For. Ever.
It is therefore something of a surprise that Tycho recently refused his affections to the lady dog belonging to a rich old Dutch party called Mrs. Van der Zee but that is what he did and there is no accounting for taste. Looking at Mrs. Van der Zee’s dog I would have said there was nothing to object to. Certainly Marta—this being the name of the lady dog—is a more obvious friend with benefits than two kilos of Michelin-starred fish on a bed of shaved black radish but I am not judgy. Tycho and Marta did not make it and that is that but it is not that for Mrs. Van der Zee. Mrs. Van der Zee takes a dim view. She sees the absence of dog fornication as a slight upon Marta, and any slight upon Marta is a slight upon Mrs. Van der Zee, and one does not slight Mrs. Van der Zee. As a result of the nonfucking by Tycho of Marta there had to be an owner-to-owner meeting in a truth and reconciliation mode at which I was present purely as mediator and it was not a good meeting at all. Mrs. Van der Zee lives in a big place by the sea, and it has gardens and tennis courts and two heated pools and thousands and thousands of deluxe ultra-premium rare tulips.
In fact the whole place smells of sickly tulip stink because Mrs. Van Der Zee chooses to wear a customized perfume made by a guy named Jort. Jort is present at this exciting gathering in a sort of Roman short shorts playsuit. He is from Den Haag and has no body hair whatsoever and I am fairly sure Mrs. Van der Zee keeps him as some sort of quasi-sexual pet. I do not want to know what she does with him and I do not think Jort wishes to talk about it. He works with both ancient wisdom and sophisticated modern techniques to create a unique signature scent experience using whatever you give him, which in this case of course is ultra-premium deluxe rare tulips. I am not a perfume guy but when I was the cardinal of coffee I developed a sensitive nose because if you cannot tell when someone is trying to sell you basic sawdust arabica for Hacienda La Esmeralda, you will get fucked in the civet hole, and this perfume smelled like someone had done that with violet to a perfectly innocent vetiver and then shaken the whole thing with turpentine. It is dis-fucking-gusting and it is all over everything in the house, and when she shakes your hand it goes on you like she’s a plague vector and it will not come off your clothes, so I may not have been entirely at the top of my game during this encounter and it did not go ideally well.
Over the salad course, by way of peacemaking, Doc ventured the opinion that the absence of sex between the canine companions may be owed to the fact that their antibodies were not sufficiently complementary, which seemed like a good no-fault explanation to me, but Mrs. Van der Zee recorded around a mouthful of lollo rosso the alternative view that Tycho is a hate-filled canine Communist. Doc said he was not hate filled nor indeed did he, being a dog, possess the necessary cognitive architecture to form political opinions of this kind, and Mrs. Van der Zee audibly concluded that Doc was One Of Those. When Doc requested clarification of what sort of Those this might be, I was unable to prevent Mrs. Van der Zee from explaining that Doc—as evidenced by her lack of belief in dog politics—was a DOINO, or dog owner in name only, or she would know that our furry friends understand more than we think. Doc noted that she might could arrange for Mrs. Van der Zee and her damn dog both to get a virulent and fast-progressing hemorrhagic fever, and I said shush because that is a thing that Doc has done in her life, and ixnay on the lowingbay ouryay overcay, and Doc said I should ticksay tiay puay ymay sasay, and it was at this tense moment that Tycho chose to initiate vigorous and vocal sex with a Semper Augustus. A Semper Augustus is a kind of tulip whose petals look like marbled steak and which costs ten thousand dollars a bulb.
Also, when a saluki fucks one, it makes a noise like cleaning a window with a squeegee.
—
It was to distract Doc from some kind of precipitate overreaction vis à vis Mrs. Van der Zee that I went to Sharkey and said to find us a project.
“Hi Sharkey it’s me Jack!”
“Holy FUCK—”
“Sharkey! Wash your mouth out with your bad language.”
“Fuck, Jack, you scared the shit out of me no one is supposed to be in here right now.”
“Sharkey. We are professional men. Let us profess as men do.”
“…Jesus fuck okay sit the fuck down.”
I sit.
Sharkey says: “(Fuck.)”
Sharkey is a middleman. Globally speaking, Sharkey is The Middleman. He is an unprepossessing sort of asshole with a girlfriend called Crystal, which is pronounced like the champagne, although I know for a fact that her real name is Isabel and she comes from a town on the riviera with only one cow. I like Crystal. She is just trying to get along is what. I do not like Sharkey he is a dick. I would much prefer to deal with Crystal but that is business for you, quite
