This idea, or something like it, has been hanging around for a while – the worst thing about finally getting it on paper was the fact that I actually had to watch some Jerry Springer. Not sure I watched enough of it to get the feel quite right – but there are limits to what I will do for my art.
Show and Tell (982 words)
"Aand heere's your host!"
"Gunnar! Gunnar! Gunnar! Gunnar!"
Gunnar Bateman surfed onto the stage, cresting the roaring applause.
"Today we’re going to meet Darleen and Chet. They’ve been married some time, and Darleen claims that Chet has changed. That the same things that attracted him about her, he doesn’t like any more." Oooh, from the audience.
"Chet says Darleen isn’t acting like a proper wife, like a proper mother. Who’s right? Who’s at fault here? Let’s find out, shall we? Let’s hear it for Darleen Lubowski!"
Darleen was blonde, toned, tanned, pumped, glossed, and cantilevered. She swayed up to Gunnar on vertiginous heels for her air-kiss and slid into one of the chairs with catlike ease.
"So, Darleen. You and Chet have been married for how long?"
"Ten years, Gunnar." She had the voice of a gin-soaked angel.
"You told me that you were on the verge of a divorce. Why is that?"
"Well, I’ve always attracted men."
Woooo and a few, "You go, girl’s," from the audience.
"He said he liked that," Darleen said, pouting. "He said that I was the first sexy woman to go for him. But now, it’s all, ‘don’t wear that, Darleen. We’ve got children, Darleen. What will the PTA think, Darleen?’"
"Well, let’s hear Chet’s side of the story, shall we? Here he is, Chet Lubowski!"
Chet blinked his way onto the stage, leaning forward as though the applause were a high wind. Scrawny, with big hands and a bad combover, he looked at least twenty years older than his wife. Out in the distance, a bulb popped, and the tech crew hurried to deal with it.
Gunnar shook Chet’s hand, gestured him to his seat.
"Can you tell us a bit about your marriage?"
"We married pretty young. Darleen was always kinda wild. That’s was OK. But we’re older now. I just think she should, you know, stop trying to look like she’s sixteen. And stop flirting with other guys. We got three beautiful kids. It just isn’t right."
"Are you saying I don’t love our kids?" Darleen started up, eyes flaring.
Chet glared. "Do you?"
"Don’t you dare accuse me of being a bad mother!" She turned to the audience. "I just about brought them up by myself, they never see him!"
Oooh!
"I work hard!"
"OK calm down," Gunnar said. "Now, Darleen, you’ve got something to tell Chet, haven’t you? Something you think will help explain everything?"
"Yes, Brendan."
"Why don’t you go ahead."
Chet’s lower lip started to shake; he got that rabbit-in-headlights look. The audience leaned in, hungrily. Darleen stared straight ahead, glowing. "Chet, you always said you thought I was a sexy woman, now, you don’t like that about me any longer. But it ain’t gonna change. I’m a succubus."
Woooo, from the audience. Chet blinked, gasped. "You…you bitch! You never told me! All these years, and…no wonder I lost so much weight! No wonder I was tired all the time!"
Darleen crossed her legs, endangering several marriages out front, and shrugged. "You never had it better, Chet. Lots of men would be grateful."
Ooooh, the audience moaned.
"Besides, I never complained. Did I ever complain about your little secret? Hmm?"
"Oh don’t you dare," Chet said. "My friends watch this programme!"
"And you never had the guts to tell them," Darleen said. "I married a man with no guts. I married…" she drew the pause out like a pro, "a gremlin."
"You - bleep!" Chet launched himself out of his chair. One of the legs collapsed, and the stage crew whipped another chair into place, while security – a burly priest and even burlier ex-cop, both armed with water-pistols loaded with the show’s special mix of holy water, silver leaf, crushed garlic and obscure West African herbs – grabbed Chet. One of the water pistols exploded, drenching the front row of the audience, causing screams, howls, and a disturbing bubbling sound.
"Look at that!" Darleen shrieked, leaping up, pointing a trembling, perfectly manicured finger. "That’s what it’s like living with you! I never had a TV last more than a week! We pay more in insurance premiums than most people earn! And you complain because I look good? Well bleep you, Chet Lubowski! Bleep you and the kelpie you rode in on!"
Gunnar strode out front – stepping around the remains of one of the more drastically drenched members of the front row. "Let’s hear from our audience. You, sir?"
The sir in question was large, and hairy, and had a snout. "Seems to me she can’t help it. I mean, hell, I was coming home to that, I’d be grateful. In fact, I wouldn’t leave the house."
Chet lunged for him, and was restrained. Darleen smirked and waved her fingers. Another bulb exploded.
A large woman with a terrible perm and tusks said; "Once you’re a mom, you gotta change. You can’t act like a high-school kid no more. Lady, you need to get serious."
"Oh yeah?" Darleen said. "What’m I supposed to do? Pretend to be someone I’m not? Dress like you, maybe?"
Oooooh! Flecked with a few miao noises. The large woman headed thunderously for the stage, and was hauled back.
Gunnar got the nod from the wings. Time to wind up. He made a ‘quiet down’ gesture. "We all think we know somebody when we marry them. But do we ever really know them? And can the secrets at the heart of a marriage ever be something we should keep? Until next time; don’t you go changing." He’d used that line for years, and he wasn’t altering it now, however much the lycanthropy rights society complained.
In his dressing room, he found a message lying next to the mirror.
Great stuff. You bastard.
Odin.
Gunnar – aka Loki - grinned to himself. He’d found his niche. He was a god at peace with himself, if not with anyone else.
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