Sorry – A Tale. But Not A Sorry Tale
Charlesina looked over at Derek, loathing him openly as her eyes ran over his face, his neck, and its open pores glistening in the floodlights and the hot, hot heat of that June night. If she strained, she could hear the sickly, treacley trickle of the sweat as it oozed from his glands out onto his hateful, sausagey skin. It sounded like maggots coming stickily out of their eggs but without the David Attenborough narration. She knew that, later that night, the nauseating sound of his sweating flesh would invade her dreams, getting louder and louder until it reached a ciccada-like crescendo she could no longer bear…and she would wake…drenched in sweat… almost panting for air beside him in the bed. She would then have to put up with his irritating ministrations, his caresses and murmurs, and the stupid flip-flop of his unfashionable slippers as he fetched her some water. God, how she detested him!
But it didn’t matter how she felt, did it? Even if he were to look right at her now – now, as every bone in her body ached to hurt him – he wouldn’t notice the millennia-worth of hate that had been stewing in her soul, her very genes – right down to her very ribosomal, messenger and transfer type RNA, for Godsakes! No. He would only see her soft-brown eyes and a spirit so shattered that its peculiar shards and jagged edges, catching the lights just so, as they did, had a tragic beauty all their own – giving the mere illusion of a whole spirit, a whole soul. He had no idea of the damage he’d done to her, and the damage she’d like to do to him.
Down through the ages – the Iron, the Dark, the Later Middle – men like him had always forced her sort into humiliating submission. Worse, he thought she was actually grateful to him for saving her from a life of uncertainty and hunger.
But maybe a small pathetic part of her was grateful. After all, look at her now! Cared for, perfumed, wanting for nothing , and here, now, at his side with diamonds at her throat and a thousand eyes on her; everyone admiring her beauty; remarking on her strong, lithe limbs and her elegant footfall.
Maybe she could put up with it. It had been a long time since she had seen her family or anyone else she loved. Where were they now? Were they even alive? How would she manage on her own? She knew Derek would never stop until he found her.
But these thoughts were just last minute jitters, she reasoned, the same thoughts that had stopped her breaking free before. She shook her head to clear the thought as if her brain was a lumpy, moist Etch-A-Sketch. Now was her moment! Now was her chance! She could almost taste the meat of victory already. She knew she had to leave Derek tonight. Her eye twitched slightly, and then the announcer called their names.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, please put your hands together for Mr. Derek Mayberry and Charlesina Grayling Blaze, a full-blood greyhound and last year’s overall winner of the Pedigree Chum Dog Show, Ullapool Chapter. We hope to see them progressing to the regional finals in Inverness tonight as this little lass has plenty of potential. Her main – and indeed only competition – Callie Munroe’s greyhound, Sheena, is out with worms this year.”
The following moment’s events seemed to Charlesina to happen in slow motion. She felt her powerful rear haunches gather and bunch and spring her forward, as her jaws opened wide and she flew through the air towards Derek’s bum. Sinking her teeth into it, she was momentarily reminded of a stringy ham-hock she’d once been given, but then her tongue curled around a sudden spurt of blood. Her jaws snapped tight shut. So this was what human blood was like! No wonder it was taboo! It hit her system like a freight-train. Electricity surged through her body and something newly awoken and primal was coursing through her blood.
She dropped onto all fours, and fixing her eye steadily on the exit door of the arena she ran. She ran as she’d never run before, hearing nothing but the blood pounding in her ears, feeling nothing but raw exhilaration and the wind in her ears. If they hadn’t taken her tail she’d have wagged it so hard she knew she could have flown.
As she neared the door she had to slow down and, all of a sudden, she heard the roar of the crowd come crashing around her ears.
“Don’t stop! Don’t stop!” she begged herself. “You’re too close now!”
But something had happened in her brain and she knew she’d lost hold of the moment – the ancient call of the wild was slipping through her mind like an old, writhing eel that she just couldn’t keep a hold of with her modern instincts. She knew if she left Derek she would never again get what the wild hills of Scotland, for all their freedoms and rabbit-chasing, just couldn’t give her. A tummy rub. God, could she live without a twice-daily tummy rub?
Turning, she saw Derek, crumpled on the ground, clutching his bum and gazing right at her with a new light in his eyes – a light of dawning recognition. At last he could see her! The whole her, the noble animal and companion she really was – not just a pretty plaything to get him out and about and meeting young ladies again (as his mother had advised, after the time in prison for drowning Miranda), but a fellow sentient being, a fellow traveller on the journey.
She ran to him. He looked up at her with tears in his eyes and gently fondled her ears, wincing with the pain in his bottom as he did so.
“I’m sorry, girl,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
July 13th, 2007 at 6:51 am
I love stories where a human bum gets bitten. This is even better, because the man whose bum gets bitten is a better person for it. A fascinating story, Sam, but who is Trevor?
July 13th, 2007 at 7:06 am
Oopsee! Fixed now – thanks for spotting it, Nanas. I was getting Derek mixed up with Trevor, his first cousin – on both sides. Don’t ask. Redemption and the birth of a new understanding is more often precipitated by a bite on the bum, that one would suspect, I suspect. A painful rite of passage involving blood, sweat and teeth. I’m sure the backroads of history are full of such tales.
July 13th, 2007 at 9:04 am
He had no idea of the damage he?d done to her, and the damage she?d like to do to him.
Hee. I may just have to rob this line. Excellent story Sam! Love it.
July 13th, 2007 at 9:30 am
Ohhhh
I wish she had run away
July 13th, 2007 at 10:15 am
I thought you had gone all Sophocles’ Antigone on us, expecting a later walling up in some cave, was I, I was. And then, then a bloody greyhound.
You, very bold person. +()…. But very good also.
July 13th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
A tummy rub. God, could he live without a twice-daily tummy rub?
Pretty much sums up my thoughts.
Cheers.
July 13th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
She compromised everything for a tummy rub? Tragic indeed…though I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing. Now that I think about it…tummy rubs are the definitely worth giving up freedom for.
July 13th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
Caro, and it’s all true. A greyhound on a number 42 bus once told me her life-story as we travelled together between the High Street and the Bit Lower Street. These are her words as verbatim as I can get ‘em.
Birchsprite, I do too but I felt a bit sorry for Derek. He was a changed man when he got Charlesina. His murderous ways completely stopped and he became rather a lovely old duffer in the end. He had to have an incisor removed from his right buttock later that day and Charlesina was at his side, her paw in his hand. She passed out moments later though, when he had to get a 2 inch antibiotic jab in his wrong buttock.
Vince, what does +()….. mean, exactly? Am I some sort of a monocular, dribbling clown in your eyes? “then a bloody greyhound”. I had thought of going with a whippet but then I thought no. The readers of this piffle deserve value for money (where precious time=money) and so I upgraded to a greyhound to give you 50% more dog. You don’t get thoughtful small-boutique-blog service like that over at super-popular blogs like Twenty’s place now do you. Plus my posts come wrapped in tissue with a sachet of relaxing foot soak. I am losing money on the thing though, I’ll admit (where money=time).
Rand’, are you having to rub your own (tummy!) while the EMBLOS and kids are away then? My husband and I had a solemn back-scratcher binning ritual when we finally plighted our troths to each other. It was Chinese, mass-produced and meant nothing to him so I was appointed Chief Scratcher Of That Hard-To-Reach Bit Just Below The Scapula in the very same ceremony.
Kara, you know it, baby. Nor having your ears fondled – I couldn’t give that up either. And still nor my daily liver-flavoured heart-worm chew. Yummmm. And heart-healthy too!
July 13th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Brilliant, Sam. I can’t help reading this as an feminist allegory. I was reading thinking, hey, I know this woman.
July 13th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Yeah, I’m with Medbh on the feminist allegory thing.
Way to bite The Man in the ass.
July 13th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Has Derek changed his ways or will he, after a half-dozen cans of mckewans, go back to his normal and brutish self?
I can’t help thinking that once a git, always a git.
July 13th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Fab – but I totally missed the allegory bit.
July 14th, 2007 at 5:40 am
I’ve never had a woman bite me on the bum. I’ve bitten the odd buttock myself though.
See, a woman’s bum is like a 9 volt battery – you know really shouldn’t, but sooner or later you’ll put your tongue to it.
July 14th, 2007 at 7:44 am
Enjoyed it so much that tears were running.
’small-boutique-blog’, is this code for bespoke, which is code for handmade ?.
While, ones rss feed was on the blink lately and the googlereader has a huge time lag. Ten hours sometimes.
I do not think that I have ever read anything on twenty’s place, that photo of his smacked me as being unnecessarily cruel.
Also, BTW, Tayto lover and proud.
Plus, bold=intrepid.
July 14th, 2007 at 10:41 am
I don’t know Sam, I was kinda’ half expecting Charlesina to continue to run and Derek to go limping after her, bleeding and loading large caliber military weapons. I was envisioning lots of things being blown up. Entire towns on fire as he chased her through hill and dale. I was looking forward to the quad .50 caliber anti-aircraft gun being mounted on the back of his Toyota Prius. I was hopeing for air strikes and napalm used in his search for revenge and in the end I was expecting Derek to come limping out of the smokey, burning ruins of what was once modern day civilisation and swaggering up to a small dimpled, apple faced little hicklet, patting him on the head and saying, “She’ll bite noones butt ever again son”, then walking off into the sunset.
Just before the credits roll, Derek turns to the little kid and says, “Johnny, do you like gladiator movies?”
July 14th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Hi Sami, just wanted to say sorry to hear about your granny and hope you’re all keeping ok. She was a lovely lady and you must miss her heaps.
Crowbarring in an unrelated topic, I’m now a mum, to Katie Thistle who’s a wee ginger-haired pudding! I’ve never been so tired….
July 14th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Allegory, bigod?
And there’s me thinking it was a funny story about one dog’s break for freedom, like Cows With Guns, only with dogs, and with no guns.
Allegory. Like an all-men-are-bastards kind of thing?
Well by Jesus, you’d want to be up early in the morning, that’s for sure. What else have I missed?
July 14th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
No, Bock. Not that at all. It’s not until the 7th paragraph that we learn that Charlesina is a show dog. Until then she read as a woman kept by a man in marriage that she wanted to leave. He prizes her for her beauty as arm candy, the trophy wife, etc. Over the ages this has been the goal/ lot for many women to marry well in order to be taken care of even if they hate the guy. It works for me as an allegory, many of which use tales about animals to make some sort of commentary on the human condition. It has a happy ending because he has the moment of recognition where he sees her as her own being, which I liked very much. There’s hope.
Oops. Sorry for the long post.
July 14th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Sam, I’m pretty much limited to e-mail and international phone tummy rubs these days — but only for a few more weeks.
Cheers.
July 14th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
My dahling girl, I’ve been saving this since it was posted. I’m glad I had the time to pay it the attention it fully deserved.
Love.
FMC X
July 15th, 2007 at 7:13 am
What a bitch.
July 16th, 2007 at 4:04 am
Heeeeheehee, I love tummy rubs. Derek must have had a unique bottom, for it to be like a stringy hamhock!
July 16th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Call me telepathic but I knew by the second paragraph that the magic had died.
With all that graphic description of the loathing she felt I don’t see how ’sorry ‘ can cut the mustard.
July 18th, 2007 at 7:00 am
Where was the allegory? ach wheres Steve Irwin when you need him?
July 18th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I’ve given you an award over at my site. If you like it you can pass it on to 5 others you think deserve it
July 18th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
?I’ve given you an award over at my site. If you like it you can pass it on to 5 others you think deserve it.?
July 18th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
No this isn’t a repeat . it’s from Pat
?I’ve given you an award over at my site. If you like it you can pass it on to 5 others you think deserve it.?
July 18th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
I’m a Johnny-come-lately to this party but all I can say is, I’m choked, and I hope Derek’s arse gets better. (Oops – sorry, I swore.)
July 19th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Serves the bugger right, I hope he needs a rubber tyre to sit on for a while. I’d have kept on running, probably in the 2.30 at Powder Hall.
July 20th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
rub my tummy here me purrrrrr, or not, the choice is yours…..
July 21st, 2007 at 3:19 am
I’m very concerned…I think my best friend Vita may have got a hold of a copy of this nefarious writing from the mangy dog down the road and is worrying it like a favorite bone. I’ve noticed her eyeing me sideways, little moments where she pretends not to hear me and flaunts her independence with her tail held high, intentional silent flatulence that will empty a room, she has even rejected my kind scratches of her belly and looks at me like some kind of low life drug pusher pip! Your writing will be used as a manifesto and studied by Marxist pinko fags to ferment revolution! Consider carefully: “Planet of the Apes”!
July 21st, 2007 at 1:13 pm
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July 22nd, 2007 at 9:35 pm
“She shook her head to clear the thought as if her brain was a lumpy, moist Etch-A-Sketch.”
Brilliant. I could hear the sloshing.