Ridiculust

Chapter 3

The warm, humid evening air hit Roger and Sarah like a wet blanket as they stood on the verandah of the bad-and-breakfast. "Blecch!" he complained as they descended the steps. "I had enough of this on my trip here."

"The toy store isn't that far. You'll survive." He smiled as a beam of watery sunshine made the gray in her hair glow. "How did you come to be here, anyway?"

"I was directed to come here by dreams that featured my late wife," he replied, repeating the story he'd told earlier. "I have no idea from what feature of my subconscious she came, but she promised me no rest until I obeyed. Which was strikingly like our life before she passed," he added dryly.

"I have no response for that," she replied, shaking her head in wonder. "Dreams can be the strangest things. I occasionally have dreams that have my late husband in them. We'll be walking around, often in the park, chatting about things that have happened in my life, and they always end with us, uh, ..."

"Making love," he replied, holding her hand and looking in her eyes. "Same here. She always looks just like she did when she was alive. She seems so real..." He trailed off, choking up a bit as they reached Queen St, which was the southern limit of the downtown, such as it was. "How can I mourn someone who has never really left?" He struggled to keep his emotions under control as she held him to her. It took him a minute, and he took off his glasses and wiped his eyes with the hand that held them, and they crossed the street. There was regular traffic on Main St and there were quite a few people walking around, despite the heat. Century-old brick business buildings, all nicely restored, contained the usual variety of shops one sees in small towns not tainted by the blight of Walmart. A pub across the street had its door open and music, heavy on the bass and drums, was thudding out. It was the all-too-familiar "Oompa Loompa Love" by Roger and the Homewreckers, which had been, seemingly inexplicably, lingering in the Top 20 for the past two months.

"Without help from above, I'll get no Oompa Loompa love," Roger sang, sort of. Sarah winced.

"That song is bad enough without you singing it," she said, shaking her head.

"I presume you can do better?" Her gaze got shifty. "Well?" He grinned at her.

"Oh, I'll fit you like a glove with our Oompa Loompa love!" she belted out, attracting some attention from passers-by, who stepped up their paces to get out of range. Roger blinked and coughed.

"So, after dinner, we will be avoiding the karaoke bars," he said. "We have something else in common, then."

"Julia and Emma are both decent singers, but I never could. I was more interested in math, science, and reading than the arts. My kids carried on that tradition, and neither can sing worth a darn either." Roger nodded with a sad smile as they strolled up the street through the crowd.

"I have no musical ability whatsoever. Jeannie had some, and her father was OK, but my second son became addicted to musical theatre while in high school. Now he teaches math and computer science at his old high school, helps out with the school shows, and he and his wife still do things on the side. I have no idea where that talent came from." He shook his head ruefully.

"We have a lot to learn about each other," she replied.

"And we have the time to," said Roger, sliding his arm around her waist. She smiled, and the look they exchanged could have ignited wood. "Damn, we're glowing again," he muttered. "Hey!" Sarah had gotten a quick squeeze on his ass.

"You seem to be recovering nicely," she smirked. Roger glowered, then got a wicked smile, leaning in and whispered something in her ear. Her breasts and crotch flared briefly. "If we were in private, I'd call you on that!" Roger grinned.

"I think we've learned that we make each other inappropriately horny."

They walked amongst the town citizens of all ages, past a flower shop, a bookstore (where a lingering Roger was pulled away), a shop with attractive dresses in the window (where Roger patiently waited for Sarah to check them out), and even a hardware store (where they both spent more time than necessary checking out the goods on display), before they finally came to Trina's Toy Shop.

"Well, here we are," he said, pulling the door open and gesturing with Elmo. "Ladies first."

"Oh, pretending to be a gentleman, are we?" He smirked helplessly under her stare.

"Being gracious has a way of paying off later," he said, waggling his eyebrows as they entered the store and looked around. "Uhh, I don't think that this is the toy store that we were looking for." He looked closely at the tag on Elmo. "I want Tina's Toy Shop, not Trina's. These toys are more ... adult-oriented." The place was bright, clean and tastefully laid out. The Wall of Dildos on the left had a surprising variety of shapes, sizes, colours and textures. "Hey, I recognize this one!" he said, pointing to a large, pink, translucent item in an attractive orange box.

"Keep it moving, bub," said Sarah severely, blushing and pulling him away.

"I think that's the point," Roger snickered, quickly dodging a hefty smack and nearly knocking down a sign on a large table that had a cartoon bee with the caption "What's the buzz?" On the table, of course, was a selection of vibrators, some boxed and some not. As he thought of something, he felt something like electricity building up in his right hand, which quickly started to glow. "I wonder if any of these plays 'Good Vibrations'?" They heard a quiet zap as a burst of light fanned out to go through all of the boxes. "Oh, shit, what did I just do?" he whispered nervously, looking around to see if anyone had seen it. There were some security cameras in various locations on the ceiling. Sarah's eyes were wide as she saw what had happened. But she was in the middle of preparing a smart remark of her own, and could feel a charge building up in her left hand, which had started to glow in her colours. It was too late to stop.

"I thought that the Beach Boys were a bunch of tree-huggers," she replied. There was another quiet zap and a small bolt of red, blue, and yellow light shot from her left hand and hit the table. There was a pause, then a pop, and the wood of the table abruptly changed from a dark colour to a much lighter one. "Roger, what are we doing?"

"Welcome to Trina's! How can I help you?" Roger and Sarah jumped guiltily. The voice was from a plump, middle-aged woman who had emerged from a door at the back of the store. She had a mop of curly hair that had been dyed neon pink, glasses with lenses shaped like teardrops on their sides, a brown tweed skirt and blazer that matched her café-au-lait skin, a creamy blouse that was amply filled out at the chest, and incongruous orange loafers on her feet. Roger and Sarah towered over her petite frame.

"I made a pun earlier this evening that resulted in the involuntary abduction of Elmo here," said Roger contritely, presenting the red furry creature. "I wanted to bring it back as soon as I could, but I just realized that this isn't Tina's Toy Store."

"That happens all the time," she replied. "Hello, Sarah," she continued, blandly ignoring Sarah's shushing motions. "It is Sarah, not Mandy, right?"

"Yes Trina, it's me," she sighed as Roger quirked an eyebrow at her. "I'm back. This is Roger, the man who got rid of Mandy and saved me."

"You're Glowing Cock Man? I'm definitely pleased to know you," she purred in a warm, rich voice. They shook hands, rather awkwardly.

"It's interesting how we were just saying how much we had to learn about each other," he said blandly, carefully positioning Trina between himself and Sarah.

"We are all about discretion and confidentiality," Trina replied, suspiciously eyeing their maneuvers. "And which of you two did this to my table?" She looked at the transformed table carefully and whistled. "This is a hell of a lot nicer than it was before."

"That was an accidental pun," Sarah finally confessed. "Sorry about that."

"I want to deliver Elmo to the proper store before it closes," said Roger as he finally made it to the doorway. "Sorry to have bothered you." Trina picked up a vibrator and pushed a switch on its bottom. Sure enough, the buzzing did sound like "Good Vibrations". "I think it was like that before we came here?"

"No, it wasn't," Trina replied, turning it off. "But novelty vibrators tend to sell well, so it's OK."

"Oops, my bad," apologized Roger as Sarah pushed him out the doorway.

"See you later," said Trina loudly as Sarah quickly shut the door behind them.

"That's what happens when I allow myself to get distracted!" Roger tried to look innocent. "Tina's is just up here a few doors." They walked rather more rapidly than before to the toy shop. "What is going on with us?" Roger looked confused.

"I have been a punster all my life, and never in my wildest dreams thought that I could do anything with puns other than draw the ire of anyone who heard them."

"It looks like you ..." He stared at her. "Uh, we," she corrected herself, "are going to have to be very careful about what we say. I've never been a fan of puns, and have no idea why I said that one back in Trina's! Let's get this Elmo dropped off so we can get something to eat!" Tina's Toy Shop had a Wall of Games on its left wall, with games and jigsaw puzzles like Snakes and Ladders and Candyland for the younger kids on lower shelves, and those for older people on higher shelves. Books were on shelves at the back, dolls and action figures were on the right wall, and plush toys were on tables, including one with Elmos that had a noticeable gap.

"Hi, I'm here to return this," Roger addressed the clerk who had come over to greet them. Roger plopped the critter in the spot where it belonged. "I accidentally teleported him away earlier this evening with a pun, and I wanted to return him before the end of the day."

"OK," said the clerk, a balding, middle-aged man with rectangular glasses, a light brown shirt, dark blue slacks and a braided white belt. "Thanks for your honesty. I was wondering how that had disappeared. Hardly a soul's been in here since the afternoon." He caught a glimpse of Sarah, who had been trying to make herself inconspicuous behind Roger, and flinched.

"Don't worry, I'm back to myself now," she said in a resigned tone. "I apologize for my earlier actions when Mandy was controlling me. I'll be doing a lot of that in the next few days," she added.

"Yeah, sure, fine," said the clerk nervously. "Is there anything else I can help you with?" Roger was looking at the Elmos speculatively, then started snickering at the same time as his left hand, this time, started glowing.

"Oh-oh," he said, looking alarmed, quickly putting his hand behind his back. "I should get out of here before something happens. Maybe the Midsummer Festival will be safer. Have a good night!" They hastily decamped from the store.

"You were thinking of a pun, weren't you?" Sarah stated flatly as he started to snicker helplessly. They continued to walk through the downtown. The sidewalk wasn't wide enough to allow for obstructions like planters, but there were baskets of flowers, mostly red and white begonias and trailing vinca vines, that were hung from the attractive, black-painted metal street light poles about eight feet off the ground. The street was four lanes wide, with the curb lanes reserved for parking.

"I was thinking about what an Ale-Mo would look like, holding a beer stein in one hand, dressed in one of those Oktoberfest costumes, his eyes pointing in different directions like he was totally wasted. I would have done that to one of them in the store if I had just said the words."

"And then we'd have had to buy it and lug it around all evening," Sarah replied, trying to maintain a straight face and failing. She could imagine it too, and it was ludicrous. "That squeaky voice of his gets on my nerves. How does the guy do it without destroying his voice box?" They had reached Park Avenue, which ran east-west and formed the southern boundary of the park, whose entrance was diagonally across from the corner where they were standing. They used the traffic light to cross both Main St and Park Ave and stood at the southeast corner of the park.

"Ooohh, Ale-Mo had a little too much medicine last night," Roger squeaked in a bad falsetto, making a face like he was hung over. Sarah laughed at his antics, and suddenly felt a lot better.

"Not only did you free me from Mandy, but you're healing me too," she said, giving him a kiss. "My all-in-one hero." They were standing in front of the official entrance to the park, a pair of Greek-style columns set twenty feet apart at a forty-five-degree angle to the corner, with four-foot-high ornamental brick walls that curved around to run parallel to the streets and terminated after about twenty feet. Well-tended flower beds loaded with alyssum, marigolds, begonias, and other taller plants closer to the wall, brightened it up and filled the heavy, humid air with sweet fragrances. The park itself was larger than Roger expected to see in a small town. From their vantage point as they moved into it on a paved walkway, he could see parts of the relatively modern concrete bridge that carried the traffic of the main street to the northern part of town off on his right. The large number of tall, shady trees and clumps of large bushes and small trees, including lilacs, seemed to have been placed so that there was no clear line of sight to the outer reaches, making it difficult to tell just how large it really was. It was busy, with plenty of people strolling at a leisurely pace, enjoying the evening without working up too much of a sweat.

"What a beautiful evening!" Roger exclaimed, looking around in wonder, and up at the turquoise sky that was filled with purple and orange clouds, illuminated by the setting sun as they walked along the path, arms around each other's waists. "I hope that they don't play 'Oompa Loompa Love'," he added, referring to the rock band on a distant stage that was doing a decent job of covering popular tunes, past and present.

"The best thing about that song is that it eventually ends," Sarah replied. "Roger, what are you doing?" They had stopped in front of one of the many well-tended flower beds. Roger disengaged, then bent over to pick up an earthworm that was struggling on the asphalt path. He tossed it into the flower bed and wiped his fingers on the grass before standing up.

"Sarah, you're glowing a bit," he observed. She gently pulled him off the pathway next to the flowers and looked into his eyes. A random breeze rustled the leaves in the trees above them and gently brushed their faces, but they only had eyes for each other.

"That was such a simple thing that you did, but it speaks volumes for who you are," she said softly, bringing his hands to her lips to gently kiss the knuckles of each.

"You shouldn't be falling in love with me. It's too soon. You don't even know me," he replied softly. But he could feel something, possibly the same thing that she was feeling, as they stared transfixed into each other's eyes, something that was pulling their lips closer together until they met and stayed together for a few, all too few, moments, before they remembered that they were in a public place and pulled away. "There's no sense in getting busted for indecent exposure," he murmured into her ear. "For what I want to do to you will involve exposing every part of your body and kissing, licking, sucking, and finally fucking you into a hot and happy oblivion."

"Roger, if we weren't in a public place, your clothes would be on the floor and you'd be wearing me instead. You would be on your back, with me impaled on that glowing cock, moving up and down until you fire your love bolts into me, and I fire mine into you." They looked down and saw that their erogenous zones were glowing brightly, and the rest of their bodies were also glowing a bit as well, and that their colours were merging together a bit.

"Get a room, you two," said an amused passer-by. They both felt themselves blushing from embarrassment and their lights abruptly faded away. Dusk was falling and the lights in the park along the pathways had turned on. About a quarter of the people in the park had various glowing body parts, and a few with finger lights were waving them around or casting the light on the walk or grass in front of them.

"There's a food truck. Let's grab something before it closes."

"I'm not the something to grab, Mister Matheson," she replied warmly as she felt a squeeze on her ass, which she returned with interest. "If you wake the dragon too soon, there will be consequences."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied meekly, getting an elbow jab for his effort and grinning impishly at her.

The truck was painted a tasteful orange on top and brown on the bottom and had a large window with a two-foot-deep detachable counter just under it, and was labeled with "Wan-Ming's Chinese Cuisine" in a jagged black font meant to look Chinese. In the window was a Chinese-looking woman in a colourful apron. They looked at the menu beside the window and both said at the same time "Chicken-fried rice, please." They looked at each other and laughed. "Very pretty colours you have," said the woman as she and her colleague quickly spooned out generous helpings into large containers. "Chopsticks or forks?" They both opted for the forks, and Roger paid. "Your colours match. You will do well together."

"Thank you very much," he said. "I think you're right. Have a great night." They hustled to a nearby, conveniently unoccupied, bench. The food smelled great and tasted even better. They were both hungry and made short work of it. Sarah let out a most unladylike burp, with Roger following suit. "Our table manners could use some work," he commented, sampling a corner of the carton. "Not bad. They're getting better at giving these things some flavour." A couple of years ago, some researchers had finally figured out the correct combination of plant proteins that could be used to create nominally edible, biodegradable packaging, along with single-use utensils like their forks, thus ensuring their fortunes and helping the environment.

"I hope they find a formulation that agrees with me," Sarah replied. "Those things make me fart like a foghorn." Roger struggled mightily to maintain a straight face, but lost the battle when she shifted sideways and blew a fruity raspberry.

"You did that on purpose!" he accused as he laughed helplessly.

"Boys grow old, but they never grow up!" she replied, rolling her eyes.

"Sad, but true," he agreed, removing his glasses to wipe his eyes. "My greatest and most shameful weakness exposed." He put on his glasses, looked down and startled. "Yikes!" She reflexively looked over and saw a full-grown raccoon sitting on its haunches about a metre away, looking at them. "Hey there, big fella," he said in his soothing voice. "What do you want?"

"Probably our containers," said Sarah. "The blighters really like them. And this one is bolder than most of the ones I encounter." Moving smoothly and slowly, Roger tore the container in two at the hinge, nested the pieces together, bent forward and offered it to the critter, which gravely accepted it with its paws, chomped down with its teeth and took off into nearby bushes in front of them.

"The one special ability I'd developed before all of this happened was having animals not be afraid of me. I rescued a fox that had gotten its head stuck under a gate outside of town as I was walking in this afternoon. What is that place south of here with the big gate and security at the driveway? Some bigwig's country estate?" Sarah shook her head.

"It's the Holistic Health and Wellness Centre," she said, heavy on the sarcasm. "Apparently quite posh, exclusive and expensive." They watched the raccoon, or maybe another one - it's hard enough to tell in broad daylight, let alone in the rapidly failing twilight - emerge from the bushes and return to the spot where it was first noticed.