Acceptable Levels of Us
By Bryan May
Caution was not taken, and I
did not adhere to the warning. The starry night,
glow-in-the-dark pajamas were a lovely flannel, and after
the morning and day and night and morning of work, they were
oh so enticing. I slipped the three-quarter-sleeve top over
my slender frame, and grabbed the matching bottoms. Tops
and bottoms, what an interesting phrase. “Due to the
intensity of this coloration and the nature of the dye
process, WASH GARMENT BEFORE WEARING,” the tag read. I had
torn it off and thrown it on the floor. Flopping into bed,
I dreamt of blue skin and toxic poisons. The food I
consumed today was pumped with hormones, injected with
steroids and juiced with high fructose corn, what did I care
about a little dye on my skin? We all have these smart
ideas about public school lunch reform, replacing the sloppy
joes, chalupa boats and corndogs with chicken breast green
salads, fresh fish on whole-wheat buns and fruit compotes of
wild berries and exotic melons. That’s a fantastic idea. I
love it. I’m on board. What’s that, you say? Raise my
taxes another percent? Nah, let those spitball fatties
munch their sloppies and soda pop. Pop! Another artery
busted, another triple bypass, another implosion of cells.
Replace your soda pop with water to hydrate your system and
burn fat. Only problem is, the water is poisoned too. So
where do we go? The FDA issued an “acceptable level of
strychnine” measure. Is there an acceptable level of
strychnine? I’ll take a strych parent, strych teacher or
strych coach, but I can’t readily accept strychnine in my
freakin’ water. Pesticides and insecticides on my corn, it
is what it is. Your tortillas at El Tico Taco would be ten
dollars extra if everything was grown organically and
properly and not mass produced and without the crop dustin’
tactics that we all love. You ever fixate on the reddest
apple in the crew, a marvel of medicine, a miraculous bulb
that escaped Eden and landed in your fruit bowl, plucked
from a tree of divinity? Washed and shined and slightly
dried with your favorite cloth, polished and tapped lightly
with your fingertips so you could detect the crisp,
hollow-sounding hardness that you were about to enjoy. Your
teeth break the skin, and you become frisked with desire.
It was just as crisp and juicy as you had hoped, and no
longer could you wait to take the plunge, so you pucker your
lips to envelop the white flesh for your first bite. But as
your tongue meets the skin, a foul sensation erupts. Your
arm hair is now erect for a different reason. The apple was
indeed from serpentine Eden, as it had been dusted and
poisoned by our rancid farmland. It had passed FDA
inspection, because the FDA inspection consisted of bribe
money and cheeks turned with mouths full of injected
filets. Sentences injected with hormones, I hear a lot of
those. Words complete with toxins, no shortage that I can
see. Deceit and degeneracy of food and mind.
Embroiled
in my first career game of Truth and Dare, my buddy Val was
already an hour deep by the time I entered the room. He was
one of those “early experimenter” types, a guy who had
already fooled around with girls and smoked weed, drank beer
and driven a couple motorcycles. We were fourteen. There
were a number of participants in the game, probably five
girls and six boys, with me being the sixth. Odd man in as
it were, because as I sat down, I was immediately the first
one picked. “Truth,” I exclaimed. I was then catapulted
into a shamefully embarrassing series of “what ifs” and
“have you evers,” to which I circumvented and mumbled and
talked around for about five minutes. No dare could be that
bad, not with the questions these hyper horny,
far-too-accelerated fourteen year-old girls unleashed on my
innocence. The next hour was nervous yet pleasant, as I sat
there watching various acts of fondling and foolishness, not
being forced to partake…yet. “Bryan, truth or dare,” she
asked. “Ummm….dare.”
“I dare
you to start right here, and lick all the way up to Tara’s
lips, where you guys kiss.” The “right here” was the base
of Tara’s massive bosoms; her dark-skinned cleavage was the
ninth wonder of the universe amongst us ninth grade
juveniles. Only they were so big, and I was so
not attracted to her, that they never posed any real
interest to me. I guess that had to change, because no way
could I rank out on a dare, especially after my poor
performance I exhibited with my truth. My nervousness was
approaching the point of trembling hands as I approached the
seated Tara. Her chest and neck were glistening and
appeared a sticky mess, but I had to ignore. I also had to
try my damndest to ignore the course black hair between her
breasts. My quivering tongue showed itself as I kneeled
before her and went in. An assassination of my taste buds
began as my tip touched the monstrously befouled skin. I
don’t know what the hell had gone on, but it was a war
zone. A paralysis occurred where I was too stunned to move
my tongue upward. The taste was too awful. Too
horrific to be natural, and too disgusting to be synthetic.
Nathetic. A frightening combination. Sweaty breasts
sprayed with RAID and dipped in sour milk, vomited upon and
sprinkled with waste from a junkyard; that was the taste in
my mouth. GET IT OVER WITH, my brain screamed at me. This
had to be over with, because I was starting to salivate and
gag, seconds away from throwing up in her face. So I darted
my tongue upward, bristling hairs along the way. There was
nothing I wanted to do less that French kiss those giant
lips, but no chance her mouth could taste worse. So we
plunged into a furious tussle that lasted long enough to rid
myself of at least some of the raunch. After falling
backward and stepping away, I raced to the bathroom to scrub
my tongue with every liquid, solvent, paste and brush I
could muster. Upon returning from the heaving nightmare
that had become my evening, I met Val and Randy in the
hallway, where they stood, laughing hysterically. “Shit,
man,” Val managed through his laughter. “How’d that taste
down there? Like two hours ago, I drenched her in guacamole
and licked it off, and before that, Randy had a go at her
with whipped cream. She never even washed it, so that was
like some gwawky, old cream, Randy Valfest that you were
lickin’. Must’ve been pretty fun.”
bmay@emarketmakersinc.com
Bryan May
