Cupid's Big Screw-Up

"You shot me with an arrow, asshole!"

The man in the cloth diaper belched and waved his bow at me. "It's kind of what I do."

I didn't know much about bows, having never had to fear one or a drunk baby-man before, but the thing seemed ludicrously big in comparison with his flabby arms and hairy monstrosity of a beer belly.

I paid less attention to his jiggle and more attention to the arrow sticking out of my thigh. As you can probably imagine, it hurt. This wasn't a splinter. This was a two-foot-long arrow with tiny red feather hearts sticking out of the ass end. Shaft, I guess? Who the fuck am I, one of the Duck Dynasty guys?

"Why? What the hell did I do to you, you crackhead?"

"Crack? No, mate, I'm a wine guy." He belched again and waved the bow in my general direction. "And the arrow's for your date. You and Louise Bacon are going to have lots of happy, fat babies. Congruleshons. Lashions. Con-grat-u-late-shuns." He squinted at nothing at all and nodded, pleased with himself.

"What the holy fuck are you blabbering about?" I asked. I knew I shouldn't pull the arrow out. I'd read enough crime fiction to know that was a mistake. I was, however, failing very hard at that and jerking at the arrow. The weirdest goddamn part? I mean, aside from this whackjob walking into my house with a bow, a single arrow, and BO bad enough to make my eyes water? I wasn't bleeding. I should be. But aside from the sharp pain, there was no blood. "I don't know any Louise Bacon!"

"Sure you do. Went out with her twice. She gave you a blowie in the bathroom at the last restaurant." He squinted at me. "Rack like a couple of fat pigs got tied up in her bra? Pink and blue hair?" He waited for recognition, listing back and forth like a fighter who's taken one too many shots to the head. "Nothing?"

"I don't. Fucking. Know. Her!" I screeched. I don't think I'd ever screeched before.

"Hang on." He shouldered the bow and from his diaper, produced a scroll. An actual honest-to-God scroll. Like rolled up paper on a golden rod, just stuffed into his diaper. I'd gone insane. That was the only answer to all this. There was a gas leak, or the mold on that bread really wasn't safe to eat, or... something. "Roy Gilbert? Seven-oh-two 32nd?"

"North or South?"

"Sorry?" he asked, making it sound more like "shorry?"

"North or South 32nd?" I screamed.

His eyes widened and he reread the scroll. His lips smacked and he stuffed it away again. "Ah."

"My name," I said through gritted teeth, "is Parker Fenlon. This is North 32nd, you dumb, crazy fuckhead."

He dug into his man-diaper again and this time produced a massive jug of wine that had to hold at least three gallons. He uncorked it and drank deep, spilling some all down his shirt and onto my brown carpet. I'm not overly fond of the place, but that shit-brown carpet was mine, damn it, and I was annoyed.

When he finished chugging half the bottle, he waved it at me, swaying back and forth so hard I knew he was going to fall. "I can fix this. I can fix this! Just don't ssssay a goddamn word to, to, to anyone. I can make this right."

"Who would I tell? Santa Claus?" I asked, throwing the arrow at him. It missed and I collapsed against the wall, trying to stay upright. Something was seriously wrong with my leg. It wasn't the pain -- that was already almost gone -- but something warm was spreading through me. An infection? Could that happen that fast?

"Not him, he'll laugh about it all year." The man in the diaper picked up the arrow and came for me. I swung at him and hit his prodigious gut. "Ow! What did you do that for?"

"Because you shot me with a goddamn arrow!"

"I told you, I'm going to make that right!" he whined. He grabbed me by the shoulder, more to steady himself, I think, and without warning, poked me in the eyes with the hand holding the jug. It wasn't hard but you don't have to be poked hard in the goddamn eyes for it to hurt, and I yelped. Screeching, screaming, and yelping, all within about two minutes. I was a descriptivist's wet dream.

He let go, and said proudly, "There. You'll... you'll appresh-ivate that. Stand still, though. If I don't dial it in, you'll have too much pow... pow..." He hiccupped, took one more last long drink of the jug, and wiped his lips. "Power."

Then the dumb bastard fell backwards, right through my coffee table. The wood said fuck this, it's out, and exploded into splinters from his weight. I don't think a scrap was left bigger than my middle finger, which I waved in his general direction. I headed for the vicinity of my phone to call the cops.

* * *

I sat out back while I dialed. Why not? It was a fine Valentine's Day, ten degrees with a wind chill that sent icy needles stabbing every inch of my exposed skin for a few minutes until I was too numb to feel anything. I wasn't stupid. I still had a maniac in my house, passed out or not, so I sat with the finest kitchen knife in my collection, hoping its quality made it better for stabbing dumbfucks.

The cops yawned their way to my house twenty minutes later. They hammered on the door, bellowed that they were the police in case I confused them for Lars Ulrich drumming on my house, and waited for me to hurry and let them in.

The asshole was still snoring away pleasantly in the middle of the remains of my coffee table. I asked the cops what the odds were of getting some kind of compensation or if the guy might be seeing some jail time. They looked at me like I'd just asked if I could have a gold-plated Corvette, then hauled the guy up. I understood immediately why the guy wore a cloth diaper.

"Oh, for God's sakes," one of the cops grumbled. "Got a blanket or a towel or something?"

"Sorry," I said blandly. "Fresh out."

The cops eyed me and muttered all the way out to their car. I walked them out, caring guy that I am, and watched from the front porch as they wrapped their new ward in a silver emergency blanket, the thin kind that looks like aluminum foil. His bow was too big so they had to prop it in at an angle, the trunk held loosely over it with a strap. Their new ward came awake just long enough to ask brightly, "Are we going to Red Robin?" and then they shut the door on him. I gave the cop glaring at me a double thumbs-up, and they took off, never to be heard from again. By me, I mean. I'm sure they lived long and productive lives.

Hadn't even asked me once if I needed medical attention. Oh well. Apart from the cut in my jeans, all that was left of the wound was a big red heart-shaped scab. I couldn't believe it had already crusted over, but I was too irritated to care. I cleaned up the coffee table, tossed the pieces into my garbage bin, and headed inside to grab my coat and my keys.

I hadn't planned on going out that day. My last girlfriend and I broke up right after Christmas, when the banker I was totally unsurprised she was sleeping with on the side asked her to run away with him to George Town. Gee, a chance at living in the Grand Caymans, or a life with a sporting goods clerk, I wonder which she chose. I nearly asked her if I could come along. Glad I didn't, though. There's exactly one reason why a guy wants to make a sudden move to the Cayman Islands, and the feds were all too eager to help her understand why when they tried to board their plane. He was arrested and she came back begging for forgiveness. I wish I could say I said no. I didn't. She moved back in and three days later she split her legs for her gynecologist in a completely different, not-so-professional way. The second time when she came back to ask for forgiveness after the guy's wife found out, I smartened up and sent her on her way.

The single life appealed to me, at least for a while. I was thinking about a second job. That would cut down on my free time, but I was barely breaking even before a half-naked man walked into my living room and shot me. If I wanted to date, I'd need at least a little money to give off the vibe that I could someday produce children.

Besides, I was tired. My last girlfriend might have been crappy at the end, but we had a good two years of disliking each other just little enough to make life tolerable. Before that was Cassandra, the One. The One you know is too good to be with you, but loves you anyways. The One who you wake up next to and think this is the life. The One who probably wouldn't get her pap smeared by a creepy doctor.

And like an idiot, I was the one who fucked that up. The how is predictable, the why is complicated. Cassandra was a little sweet, a little naïve, a little quiet. I came home and I wanted to put rock and roll on while I shot the shit out of some alien bastards on our middle-of-the-road TV. She came home and she wanted to escape to a tiny corner of the room, to read and have her cup of tea and talk about her day. I got complacent. I got condescending. I got bored. And I did exactly what you think I did.

I didn't say I was a good person. But I am sorry. Deeply sorry. Cassandra is an angel. There are few people in this world who truly are, and she's one of them. The tears she shed hurt like knives. She even wanted to make it work afterwards. I couldn't take that. I left.

So... yeah. Singlehood. It suited me.

* * *

I figured I'd hit a bar and grill. It was still early enough in the day the couples wouldn't be out in force and I could probably get seated. I was right. There was a dozen or so people in scattered groups throughout the Cannery. By the way, the place wasn't name d that because they served everything out of cans, but because the original owner couldn't spell for shit and wanted to call it the Canary. Take note, business owners -- have someone other than Cletus proofread everything.

The food was overpriced but the beer hadn't yet hit that point of most Midwestern bars where you pay a six-pack's worth for a bottle. That was largely because the new owner -- who still kept the Cannery name because the sign would have cost him a couple grand to change -- ran illegal poker games for a tidy profit and could afford to keep things cheap.

Even the beer wasn't the real reason to come to the Cannery. Kate Russo was.

Jesus, Kate Russo.

There are people in this world who are wildly out of place. You don't know how or why they wound up where they're at, but there they are, a square peg someone pounded into a ridiculously small round hole. The gym my brother manages has a trainer who has to be three hundred and fifty pounds, easy. He's fucking huge in every way you can imagine the word. The rest of the trainers look like bland, guy-or-girl-next-door athletic types, some with big muscles, others built like gazelles ready to run marathons. But this guy looks like someone dropped a train in the middle of the gym. It's not that he doesn't belong -- despite his size, he can run a pretty fast mile and benches more than anyone else on the staff -- but he stands out.

Kate Russo was the Cannery's square peg.

She had this golden blonde hair, silky, smooth, long. It was her best feature by far, nearly hanging down to her ass. It defined a slim, delicately featured face with peach-pink lips and sultry eyes capped by brows she teased into a darker shade than her hair. Her tall, slim frame and tiny swell of an ass were defied by her chest, which even under the most modest of shirts gave an enticing bounce with every step she took.

That day, her hair was done in long messy pigtails, with errant strands tastefully hanging down around her cheeks. Kate was dressed to kill in a blue tank that exposed her taut stomach, with a pair of black cotton pants with the drawstrings cinched by a big red heart buckle thing. Usually she didn't dress quite so thirstily, but I heard last year on Valentine's she was dressed in a red corset and a black skirt that didn't leave much to the imagination. I was in a relationship at the time so I couldn't investigate myself, but the fantasies left me drooling.

The moment I saw her, I felt woozy, like all the blood had drained from my head. My prick already started to surge, like I was a thirteen-year-old staring at my first pair of boobs. Before I embarrassed myself, I hurtled towards a booth and slid in, already reaching rock hardness as I tried not to stare at the blonde bombshell darting around serving everyone. What the hell was wrong with me? My libido definitely didn't hurt, only being in my late twenties, but I was rarely this out and out horny.

"What can I get ya ta drink/" a smoker's voice drawled. Fuck. I'd been so intent on Kate I hadn't noticed Pat, the barrel of a waitress, head for me. She slapped a menu down in front of me and a set of silverware.

Damn, my head was swimming. The heat that had enveloped me earlier burned even hotter now. "Miller Lite," I said. "And water. Thanks."

"Uh huh," she said, snapping her gum and already hustling away.

I tried to look at the menu but my vision was blurring. I wondered in a vague sort of way if I shouldn't be worried, but all I could think about was Kate. I wanted to take her right there in the bar. I wanted to lift her up onto my table, yank that shirt up above her tits, and fuck them until I came all over that pretty face. I wanted to bend her over a stool and take her until she screamed from it. I wanted to jam my cock as far as I could get it into her ass while I mauled her pussy with my fingers. I had never wanted a woman as hard as I wanted her right that moment.

My cock surged, and something deep within my guts roared in fury and fire. The heat built and built inside me until I was sure I was going to set the booth and the bar on fire. My cock had never been so hard. If I gave it three or four good jerks right then, I would have come gallons. And the damnedest thing was, it felt bigger, like it could rip through my jeans and pop up to say hello to whoever might be watching. That was stupid. I was just feeling some aftereffects of having been shot by a fucking bow.

Then the heat hit my head and I forgot all about my dick. Well, no, I didn't, it wanted attention, and it wanted attention right then, but my head needed it more. My eyes felt like they'd been sandpapered as dry as they suddenly became. My cheeks were an inferno. My tongue lolled out of my mouth, thick and swollen. Even my hair tingled, like the follicles might light up. A thumping sounded in my ears, a steady, hard beat that pulsed with my need for Kate. I would have her. I'd take her right now and-

A glass of water thunked down in front of me, accompanied by a bottle of beer. I looked up, the heat diminishing in me. "Figure out what ya want?"

"Flautas," I croaked. "Chicken."

She wrote that down and sighed. "You all right? If you've already been drinking I'm gonna need ta cut you off."

"I'm fine. Just got shot by a guy with a bow."

"Right."

I looked up at her, and my eyes no longer felt so sandpapery. "I'm fine. You don't need to worry."

She stared at me a moment with cold, lizard eyes, and finally shrugged before heading back to the kitchen. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but that was the first command I ever gave anyone. It wouldn't be the last.

I gulped down the water so fast it spilled over the lip and all over my shirt. I didn't care. The beer was next. I chugged it like a high schooler trying to impress a college girl at a party. I was so thirsty I forgot about my hard-on. Pat had yet to make it out of the kitchen, so I headed for the bar with the bottle and the glass. Kate glanced in my direction, eyes dropping to my crotch, then back up to my face, a momentary disgust vanishing quickly for a bland, uninterested smile that didn't touch her eyes.

"Another beer?" she asked.

"Please. And a pitcher of water."

"We don't give customers pitchers for water."

"Then Pat will wind up making half a dozen trips. You're saving her the effort. Pitcher of water. Please."

She held my eyes a moment longer, then blinked and stepped away to hastily grab me a beer and a pitcher of ice water. When she came back, she shoved them both across the counter at me. Pat swooped in from out of nowhere and snapped, "We don't give out pitchers of water, Kate."

"I... had to," Kate growled.

"What?" Pat asked, her tone completely flat.

"I don't know! I had to!"

"I swear, if I was the manager, I'd have fired you years ago," Pat said. Kate looked like she might slap the other woman.

"Hey, hey, I was the one who asked for it," I said. Pat glared at me, and I held up my hands. "It's all right."

Her frown dissipated like that. "Oh. Okay. Sorry, Kate."

Everyone at the bar, myself included, gaped at her. She shrugged and hurried away to grab another drink for someone. Kate stared at me and breathed, "What the fuck, dude?"

"I..." I blinked. I had no idea what had just happened, but something clearly had. Was Pat messing with me? I should probably check the flautas when they came to make sure she didn't spit on them or something.

I went back to my table, pitcher of water and beer in hand. The heat in me still burned bright but it had dulled to far more manageable levels. My prick still felt swollen, though at least it wasn't hard as goddamn rebar. I sipped my water and my beer at a much more human pace and stared at the patrons. Kate occasionally gave me glances that said she was just as confused as I was.

When Pat came out with my food, I asked her, "Hey, what was that about?"

"What was what about?" she asked, with a mild huff.

"When I told you to cool it with Kate, you did. Right away."

"Because you said to." She blinked. "Well. Yes. Okay, that is weird." Her confusion dissipated into a shrug. "I guess some things aren't worth getting angry about."

I ate, watching her, watching Kate. Something odd was going on but I had no idea what it was yet. The flautas were good enough, but I was too distracted to notice, both by my odd conversation with Kate and Pat and the way I couldn't quite get comfortable. My jeans and underwear kept pinching my cock in odd ways, ways that had never really been a problem before. I chalked it up to a long winter and plenty of sugar around the holidays. My jeans were a size too small, maybe, except they'd fit pretty well that morning.

I kept shifting and trying to get comfortable but I couldn't. Finally I gave up, and after I finished off my fourth or fifth glass of water, I headed for the bathroom. I had to wait for a guy to finish up in there, and when he opened up, the smell hit me like a rotten watermelon.

"Jesus, dude, use the fart fan," I snapped as he smirked at me before passing me by.

"Sorry," he said, immediately turning right back for the bathroom and flicking the fan on. He left, and I gaped at him.

Nah.

No fucking way.

This wasn't some goddamn wish-fulfillment story. I couldn't tell people what to do. I wasn't that Doctor Who actor who controlled minds in that show with the fucking ridiculously hot blonde and the woman who looked like she ate a sour lemon every minute. That was nuts. It was a long day and I was imagining things.

Until I walked into the bathroom, shut the door, and unzipped my pants.

"What the hell?" I breathed.

I stared.

"What the actual hell?" I asked louder.

I poked it with a finger.

"What the actual fucking fuckity hell?" I shouted.

A minute later, someone pounded on the door. Kate. "Hey, look, keep it down or we're going to have to ask you to leave."

"Y-yeah," I said, staring at the monstrosity my cock had become. "Suuuure. I'll... keep it down."

I dropped my pants in a hurry. I didn't need to actually pee. I never would again, and I don't know why. Shitting either. That just... stopped. Same with getting sick and catching STDs. All that ended that day.

Well... no wonder I couldn't get comfortable. I wasn't small before, but now I was porn levels. "That can't be healthy for the circulation," I muttered, lifting it up by its tip and looking at it. It flexed, and I raised an eyebrow. "Holy shit."