The Minotauress

no sign of the Minotauress.

'That magic cum-spell must'a wore off!' Dicky exclaimed.

Behind them, in the woods, they heard a thrashing laced by vicious snorts. The sounds seemed to dim and eventually disappear as their source receded.

'There goes our million bucks,' Balls lamented, hands on hips. He half-laughed to Dicky, then said, 'Ain't that just a great big kick in the behind?'

But Balls had pronounced the word behind as 'bee-hand.'

EPILOGUE

It took the Writer two hours to walk back to downtown Luntville, yet he did so with a lively step and a studied joy on his face. The warm night's caress accompanied him, along with the gibbous moon and the aural sweep of crickets. Along the way, he pondered everything that had happened to him today and realized that the entire ordeal nearly existed as an allegorical masterpiece. Yes... Intrigue and advents, epiphanies and a resultant actualization, all wrapped up in an ever-important anti-climax. All necessary ingredients for fiction of literary worth—especially the latter component. Like Pope's Rape of the Lock, Melville's Bartleby, Lewis' Main Street, and—the best always last—Sartre's monumental 'The Wall... ' A gentle satisfaction swept the Writer, because he knew that the truth of his own life reflected the greatness of classic fiction along the same lines as A Tale of Two Cites and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...  Back at the Gilman House, he stepped into proverbial pin-drop silence. He thought of Poe's quintessential protagonist stepping across the threshold of the brooding House of Usher...

Up the stairs, then. Was there a bizarre vibe in the air? On the darkened landing, he paused at a barely audible hum. It was coming from behind one of the girls' doors. A marital aid? he suggested to himself, but then a feisty young-voiced woman yelled, 'Git out'a there, ya little bugger! Git out!' and he thought he had a pretty good idea what the sound was. Behind another door, bedsprings creaked insanely, and a crotchety man's voice railed, 'Aw jeezus-ta-pete! Kilt a dozen commies in Korea'n now I cain't even get a load'a jism off! Ain't good fer nothin' ‘cept sellin' tater chips ta immer-grints'n crackers! What I fight the war for?'

The Writer had a pretty good idea who the client was.

Another door clicked open deeper in the hall. It was darker back there; the Writer could barely see.

'Is someone th—' he began, but the formation of a figure began to sharpen. Must be one of the girls, he reasoned. The semi-silhouette took more shape: a stunningly curvaceous woman but with—

God help me...

—a peculiar V spreading wide from atop her head... like horns.

The Writer's heart seemed to stop.

'Haa!' came the chirpy voice, and finally the rear-hall's darkness disgorged the woman and her identifiable features. It was Nancy.

The Writer made a rare departure from his avoidance of profanity. 'Nancy. You scared the living shit out of me.'

She cracked a hick laugh. 'You're afraid'a l'il ole me?' and then she came close enough to be seen.

All she wore was her exquisite nakedness. Even in the murky light, that young, raw beauty raved, so intensely that the Writer's knees nearly went out. The ripe breasts and sleek, perfect flesh left him helpless and in awe.

I could... marry her, the outrageous thought swept halo-like round his head, and scarier still was the immediacy with which the impression had arrived.

But then the oddity registered in his brain. On her head she wore a facsimile of bunny ears, which he'd first feared were the horns of the dread Minotauress.

'What's that on your head?'

Her eyes bloomed at the afterthought. 'Oh, tarnations! I plum fergot ta take 'em off after my last trick. The fella likes me to wear bunny ears 'cos he said his daughter was a Playboy Bunny long time ago, and I'se guess he wants ta pretend that I'm... Well, you know.'

'Ah, yes.' There's aberration everywhere, like evil, but after another moment's thought, he added, but also like good. Certainly mankind's sin must pave the prospect for its redemption. Kierkegaard proved that. The hope of the surmise brought him an instant well-being.

Downstairs, the clock tolled three. 'Dang, it's so late,' the nude girl commented. 'Don't seem like it, though.'

'Time is simply a form of intuition, relative to space. It's not so much time that passes with each tick of the clock but experience and, hence, truth.'

Her adorable little nose scrinched up. 'Huh?'

'Sorry, I'm philosophizing. But how was your evening?'

She glowed. 'Aw, it was just dandy, it was. Got me over a dozen tricks'n made probably five hunnert bucks!'

'That's superb. You're quite industrious, Nancy, and quite the entrepreneur.'

She took another step closer. 'And how was your evenin'?'

'Wonderful,' he breathed. 'It was an evening of advents and revelation, of anticlimaxes and dichotomies. Indeed... an evening of signs and wonders.'

The remark fuddled her. 'Well we'se could all hear ya typin' away in yer room all night long. You must'a got a lot'a yer book wrote tonight.'

Strange, he thought. I barely wrote a word today, and I've been out of the house for hours. She probably heard the air-conditioner rattling. 'The book's coming along just fine,' he bluffed.

She took another step... The Writer's eyes continued to shudder over the immaculate physique. Moments of silence passed, the two of them gazing at each other.

Suddenly, he wanted to weep. 'My God, Nancy... '

'Yeah?' she giggled.

'You're so beautiful it's killing me... '