01a) Newprologue

Toots and Boops New Prologue

“There’s up. And down. And left and right.” Boops intently rehearsed this mantra of her own invention, intoning it in fervent hopes of immanent revelation, hardly noticing the fresh snowdrifts she automatically avoided—more or less—trudging from her back porch to her neighbor’s. “Although,” she began troping her rote incantation with thought, “I just know there’s more than up-down-left-and-right. Especially when someone’s between my legs.” By the time she opened her neighbor Toots’ aluminum storm door—its arc forming a mesa from the top of a drift that had blown up against it—a fair amount of snow had fallen into the tops of Boops’ unbuckled galoshes, some of it negligently brushed into her boot tops by the hem of her unbuttoned overcoat, which she had held closed during her short trek. On the doorsill, Boops kicked snow from off her galoshes as she opened the inside door. “Toots!” she called into the house. “You here?” “In the living room. Been waiting for you,” her friend replied. “With you in a sec,” Boops cried towards the sound of Toots’ reply. Boops—a blonde with an hour glass figure—stepped out of her galoshes, leaving them on the layers of newspaper which lay upon the kitchen floor, at the back door. She stomped off the snow that had fallen into her boots and onto her bare feet inside, and removed her coat, revealing that she wore nothing but a summer-length terrycloth bath robe underneath. Boops moved through the dining room—from which she thought she began to hear a faint, familiar-sounding buzz—placing her overcoat, folded lengthwise, over the back of

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a chair. She reached the threshold of the living room, where she could see her similarlybuilt, brunette neighbor slouching on her sofa, her hips slumped forward all the way to the couch’s front edge, legs splayed. The robe she wore was open at the front, and the television facing the couch was turned on. “Sorry,” grumbled Toots, shrugging, explaining just what she was sorry for by moving her gaze to the vibrator with which she so handily serviced herself. “I got . . . excited, waiting, and started without you.” “I’m the one who ought to be apologizing,” replied Boops, opening her robe. “I was running late,” she explained, her fingertips gliding over her bared flesh in an act of overt arousal. “Thinkin’ again, huh?” asked Toots. “Yeah,” answered Boops, somewhat sheepishly. She knew Toots thought her notions of spatiality were pointless exercises in mental acrobatics. “Still seeking the veil of the mysteries, looking to lift it,” commented Toots, in voiced counterpoint to Boops’ tactile activity. Toots wasn’t usually so directly critical of Boops’ ruminations, but she—Toots—had recently spent some time with a new neighbor which had caused her to re-evaluate Boops’ contentions in a more positive light. Toots wanted to revisit the subject, so she’d blurted out her old objections in order to get the matter out there for conversation. They both understood the talk would be afterwards. Right now, they were on a mission, and Toots stayed on point. “Boy!” she exclaimed to Boops, “the cold really perked up your nips!” “Sure did,” replied Boops, while both visually and tactilely inspecting her stiffened pink protuberances. “Looks like I got me some catching up to do,” she

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continued, pointedly noting by a new tilt of her head the level of activity Toots was keeping between her legs. “New tool?” Boops asked. “Yeah,” answered Toots, maintaining her pace. “ ‘Mum’s Secret Helper.’ This one uses batteries, so there’s no clunky cord to get in the way, like the old days.” She continued enumerating the pros and cons of her new toy. “This control’s for speed,” she demonstrated. “Oh, God! Better dial that back down for now . . . There we go! Doesn’t vibrate as fast as the higher-end cord units, but the motion’s smoother, not nearly as rough, so it feels great!” she averred, her hips beginning an involuntary squirming. “You want to try it?” “You bet!” replied Boops. It sure looked to her like Toots was enjoying herself immensely, and Boops wished to follow suit. “But I can wait a you finish.” “Silly!” ejaculated Toots. “I meant on me. You finish me with it” she exhorted. “Of course you can use it afterward. If you like, I’ll return the favor and do you!” “That’s awful sweet a ya!” responded Boops. “How ja like me to start?” Tots thought a second or two before responding, with a good measure of specificity. “First,” she directed, “shed the robe. It’ll just get in the way.” Boops complied, allowing the loose-fitting garment to drop to the floor. “Good,” continued Toots, salaciously surveying the shapes of her neighbor’s flesh. “Now put that hot bod of yours on the sofa, to the right of me on your knees . . . yeah, like that. Now bring your hands down, and I’ll show you how to take over.” Tots knew from long-standing experience that Boops’ right hand was more adroit than her left, so she began directing the morning’s activity with even greater specificity than before. “Put your right hand around mine, on the vibrator,” she said. “Good. We’re

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gonna move it in an arc, like so: over The Man In The Boat . . . mmm . . . Mmm . . . into The Well . . . oh, yeah . . . oh yeah . . . and back out to The Man . . . UNGH!” Boops diligently rehearsed and recited the sequence together with Toots (complete with nonlexicographical exclamations—during which the two of them couldn’t help but giggle): “Over The Man In The Boat . . . mmm . . . Mmm . . . into The Well . . . oh, yeah . . . oh yeah . . . and back out to The Man . . . UNGH!” “Think you got the knack of it well enough to do me solo?” asked Toots, after a few repetitions. “Man In The Boat, Well. Man In The Boat, Well,” replied Boops in a rapid singsong, feigning annoyance. “Jeez! Not like it’s rocket surgery!” Then she softened her tone, saying “You just lean back and enjoy the journey me and The Boatman’ll be taking through your Wetlands here,” she exhorted, her right hand squeezing Toots’—still holding the vibrator—in gentle and affectionate pulsations. “Okay?” “O—ohhh!—o- kay!” Toots bleated, her hand loosening its grip on the vibrator so Boops could assume the ministrations. “That good?” asked Boops, several seconds into soloing upon Toots. “Not too much pressure topside?” “Oh yeah,” replied Toots, always amazed at how quickly her partner could assimilate nearly any new procedure pertaining to between-the-legs. “Right on the money. Why don’t you spread your legs some so I can stroke you?” Again Boops did as she was asked. She wasn’t a fool. Toots touched her glistening fingertips to the wisps of blond hair covering the skin between her neighbor’s legs, deftly parting the sparse strands to briefly massage Boops’ massive fleshfolds—“she

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really shouldn’t be so ashamed of the size of them,” thought Toots—very soon sliding inside Boops with her middle finger, after which others quickly found easy entry. “Looks like you were excited, too,” remarked Toots. “Pretty Pavlovian,” asserted Boops. “We’ve been on this schedule for so long, anymore all I gotta do is slink into my robe on a date day, and I’m a juiced up.” “Speaking of juice,” announced Toots, “I’m really close. You mind speeding it up so I can finish?” “I’ll do you better’n that!” averred Bops, whose mind had been busy planning a surprise attack upon Toots’ climax. Toots understood Boops’ remark to mean that there would be a break in the rhythm that had been working so well for her, but she checked her impulse to be annoyed: in all her years with Boops, she’d found her neighbor’s spontaneously-conjured surprises very rarely disappointing, and she suspected that this new turn on the ride Boops was taking through her Wetlands would be yet another of many journeys well worth having taken. “Here,” said Boops, angling the vibrator inside Toots so that its end touched her G-spot. “ ‘m I on your spongy spot?” “Oh shit yes!” exclaimed Toots. She realized Boops was on a roll. “I’m gonna turn it up a little and hold it there with my left hand. Move some a that juice between those little lips a yours up to your love nubbin . . . there we go! Let’s do some nubbin rubbin’! “Nothin’ says lubbin’ Like rubbin on the nubbin,”

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sang Boops, parodying a popular TV jingle, and in short order Toot’s vagina began its orgasmic spasming. “Gosh, Toots,” giggled Boops, “the way this vibrator’s jumpin’ around stickin’ outcha, looks just like a man’s thingie when it spurts!” “Nice to know,” replied Toots, mildly annoyed that Boops was taking her mind off her own exponentially-incrementing pleasure. “And just like a guy, you’ll be dropping a wad, won’tcha?” asked Boops, more or less rhetorically. She knew from years of gleefully-repeated experience what would soon ensue. “Here it comes!” ejaculated Toots. “Just keep rubbing on The Boatman! Faster! Yeah, like that, keep it up! Ungh! Ungh! UNGH!” “Jeez! You’re really shootin’ some goo, Toots! Wow! That one squirted almost all the way to the TV. I’m gonna slow down now, okay? Just be tuggin’ and pattin’ on those lips! This mama needs some coolin’ down! . . . Patty cake, patty cake . . . Toot, toot, Tootles The Tugboat . . .” “Oh shit, Boops!” Toots managed to exhale, after about a minute of Boops having cooled her down. “There’s coming, and then there’s coming!” “Wish I could squirt distance like that,” mused Boops, surveying the goo she’d extruded from Toots, now lying on the floor before them. “Hon, it’s no big deal how much you squirt,” asserted Toots, sliding the buzzing vibrator out of herself. She handed it to Boops, who comically sniffed it like a cigar, passing it lengthwise beneath her nose while inhaling through her nostrils. Toots continued: “Coming isn’t better for a woman either way. I’m sure of it,” she maintained, firing up a non-filtered Chesterfield cigarette with an expensive and oversized lighter.

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The cigarette was Toots’ cue to inform Boops that it was okay to cease and desist with the massaging. “How would you know that?” asked Boops, moving from the couch to the floor between Toot’s legs, facing the TV. She began applying the vibrator to herself. Toots exhaled smoke before replying. “If you must know: I knew a woman—not a squirter—when I was very young, just a pup. Jeeziz!” she exclaimed, before inhaling while her mind returned to an earlier time in her life. “We did everything. Let’s say she sort of took me under her wing. Then I lost track of her for years and years.” Toots took another drag on her Chesterfield before she continued. “I bumped into her briefly— awkwardly, too—about a year ago, and she’d somehow become a squirter,” Toots reported, clearly turning the anomaly over in her mind. “Let me get a light off yours, okay?” Boops asked ,the vibrator now buzzing inside her unattended. Boops dimly wondered why Toots was bringing up her own past—she never did that. “Sure,” said Toots holding the lit end of her cigarette to the one Boops had put to her mouth. Boops puffed until her cigarette caught fire. Toots continued: “Let me tell you something: that woman didn’t even know she’d become a squirter until I pointed it out to her. That’s why I don’t think there’s any more pleasure in it either way. And that’s why I’m sure distance doesn’t mean anything either, pleasure-wise.” “I’d still like to get some distance,” Boops persisted. “Maybe she could help. Could I maybe meet her?” “Lost track of her again,” lied Toots. This woman from Toots’ past had become internationally famous, so she would have been easy to track down. Besides, she

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appeared with Toots’ husband—who was every bit as famous—in a scandalously popular stage show. Curiously, Boops steered the topic of the dialogue to Toots’ husband. It was the sort of conversational segue that happened often enough to make Toots wonder if Boops might be just a bit psychic. “So how’s it goin’ with Herbie?” she asked. “Same old same old,” replied Toots. “Here’s an ashtray, she remarked, handing one she’d fished from an end-table drawer to Boops. “He’s still never home, just like before he started doing that idiot show. But at least I know where he is now, when he works. I had no idea what he was doing before.” She pulled on her cigarette and exhaled smoke while continuing. “Sometimes I think I liked it better the other way, not knowing. Hey that feels good, your stroking my instep like that. Sensation goes all the way up my leg to who laid it.” “ ‘Who laid it,’ huh?” remarked Boops, while watching the TV and flicking cigarette ash into the ashtray. “How’s it going with your better half?” asked Toors. “You said he’s stopped boinkin’ the secretaries at that Blithers place where he works. At least most of ‘em. So he’s got the energy to pay attention to you these days?” “Shit,yeah!” exclaimed Boops. “Stickin’ it to me real regular with that curved pole a his. Glad they got those accumulators up and running where he works.” Clearly marital relations were on the mend between Boops and DB, her husband. “That’s good to hear,” remarked Toots, twirling Boops’ hair. “How many accumulators they got there?” she asked. “Sixteen,” replied Boops. “Where’s the scotch?” she suddenly demanded.

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“I stuck it under the end-table,” answered Toots. “I forgot the glasses. Sorry. Okay with you, we can just pass the bottle around.” “Okay with me,” stated Boops, finding the bottle and handing it to Toots. “Guests first,” insisted Toots, politely refusing the first sip. She watched Boops take a respectable pull from the bottle. “Cigarette?” she asked. Toots had already lit one for her and was handing it to Boops as she spoke. “Thanks,” replied Boops. The two swapped cigarette and scotch. “What was the name of that lunatic you met who invented the accumulator?” asked Toots, Boops not noting that her voice held more than mere query. “Dr. Wilhelm,” replied Boops. She took a drag on the Chesterfield. “A real nut case, you ask me.” “Orgone accumulator . . .” inquired Toots, handing the scotch back to Boops, who took another sip. “What that crackpot called it,” replied Boops. “Whatever orgone is.” “That Dr. Wilhelm guy? He just died, you know,” Toots quietly announced, before taking a drag on her cigarette. “Nahh!’ remarked Boops, surprised to find herself truly shocked. “Oh yeah,” insisted Toots. “And in prison!” “Jeeziz, Toots!” exclaimed Boops. “Last I saw ‘im, thay were clappin’ ‘im in irons, but I didn’t think they’d lock the poor bastard up ‘til he croaked!” She took another pull from the scotch before handing it back to Toots. “What’d he do?”

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“Toots took the bottle and flatly said “Probably nothing.” Earlier in her life, she’d seen a good many fine people severely punished—executed, even—for nothing. Absolutely nothing. She pulled long from the bottle before handing it back to Boops. “Shit!” declared Boops, exhaling smoke. “I feel awful!” She swigged on the scotch, then passed the bottle back to Toots. “It happens,” said Toots, taking a pull from the bottle. Boops directed her gaze to the TV. “I hope Chump’s on,” she said, stating her aspirations regarding who—or what—might appear on the screen. “Me, too!” agreed Toots. The two of them fell silent and watched the TV while smoking and passing the bottle between them. Both women’s eyes remained hopefully fixed upon the console black-and-white TV, the television at which they gazed displaying the logo and name of The Do-Day To-Day Show, as the disembodied, golden-throated voice of its announcer spoke: “Welcome to the Quadrennial Auger Nation, er, Nauger Ashun Parade. And to bring today’s festivities to you, here’s your host and hostess” (the screen immediately switched from the show’s logo to a live shot of a man and a woman seated at a desk, both smiling into the camera), “from The Do-Day To-Day Show, Hugh Dong and Bulba Twatters . . .” “Well, folks,” Hugh picked up the ball without missing a beat, “there’s a six inch blanket of fresh snow on the ground. It’s been snowing and it’s been blowing here in AC-DC.” “Cold and windy in Capitol City,” affirmed Bulba. “That it is,” concurred Hugh. He immediately shifted gears while maintaining his rhythm: “A lot of you might be wondering ‘Where’s Chump the Chimp?’ ” It was a fair

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question for their television audience to ask. The Do-Day To-Day Show’s ratings had been in the toilet until Chump the Chimp joined the morning cast of characters. Not that he had a whole hell of a lot more—or less—to say than the humans he worked with. But people liked him and watched the show, hoping to catch a glimpse of the simian. The ratings skyrocketed, and Hugh and Bulba’s careers were no longer in the crapper. “Old Chump!” remarked Miss Twatters, visibly grimacing. “He’s done it again, hasn’t he Hugh?” Boops and Toots laughed when they heard Bulba Twatters deliver that particular line. They even mouthed the words “Old Chump, he’s done it again” to each other, in sync with Miss Twatters as she delivered them. So did most of America. It was a running gag on the show. “He sure has, Bulba,” answered Hugh. “Old Chump the Chimp, he went out partying two days ago, and now he’s got himself one bodacious hangover.” “You think he’d learn,” commented Bulba.

This remark would trigger an

argument between the two of them that was in fact scripted, one in which they bounced so well off each other, and with such good humor, that everyone loved watching it. “Ever the optimist,” Hugh acidly observed of Miss Twatters’ last comment. So far as Chump the Chimp was concerned, the audience thought they were in on a running joke that had no basis in fact: Chump wasn’t there because he was way too hung over. But sadly, that was all too true. As a young adult, Chump had developed a taste for hard liquor and cigars. As a joke, one of his handlers had set out a shot glass for him, with a mere dram of Old Grandad in it. When Chump picked it up to drink, his nose told him that he ought to be cautious with, so he circumspectly stuck his chimpanzee

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tongue into the whiskey. Chump thought about what he’d tasted for a few short seconds, then tossed the whiskey down his gullet, and demanded more. This particular handler figured, “What the hell, see what a drunk monkey’s like,” and let Chump imbibe to his heart’s content. Yes, Chump had taken to hard drink like a duck to water. You’d think, knowing his habits, that Chump’s handlers would just refuse him the booze, as the show must go on. But Chump would get so damn nasty if he wanted to drink and the liquor was withheld, it was easier just to let him have it. Resultantly, every-so-often he’d binge drink for a few days, collapse from exhaustion, then wake up hung over as hell. He wouldn’t touch the stuff for a while, then he’d—pardon the expression—go ape, all over again. Those mornings when he was sober, or not too hung over, he was on the show, but this wasn’t one of those mornings. “I’d at least hope,” retorted Miss Twatters, taking scripted exception to Mr. Dong’s characterization of her as an incorrigible optimist, “that Chump would be professional enough to make it a point to be available for these special events. How often does an inauguration happen? Just once every four years!” “Bulba, he’s only a monkey, for cryin’ out loud!” countered Hugh. “And so are we!” asserted Miss Twatters. “We’re monkeys! Hugh Dong and Bulba Twatters! And we show up, sober!” “Jeez, Bulba,” cried Mr. Dong. “You can’t go blamin’ some poor darn monkey, just on account of he can’t control his alcoholic consumption!” “Try telling that,” insisted Bulba, “to the spouse or relative of some binge drinker: ‘Poor monkey, just can’t help himself!’ Hugh Dong, you need a reality check!”

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“Speaking of reality checks,” segued Hugh, “here comes the Marine Corps Marching Band.” Yes, the cavalry charged over the hill (metaphorically speaking) and— in the nick of time—saved the day, cutting off any uneasiness that may have been engendered in the spirits of the television audience by the argument that had just been transpiring between Hugh and Bulba. “They’re known as The President’s Finest,” commented Bulba. ‘That they are,” agreed Hugh. “This group spawned none other than John Phillip Sousa himself.” “And just like Sousa,” continued Miss Twatters, “these men play their music so well that it’d make a man with a wooden leg want to get up and march!” “That they do,” commented Hugh Dong. He went on: “Just look at those spotless uniforms of the reddest reds and the bluest blues.” “Jeez, Hugh,” ad libbed Bulba, “you’d think we’re doing a detergent commercial here.” In his control booth, the director signaled that the sound of the band be boosted as it played The Washington Post March, while Hugh exhorted Bulba in sotto voce tones, still audible over the air, but just barely: “Better stay on script. Network brass doesn’t pay us to think, much less deride any potential sponsors.” The director cued the mixing console to bring the band down and Mr. Dong and Miss Twatters back up. Bulba dutifully read from her script, trooper that she was: “The reds and blues in those Marine uniforms are truly striking. And we’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that this is the first inauguration to be broadcast in color!”

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“In Living Color,” Hugh interjected, for emphasis. The network scriptwriters knew which side their bread was buttered on. “And look what’s coming down Pennsylvania Avenue, being towed,” exclaimed Miss Twatters. “It’s Pee Tee One Oh Nine!” “Of course, Bulba,” explained Hugh,”the real Pee Tee One Oh Nine was inadvertently destroyed by our new president when he was its captain in World War Two, and for that he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. So the one being used in this parade, number Seven Ninety Six, has been graciously lent for the occasion by the Navy. And right after the Pee Tee float, here’s the University of Texas Longhorn Marching Band.” “You know, Hugh,” confessed Miss Twatters, “the first Longhorn I saw was a bull. So I just I assumed they got their name for the other end.” “A lot of city folks make that very same mistake,” Mr. Dong replied. He could hardly believe that last exchange he and Bulba had just read, and figured some scriptwriter was going to find himself in serious censor trouble. “Boops?” asked Toots quietly, after their uncharacteristically-long silence. “What Toots?” “You remember our first time together?” Boops thought it an odd question, as before today Toots had never allowed any recounting of her previous life. Whenever Boops had asked her where she’d grown up, or how she’d come to live in the neighborhood, or simply tried to make social chit-chat about the before-times, Toots had replied by smiling and inscrutably remarking: “I choose not to recall my past.” Even something that the both of them had experienced

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together as recently as a few weeks ago was off-limits, so far as Toots was concerned. Boops had learned to accept this as a condition of their relationship, and she had spent a good deal of energy teaching herself to refrain from making any inquiries. But now Toots herself was asking about something that had occurred years ago, and with this question Boops whole world had tilted on its axis. A proper response was necessary, but Boops was at a loss for the right words. She turned on the floor to face Toots and gazed into Toots’ steely-grey eyes for a few seconds, until her body told her what she needed to do. She brought her face down to the flesh between Toots’ legs, taking it into her mouth to savor its taste, which she rightly expected to conjure up her remembrance of that time long ago. “The smells and tastes of things remain poised a long time inside people, their essences ready to remind us, waiting for their moment to bear the edifice of recollection,” said Toots. She was reciting some well-known lines she’d memorized from a book she’d read, years ago. But Boops—who rarely read anything other than vibrator manuals— thought Toots was making it up herself. Just as Boops had expected and the lines Toots recited promised, the taste wafted Boops back. And the momentum of her remembering carried her farther back into the before-time than her and Toots’ initial escapade together, beyond that and back to her chance encounter with DB, where she correctly sensed that her life with Toots had truly begun . . .

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