Norman Partridge - The Ten-Ounce Siesta

In the morning he untied Eden’s hands and ankles. He gave her an olive-colored work shirt with randy stitched over one pocket. She washed herself and dressed. He opened the door when she was ready to go, and when she was gone he shot himself in the head.

She walked to the highway and stuck out her thumb.

It was early and there weren’t many cars on the road. She had to wait a while. She sang some cowboy songs. “The Rebel-Johnny Yuma.” “Maverick.” “Davy Crockett.”

She was singing “Happy Trails” when an old Chevy pulled over.

The car belonged to Harold Ticks. He took her to Las Vegas. He put lotion on her sunburn and bought her clothes and let her eat anything she wanted.

He did not show her his serpent. Not at first. But he taught her to satisfy the serpents of other men. He took money from those men, and sometimes he watched the things they did with Eden.

Sometimes Harold filmed the men with a video camera. Other times he would take Eden to a warehouse owned by another man, and the other man would make movies while Eden handled serpents of every description.

Once her sisters joined her for a movie. Eden was happy to see them. It was good to have family around.

But mostly she was on her own. Eden tried to enjoy the other men. She wanted to revel in carnal pleasure to please Daddy and Mama and Satan. But this she could not do.

Eden knew it was wrong to want only one man. It went against everything her parents believed. But she only wanted Harold. She only wanted his serpent.

One night Harold charged a wizened gambler an especially high sum to enjoy Eden’s company. When the old man was gone, she confessed her secret desires to Harold. She did not tell him about Daddy and Mama or Satan, because she never spoke of these things with anyone.

Harold gave her his serpent that night, and for the first time Eden understood what Mama had meant when she spoke of pleasures as gratifying as a rattlesnake bite. Eden surrendered to those pleasures, and it was not at all like it had been with the other men.

Harold said it was the same for him. No woman had ever taken him to the places he visited with Eden. He promised that he would never again sell her to another man.

“I have another plan,” he said. “A way we can make a lot of money.”

“I’ll do anything,” Eden said, “as long as I can do it with you.”

Eden knew it was wrong. Mama and Daddy would not approve. The lone desire that coursed through her veins went against the laws of nature and the drives of the flesh and the teachings of the Dark Lord.

One man and one woman. . together. . forever.

It was horrible.

Eden was in love.

The baddest man on the planet stood on a terra-cotta patio outside a palatial mansion. A scarlet towel was wrapped around his trim middle, as was the heavyweight championship belt once owned by Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes, and Muhammad Ali.

The champ’s name was Tony Katt, but he always thought of himself as the Tiger. In fact, he often referred to himself as such when speaking with the press. “The Tiger trained for this fight with unparalleled ferocity,” he’d say, or “The Tiger sprang upon his opponent in an effort to devour the motherfucker like a jungle beast.”

While incarcerated in Corcoran State Prison, the Tiger’s favorite book had been Roget’s Thesaurus. That coupled with his habit of speaking about himself in the third person made Tony Katt a great hit with the sportswriters.

The Tiger didn’t know about any third person, though. After all, he was just one guy.

The champ eased a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses high on his nose and checked out the action on the neighboring golf course. The ninth tee was approximately a hundred yards from the Tiger’s outdoor Jacuzzi. A group of duffers approached the tee in little white carts while the Tiger studied them with the unbridled intensity of a starved predator.

The golfers tottered out of the carts-a cackle of old chicks, scurrying about, busying themselves with clubs and balls and other accouterments of pasture pool. Four of them, dressed in sprightly outfits that spoke of eternal spring.

These were gold card predators. The Tiger despised them and their kind. Country clubs habitues, they had suckled too long upon the teat of indulgence and grown weak.

No, not weak. Puny. That was a better word. They had suckled too long upon the teat of indulgence and grown puny.

One of the women noticed the Tiger’s presence. Whispers were exchanged. The Tiger relished such attention. Fingers dared not point in his direction as the women examined him with furtive glances and puny disapproving peeps that registered awestruck disapproval.

To the Tiger, this was the natural order of things. For what more could be expected of mere mortals when confronted by a presence so magnificent as his?

And the Tiger’s presence was indeed magnificent- exalted, great, majestic -for he was no longer an ordinary man. He was something more.

He was a man enhanced, augmented, redoubled. .

The afternoon sunshine painted the Tiger’s bronze skin. His muscles rippled and his tattoos danced, gleaming beneath a brilliant sheen of sweat. The fingers of his left hand stroked the great bronze shield on the front of the heavyweight championship belt, the image of a muscular boxer holding a globe aloft with gloved hands.

Sunlight gleamed against bronze. The Tiger straightened to his full height of six feet two inches, gripping the belt and aiming the shining trophy like a mirror. A slashing beam of reflected light blinded one of the gawking duffers. She shielded her eyes and continued to stare, as if she were braver than all the others who had come before her.

But the Tiger knew that this woman was not brave. She was a fool. She may as well have looked into the eyes of Medusa.

The Tiger smiled his baddest-man-on-the-planet smile.

If she wanted to stare, he’d give her something to stare at.

Dramatically, the way a great artist unveils a masterpiece, the heavyweight champion of the world pulled the scarlet towel from around his waist.

The woman fainted. Her companions, squealing in astonishment, barely managed to collect their friend’s supine body as they piled into the golf carts and dispersed as quickly as a herd of startled antelopes, leaving behind nothing save a lone white ball balanced on a tee.

The Tiger stared down-below the gleaming shield that girded his belly, below the nest of dark pubic hair-and smiled.

The operation had been a complete success.

Truly, he was King of the Jungle.

The heavyweight champion’s augmented penis bobbed in the hot tub, buffeted by a steady stream of jetting Jacuzzi bubbles.

The champion settled back, uttering a satisfied sigh. It was funny how things worked out sometimes.

First there’s the accident, and of course it’s frightening but you’re treated by the finest surgeon in Vegas, and he refers you to the best cosmetic surgeon, who provides you with a discreet informational video that you watch in the privacy of your own home. . and before you know it- snip, snip, pull, pull, stitch, stitch-you end up with. . this.

“Oh my God. . every time I see it. “ Porschia marveled, searching for words. “Gosh, Tony, it’s like a big old barge or something.”

“The Tiger sincerely hopes that you brought your tugboat, my dear.”

Porschia laughed. She stood at water’s edge, wearing a thong bikini bottom and a Tony “The Tiger” Katt T-shirt that was knotted beneath her pert, upturned breasts. Statuesque and strawberry blond, she was a budding star in her own right. Porschia Keyes, understudy to the lead dancer in the big review at the hotel that was sponsoring the Tiger’s first championship defense.