Fri, 20 Oct 1995 00:47:49 -0700 On Thu, 19 Oct 1995, Diane Echelbarger quoted from her "local Alternative weekly today": >WOLF GODDESS SEEKS THOUGHTFUL VAMPIRE >SWF, 49, cerebral, hauntingly beautiful wolf goddess, seeks evolved, >philosophical vampire muse for mutual worship, new sensory input and >complicating the mundane. Voila, my dubious answer to Diane's challenge. My inspiration, you ask? Not wanting to write this *@^%&! paper, due tomorrow. Isn't it always? Ah, but this time, the procrastination factor is especially fitting... Wrote this on the spot, cliches and all, so few changes or corrections have been made. i have to do my paper sometime. Figured this piece could stand some bad writing. Can the rest of us, though? Acknowledgements come at the end, when i hand out barf bags... DESPERATELY SEEKING A S.O.V. an answer to Diane E.'s Wolf Goddess' personal ad fanfic challenge c. 1995 by e. m. "Why do i do this to myself putting off papers by writing fluff so i can stress out in the 11th hour" hall She draped her purple gauze skirt into a more appealing position across her crossed legs, the bells on its hem jingling like a Christmas elf's booties all the while. Ducking her head to look under the table - making sure that just the right amount of legging-ed thigh would be exposed to the expected party, as he approached the table - Lady Loupina of the Sixth Moon of Endor blew an annoying strand of gray-streaked brown hair, cottony from too many years of teasing, from her eyes and shook her little head about when the strand refused to budge. She raised a hand, carefully manicured so that each fingernail portrayed a scene from the film version of Hair, to brush the wayward strand aside but not before untangling the rest of her locks from the fat, Cat's eye ring upon her finger. So, Lady Loupina was sitting there, yanking away at her hair, when a passerby recognized her and stopped. "Edith? Edith Bulrube? Is that you under there?" Lady Loupina of the Sixth Moon of Endor froze before slowly and successfully drawing her hand from her eyes. She snuck a look and then secretly winced, recognizing Teri MacDuffy from Music Appreciation. She smoothed her hair down casually and tweaked her lips into a smile. "Hi, Teri! Yeah, it's me. I'm just...oh, you know,... Yeah, it's me...," she sighed. "God, I never would have recognized you! Wow, you really look great! Real... great! Is this a Halloween thing or something?" Teri was way too cheery to be human. "No, actually... Um... I'm having dinner." She stabbed her leg with a wheat roll, damning herself for not going along with the Halloween gig story, saying that she was here for holiday presentation, and then, while Teri took all that information in, quickly leave out the back. "Of course you are! I mean look at this place, it's a restaurant! I don't know what I was thinking!" Teri doinked her forehead with her palm in her 'Silly me' gesture. Edith, uh, Lady Loupina looked about. White linen tablecloth, genuine crystal for water glasses, and at least silver-plated utensils. Oh, and that string quartet playing, what else?, The Four Seasons and playing it well. Yep, it was definitely a restaurant. She turned back to Teri. "So, you're probably here having dinner, too, huh?" Teri bobbed, "Yeah, Jerry and I are celebrating our 5th, can you believe it?" "Oh, wow, already?" "Yeah, it's amazing, completely amazing... So how about you, dear? Who're you with?" Don't say you put out a personal ad, don't say you put out a personal ad... "I'm here alone." Edith groaned to herself even as a phrase worse than 'personal ad' came out. Everyday, after her tiny 10-year-old fireballs for students dashed out at the noon bell, Edith took her sack lunch and sat under a tree at the far end of the teachers' patio, with a Harlequin romance tucked under her arm. It was bad enough to be greeted by co-workers who gave her sweet pitying smiles as they passed by... She could imagine what she looked like to Teri now, bizarrely dressed up, makeup almost heavy enough to drag her eyelashes permanently shut and her rouge cheeks to her neck, sitting alone again, but this time in the most elegant restaurant in town. "I mean, until my date shows up." Teri's mouth opened, no doubt to ask the details. Just then, however, a handsome man with piercing blue eyes and smooth, light complexion approached them. Edith, uh, Lady Loupina sat up, then sat back down and reclined as best she could against a straight-backed seat and laid her arms along the back of the chair in expectation of her dinner guest. She squeaked in indigation as Teri flung her hands about his neck and pecked him upon the nose. "Honey, this is Edith Bulrube. She teaches the 5th grade at Echelbarger Elementary. Edith, this is my husband, Jerry." Teri beamed. Edith sank into her seat. "Hi, howareya." She waved a hand in his general direction. "Go on, honey. I just want to say bye." Teri gave Jerry a pat on the bum and pointed him towards the grand double doors of Chez Seamus. When he was out of earshot, Teri whispered, "Isn't he a dream, all wickedly handsome like that? I call him my Countie, 'cause he so cute like a vampire, don't you think?" "He's quite a cutie, Teri." Shredded bits of an Equal package floated to the bottom of Edith's fingerbowl. She then dumped the sugar subsitute into her wine glass absently. "And the way he nibbles on my neck when we cuddle..." She giggled. A lemon wedge followed the Equal to its watery death in Edith's wine glass. "Uh, Teri, honey? We'd better hurry if we wanna catch the beginning!" Jerry called. The Sound of Music, Teri mouthed with a delirious smile. Front row seats. Marie Osmond. Backstage passes. Isn't he a dreamboat? A complete oceanliner, Edith mouthed back. Better go tow him into port. Teri giggled again and rushed out the doors. Somebody shoot me, Edith thought as she stirred her wine glass. Her numberless watch read... 7:30? A hour late. He's an hour late. Edith gathered up her runes, beads, and rats' feet necklace from the table and rose to go. "Uh, Lady Subpoena? Ribena? Damn, i can't even read my own writing..." "Loupina..." she said before turning. Edith took a deep breath and straightened up. This was it. Her soul mate, her intended, her true one... She turned. Her... hairbrush. Edith reached for her fishnet purse. Hairbrush... what this man needed was a good, swift brushing down. Like one you have to force upon a rain-matted sheep dog that has just barreled into your wall-to-wall plushed living room. "Hi, i'm J. Vasquez or you can call me Javier, pronounced Haveeay, or you can call me... you don't speak French, do you?" Edith... Lady Loupina shook her head. "... Rudimentary Manx, a little Egyptian, and considerable Greek but no, I don't know French. Oh, and the language of nature, of course." She made a sweeping gesture to the four directions and then tipped to her side like a little teapot, just as her Maestro of All Things Mysterious had taught her the first day of Finding Yourself And Your Own Special Language class. "Oh, good. Then you can call me Vachon. How do you do?" The scruffy, dark-haired, dark-eyed, dressed-as- though-he -rolled-through -a-clothes-hamper young man barely managed to stifle a bored yawn as he stuck his hand out towards her. He stuffed his notes from their telephone conversation into a leather jacket with his left hand. "Lady Loupina of the Sixth Moon..." Edith trailed off as she waited for Vachon to recover from another yawn. "Sorry. I've been sleeping all day and I'm just so tired. You know, vampire's hours and all." Vachon stretched, to the annoyance of the diners around him. "I guess you lost track of time and all with your busy schedule, then?" She waited for him to seat her but he just stood there, scratching his scraggly, 2-day-old goatee. Or maybe it was supposed to be a whole beard. Edith couldn't tell in its present stage of growth. "Why, am I late? Maaaaan, sorry 'bout that. You know, sunset and all." "But sunset's at 5:45." "You know, getting ready and all. Hey, it takes a long time to fix this hair of mine. I can't just roll out of bed and get it to look like this, you know." He yawned again. Edith hoped he'd eventually split his head open, doing that. Then she could go home and forget this night ever happened. "Well, why don't we sit and get acquainted?" "Yeah, okay. I'm starved." Vachon plopped his lazy, irresponsible butt onto the white, scalloped chair and looked about for a foot stool or some place he could put his motorcycle boots (with choreographed scuffs even on all sides and matching dirt-streaks above the big toes) because, after all, he couldn't very well prop them up on the table now, could he? He had manners, after all. "Can you eat here? I was pretty surprised when you suggested a restaurant because i thought vampires could only tolerate blood, but i could just be buying into the myth - " Edith was rambling, she realized, because, above all else, she couldn't, wouldn't let this man open his mouth again. But that was so unfair. Maybe he was just nervous - that's why he's acting so... repulsively. Come on, Edith, open him up with some conversation... he sounded thoughtful on the phone... Vachon burped. Loudly. "Sorry. I had a snack before I came over." He gestured, creating a plump, fist-sized shape in the air, one with either string out one end or a very long tail, Edith couldn't tell which. "Uh huh. So, do you want to see a menu or something?" "No, don't bother. I'll just have what you're having." "Oh, that's another thing. I'm sorry but I waited for so long I decided to start without you but all I asked for was a roll and a glass of..." She stopped and watched Vachon reach over for her glass of wine and guzzle a bit. The lemon bobbed about the bottom. "Oh, but there's a- !" "Weird but good," he exclaimed. "Kinda tart and sweet at the same time but nothing I can't handle. Hell, I usually have musty old bottled stuff or..." He made one of those corndogs-in-the-air gestures again. "You know how it is... a bachelor's diet." Edith sighed, wondering if all vampires in Toronto were like this. Well, the whole ordeal warranted at least one more try. "I'm a schoolteacher by day, like I told you earlier. And at night, I let the Goddess in me come out. I set my real self free, rather like you do, I imagine. Now, tell me about yourself, Vachon." "Well, Lupina, there's not much to tell. Let's see. I'm a vampire by day AND night. I do the blood drinking thing, by bottle only, of course. For the last 500 years of my life I've been running from responsibility and from my brother in darkness, and doing it really well, too, until I came here, but then he died so now I'm off the hook. Um, what else?" The boy sounded like he was on a talk show, for heaven's sake. "What are your beliefs, your dreams, your goals, what have you learned in 500 hundred years that has evolved you?!" Vachon coughed and thought. He scribbled a wide heart on his jeans leg with a ball-point pen - God knows where it came from - while he mulled the questions over. He sniffed. "I'd probably have to say that the most important thing I've gleaned from all my years as a vampire is..." "Vachon! What are you doing here?" A young blonde woman, hands on her slim hips and pretty brow furled, glared down at the two of them. "And who are you with...?" "Tracy! I was going to call you, I swear!" "When? The next time I had a case I couldn't crack and I needed your help to figure out what's going on? I don't think so, Vachon. I'm a good cop, you know, and I don't need your help or anyone else's to prove it!" Her lower lip began to tremble. She looked to the maitre d' for reassurance. "Right, Mr. Vinzetti? I'm a good cop, aren't I?" "Well, you know, Tracy, sweetie...," the large, round man with the New York/Italian accent began. "Don't forget who got you pardoned, Mr. Vinzetti..." she warned. "Or you Petroshenko," she called to the 40-something busboy, wiping a table next to her. Tracy whipped out her walkie-talkie. "Or who got you Jody's old job, Sparky!" she barked into it. "Or who arranged it so you could command a new precinct, Reese," she called out to no one in particular. "Uh, you don't want to go there, Tracy. Everybody hates the Commissioner enough as it is...," Vachon said, rising from his seat, trying to comfort her. "There you go again! I said I can take care of myself! Oh, just leave me alone! I don't like you..." And she streaked across the room and out of the scene. "Tracy? Wait!" Vachon dashed after her with an impressive sound. Edith sighed and pulled a pad of paper out of her purse, crossing off the first name listed. "That one certainly made the mundane more complicated... But way too young for me, I think. There's... Screeed but he sounds like a car accident so we'll just pass that one up. Aristotle, too brainy, too involved in his work. I see Aristotle's all day. Feliks Twist. Like Oliver Twist and Felix the Cat? Yeah. Should we try... Daniel? That's a nice, normal name. Yeah, let's try a vampire with a regular, mature, evolved, thoughtful name." END Sorry it died there. It's midnight, the USA repeat of Airwoof is on, and i have to write that paper. Read the story backwards, it'll probably make more sense. Maybe you should try with your eyes closed. Oh, and Petroshenko, the young one - Dhamir? - died, right? But Pops lived, right? That's what i put in the story. i'd rather see that gangly guy as a busboy, though... darn... And i don't know what Tracy was doing at Chez Seamus or how Sparky could be working at dispatch if he's a dead doggie or what Lucy out on a roof during a thunderstorm has to do with the main themes in Villette... Credits go to Diane E. (for founding a school), Maddog and Rastro (for adding all new dimensions to that timeless, beloved classic The Sound Of Music), Mr. Lucas (for naming a heavenly body after a character of mine - i'm kidding, of course) and Mr. Parriott (for opening the scene of tonight's four star rendez-vous), none of whom were contacted beforehand for permission to use their names, musicals from their stories, or satellites. Send lawsuits and/or subpoenas to erica at CERK, Cousin Central.