Angie & Ella's First Novel :: Sliptongue Magazine

Excerpt from Chapter XI, ELLA'S GOBLIN, of the first Angie & Ella Epistolary Novel

by Robert Scott Leyse

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(Angie and Ella are second year associates at a midtown Manhattan law firm. They are fast friends and fond of reliving their escapades, as well as concocting new ones, via email. Angie is 5' 7" and has wavy chestnut hair. Her brown eyes easily flare with emotion, and she has a reputation for being somewhat excitable. Ella is 5' 5" and has raven black hair. Her blue eyes easily flood with silver light, and she has a reputation for being somewhat adventurous. Both, on account of their beauty of face and shapeliness of figure, routinely attract lingering glances.)

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Ella to Angie
Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2003 11:57 PM

How did I spend my morning, Angie? Allow me to commence by asking: do I ever know what sort of compulsion's going to be inhabiting me (And "inhabiting" is certainly the word for it: a compulsion's like a separate being that takes up residence within one, bends one's every thought and action to its will, kicks up a storm until it's slavishly indulged!) when I awaken? Absolutely not!

Listen: sometimes I awaken bursting with energy, glad to have slumber over and done with, and am looking forward to the new day with giddy impatience – simply thrilled to be alive, from my tingling fingertips to my tingling toes. In such cases, I'm not aware of wanting a single thing, because I'm in such a delightfully bouncy mood that it's an end in itself and wanting something would only get in the way. I'm quite the easy girl on those days: anything'll do, as far as recreation - or the lack thereof - goes.

Othertimes, I get up with a clearly defined thing in the forefront of my thoughts that I absolutely crave and realize I'll need to obtain before I'll enjoy any peace, often something very ordinary: a morning stroll in the park, refreshing saunter about Cedar Hill and Belvedere Castle and Turtle Pond or glimpse of the 59th Street skyline from Cat Rock; or an egg white omlette stuffed with peppers and mushrooms, plus a sliver of wild salmon; or a jaunt to Saks or to a chain drugstore or Bed, Bath & Beyond or even – ha ha! – a hardware store - and not even to buy anything, simply to be in those surroundings; or a cab ride to some neighborhood I haven't been in for a year - the Lamp Distinct on Allen, the Flower District on Sixth, K-Town at 32nd and Fifth, the Spanish Restaurant District on Delancy's northern side...

Alright! These ordinary things, aside from the fervor with which they're craved, are precisely that: ordinary! But what of the other compulsions that have welcomed me to a new day?

I've awakened thirsting to 1) put on a formal gown and go by myself to rent a rowboat at The Boathouse and row it to the northernmost shore of the lake and run my fingers through the reeds while watching the redwing blackbirds, 2) eat Abalone sushi (Served in their pretty pearly shells, which I still have on the windowsill: how beautifully they reflect the sun and gleam like miniature rainbows!) atop the Empire State Building with my Best Girl with both of us dressed in matching pink pleated skirts, white blouses, and silver-buckled shoes (Remember?), 3) go to Elaine's with Stevie in a limo dressed as Marie Antonette (Sure, I stole her from you; but what are girlfriend's for, if not to provide fashion tips? And just remember: I was the first to be Marie in public, not you!) and then, midway through our dinner, traipse off to the ladies' to change into a pair of tattered cutoffs and a men's denim shirt with my hair (How I winced while doing it!) teased into a frightful mess of a lion's mane, 4) go - again, with you - to Tony's di Napoli and order the "Tony's Famous Twin N.Y. Cut Sirloins" and sit there staring into space, not saying a word, while sipping sparkling mineral water and ignoring the steaks: wasn't that fun? The waiter would come over, wondering if something was amiss, and we'd inform him we were vegetarians - that meat was sickening and unhealthy - in a matter-of-fact tone. The waiter's astonishment quickly spread to the remainder of the staff and many of the surrounding diners; continuing to serenely sit in our matching acquamarine dresses and hair ribbons, we blankly stared at nothing for over an hour, then paid our bill and departed with the steaks untouched and much wonder surrounding us. And it was precisely that sort of subdued astonishment that I wanted to bring about: all the particulars of how to accomplish the feat greeted me in the morning the second I opened my eyes.

That's right, I woke up with the above doings clearly pictured in my head, knowing I'd know no peace until I made them actuality. And I ask: where do these compulsions come from? After all, it's not like I go to bed even remotely suspecting I'll awaken wanting to do them: are they the residue of dreams I've forgotten? have they been birthed in slumber by a mischeivous and infuriatingly exacting subconscious? Yes, infuriating for sure! It's not like I always greet these spur-of-the-moment obsessions with open arms and a joyful heart! Sometimes I view them as an obstacle in the path of a peaceful day - a hurdle that needs to be cleared! As I said, it's like another creature's entered my bloodstream and is calling the shots! I'm often thinking: "Christ, here we go again!"

And why, Dearest, do I bring the matter up? It's because this morning I woke up wanting to be plowed silly in the men's room of a greasy Chinese eatery! And more: I had to be wearing a fur with nothing on underneath. So I call up Jacob. I mean, he owes me, right? I played abducted Roman wench to his Nero, so the least he can do is set his Saturday plans aside on my behalf. He had a date with some Waspy girl, rendezvous at the Princeton Club and then golf at the 23rd Street driving range. (Golf? Ha! It's not easy to picture him playing golf; but, in a twisted sort of way, the not being able to picture it - considering it laughably improbable - makes me like him all the more! The unpredictability thing, right?) Anyway, preppy girly had to take a backseat to yours truly: I called Jacob, told him what I wanted, and he rescheduled her tout suite!

So it unfolds as follows: in obedience to the particulars dictated by my exacting imagination, I do my hair up beehive style (I don't quite have enough of a mane to wrap it around and build a hive that's way up there so I added a magenta pin-on piece; and when I was done I was very pleased with the way the magenta spiralled up in combination with my natural black.) and put on a pair of silver stillettoes, plus my red fox coat; and nothing else, not even thigh-highs.

So Jacob comes to fetch fetching me and we hop a cab to Chinatown at Canal and Mott. Ha! Suddenly we're in another world without having set foot outside of Manhattan: lychee's, breadfruit, coconuts, chow mein, and roast duck hawked by sidewalk vendors; eels and carp and frogs splashing in holding tanks; bushel baskets overflowing with crabs, whelk, and moon snails; ginseng and ginger root in the windows of the drug stores; bamboo plants and palms - ivory and jade carvings - the everpresent incense...

Oh, I'm in a capricious mood, all right! My new surroundings have an immediate effect on me: it's almost as if I'm revisiting stimuli from a former life and being driven nuts by it! The incense and bamboo plants and trays of fruit I don't even know the names of - the whole different tone of Chinatown - the clutter, neon signs in Chinese... It all gets under my skin and in my nerves and makes me rabbit jumpy right off, such that I have no choice but to require Jacob to yank me into a doorway (I don't know how I'd thrive without doorways!) and rough me up a bit!

We scamper down Mott past Barclay, south of the park where the old men play chess and wild volleyball games are held; more residential here, we'll be less apt to be interrupted...

"I'm too damn antsy!" I declare when a suitably isolated doorway - in a narrow dead end alley - is found. "Feeling skimmer-skammer skiddles - being whirled off my foundations into splintered thoughts, blurry stress, crazy nerves! How am I to enjoy my degradation in a diner if I'm too mad with lust to be conscious of where I am? So pull me in here and take me down a peg or two, out of this tension! Lift my fox coat and whack me, make my ass cheeks sting!"

"So you're bored with the feathery feel of fur?" Jacob asks. "You're in need of violence?"

"Never mind what I'm bored with, or if I'm bored," I answer. "Hell, I'm not bored! I'm hopped up nutsy! Just flog me! With a hand, rolled up paper - whatever! Damn! What nonsense my Goblin gets me into!"

"Goblin? I'm a goblin? How can you call me a goblin when this is your idea? Sorry to disappoint, but I have no particular need to slap you around! You're asking me to do it!"

"Would you just listen! I'm not calling you a goblin! I'm talking about my Goblin, OK? - talking about the creature that invades me during sleep and confronts me with crazy cravings soon as I wake up! Think I want to be banged in an unclean diner? My Goblin wants it, not me! I'm Ella the enfevered tramp who's been whipped out of bed to here in Chinatown, robbed of a peaceful Sunday, by a highly infuriating creature, and the name of that creature is: my Goblin! Get it? (It's here that I lift my coat with one hand and spank myself with the other.) Now will you please take over, before I go insane?"

"In honor of your Goblin, then," answers Jacob as he presses me frontwards into the wall, lifts the back of my coat to my waist, and smacks my behind with his hand.

"Your hand only?" I taunt. "Do I strike you as being a wilting wallflower, terrified of sterner measures? Did I back down when Nero lashed me to the post? Huh? Where's Nero now, gone into hiding?"

"Nero can come back, if you wish."

"If I wish? For Christ's sake, Jacob! Do you need pinching awake? Why do you think you've been selected for this mission? Miss Goblin needs apppeasing, and... I'm not a Princeton Club preppy, Jacob! What the hell?" I'm feeling something resembling panic, Angie! Have I chosen the wrong man for the job?

"What the hell what, Princess?" Jacob asks sarcastically - at which I whip my head around, stare at him with a mixture of anguish and anger. But all's well! Much to my relief, I see he's unfastened his belt and is removing it...

"Ah, yes! You like that, dontcha Princess?"

"I deserve it!" I hear myself saying. "A taste of belt hiss and kiss, nasty leather cuts slashing! I am a spoiled girl, Jacob! Spoiled girls, they're disconnected from conflict - it isn't healthy! So use your belt and shout some stuff! Yell that I'm a prissy sissy and need to be taught life's rife with contrast; that, without a little pain, there's no use feeling safe!" (Yes, that was me missing you and Miss Whippie, Angie! I adore the things you say during our Miss Whippie sessions: the speeches you give while making me wince are the mantra I cling to for comfort while being subjected to savage treatment!)

"No talking!" Jacob commands. "No, strike that - spout whatever you want, if you dare and are able! Soon you won't be capable of speech!" And, with that, he lays on a flurry of belt whallops that have me clawing the wall with my nails as my knees grow weak.

"Spout some stuff, huh?" he continues, laughing. "OK! Fair skin gets bruised and the spoiled idiot learns a thing or two about the meaning of safety! The corporate slut who's grossly overpaid to slouch at a cushy job finds out darker forces lurk in Chinese doorways! She begins to appreciate how well-situated she is in life by means of some belt thwacks! She's learns not to take an easy life for granted, courtesy of my indulgent belt that raises the welts of salvation!"

Jacob's making fun of me, and I'm not one to tolerate that. "Is that all you've got?" I ask with derision. "When I ask a man to flog me, I expect him to be a man and make me regret my request! I want to be cracked and thwacked and whacked until I forget my name, get delirious, howl like a wounded animal! I want an out-of-my-body experience induced by excessive agony! So are you man enough for it, or just a cowering little blowhard mouse?"

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