagrams of delicate nerve structures from the wall of his biology 270 class. He got scared. He’d never

been kicked there. He never played sports like other boys. He had no idea, no idea of the pain—not this pain. Something was wrong. Something was wrong. His imagination fueled the pain and he was filled with ghastly terror. What had this girl done to him? What had she done? Unable to talk, he began to cry.

“Awwwww,” said Audrey, in baby-coo teasing voice. “Did I hurt your little ballie-wallies?”

Quixie’s crying intensified. Tears fell from his face, forming a puddle on the floor where his face lay on its side. They forged itchy, little streams over his nose and on both cheeks which he desperately desired to itch but dared not raise his hands away from belatedly protecting his balls.

Audrey sauntered away to the lab table where Quixie had been working. “What’s this?” she asked, peevishly, flipping through a thick notebook she found. “A-ha! What have we got here?” she declared. It was a typed thesis paper, eleven pages, stapled together. She held it up where even Quixie could see.

It was his; his thesis. It stopped him crying.

“What’d ya’ say I just take this and we call it even.”

Panicked—for he’d worked three weeks compiling the research for that—Quixie struggled, stumbling up to one knee.

Audrey stood, cocking her head to one side out of curiosity but otherwise quite obviously unworried. Quixie panted, grabbed the seat of a nearby plastic chair with one huge, fat paw. He grunted and ground his teeth together. She couldn’t steal his thesis paper. She couldn’t.

“C’mon, Quix,” Audrey insincerely exhorted. “C’mon. You can do it.”

“Ohaaa-oohh,” cried Quixie, and at last he stood, shaking, stooped over, the hands clutching his groin now formed into hard, fat fists. From his standing fetal position, both knees involuntarily knocked together, he strained to look up at her. She was smiling at him, smiling with big, white teeth like perfectly straight hominy kernels.

“Atta boy!” she chortled.

Just like that, one knee buckled, and Quixie hit the ground once more with a slap, landing flat on his flabby side.

“Uh, ohhh,” cooed Audrey, laughing. “Um, Quixie dear, I’ll just take this and we’ll call it even, ‘kay?” Brandishing the flapping paper, held at the stapled corner by sparkly thumb and forefinger, she pulled her purse strap over her shoulder and headed for the door. Three weeks of research gone up in smoke. His crying bout over, his abdominal anguish still going strong, Quixie managed only a final, feeble grunt of protest.

“Poor Quixie,” taunted Audrey, closing the door behind her.