Hedge Apple

Stephen Barber

Escape from the Siren’s Lair

The ancient who first told the story of Athena’s birth from the skull of Zeus must have had a hangover like this. I may not be the mythic god-king of Olympus, but I surely feel a tiny enraged person trying to burst forth from my head. My mouth feels like it is lined with a particularly old and ratty carpet, and my stomach is a churning maelstrom of cheap booze and chicken wings.

As the world became clearer in the morning light, I realize that the smoke stained, floral print wallpaper and wrinkled pink bed sheets were unfamiliar. There was also a gently snoring creature under the covers to my left.

What had happened? How had a quiet night of libations at the Badger’s Den led me to these odd surroundings? Who or what is this comatose form lying next to me, and for the love of God, why am I naked? All of these thoughts bounced around my already aching skull. Recollection of the night before was still fuzzy; my brain was trying desperately to shift out of first gear.

There was something about Popov and a hint of shame but a more complete picture was not quite forming. An investigation of this sleeping being under the covers next to me was in order. I leant over and pulled down the sheets to reveal the sum of my indiscretions.

Oh unmerciful Bacchus, what hath you wrought upon me!

The naked wrinkled visage of the Badger’s Den’s most storied and reviled barfly, DeDe, lay before me, a woman old enough to be my mother and in no way the sexy Miss Robinson type. If Helen of Troy’s face could send a thousand ships, DeDe’s distorted mug could sink twice that number.

With this jarring discovery, my synapses began firing and the mortifying memory of the night before began to invade my tortured mind. What began as a quiet evening of beer and billiards had turned into a debauched foray of plastic bottle vodka and reckless abandon.

While the vile liquid was disarming my inhibitions, DeDe had closed in like a hungry wolf to a wounded lamb. With a devilish toothless grin, she put her hand on my lap and asked if I could buy her a drink. Unlike wise Odysseus, I veered right into the siren’s boulder-like breasts. The unmercifully vivid memory of her telling me that I looked like a young Marlon Brando before slamming me into the cigarette machine and latching her gaping maw onto my mouth flooded back. I was not even spared the recollection of how her tongue was the flavor of bubble gum martinis and halitosis.

I began to shudder as the fuzzy details of the events after we stumbled back to her dingy apartment materialized. How she grabbed my crotch with a level of aggression that would have made Michael Jackson uncomfortable. It then proceeded to a coital experience comparable only to being caught in a fat, drunk crocodile death roll.

The decision to flee came quickly; I snuck into the bathroom, finding my crumpled clothes. Glancing at the mirror, I saw that my neck was covered in hickeys that looked like they must have been created by some sort of industrial vacuum. After leaving the bathroom, I went to make my final escape, only to be met with a sight of abject horror. DeDe had awakened and positioned herself between the door and me. Her whole shamelessly bare body jiggled menacingly.

She gave me a leer so filthy that it encrusted my very soul with its profane grime. Before my terrified mouth could make words, DeDe turned around, put her hands against the door, and jutted her megalithic ass towards me.

“If you want to leave, you’re going to have to unlock my door with your key one more time, honey.”

Vomit began to swell up my throat as I stared into the infernal abyss stretched open before me. Wildly looking about, I could see that all the windows had bars and that I was trapped. There was only one option left, and it certainly was not to use my “key,” as DeDe so euphemistically put it. I let out the war cry of a man who had nothing to lose and charged with all my might into the bovine buttocks blocking my path. With a tumultuous crash, the weight of DeDe’s vast carcass splintered the door from its frame, sending me tumbling to my freedom.