Another week another Monday :)
This week’s
prompt: There were sirens…
Slither on Over Here
Serious working title…trust me! lol
Part 2
copyright © 2015 Havan Fellows
Chapter Two
September 13, 2015
“Son of a bitch!” Marvin exclaimed as he side
stepped around the extremely observant green snake and grabbed the towel off
the back of the toilet. He slipped when his wet foot stepped off the bathmat,
but with quick thinking and madly flailing arms he managed to right himself
again.
A knock on the bathroom door followed by his mama’s
voice, “Language,” had him rolling his eyes.
He quickly wrapped the towel around his wet hips
and tucked the end in securely over his prominent pelvic bone. “Sorry mama,” He
muttered and attempted to step over the reptile.
It turned into a dance between him and the snake.
He would lift his left foot to walk over it and it would slide to its right and
block Marvin’s path. Pulling his left foot back in he would attempt the same
maneuver with his right foot, only to have the snake quickly catch on and move
to the other side.
“Really? Beaten by a scaly serpent?” Marvin backed
up a step and squatted by the intruder.
“Listen. You don’t belong here. I don’t want to
hurt you, but you gots to go.” He shooed it away with his hands to no avail. “Hey,
I hear we have some great field mice in the garage. Just ripe for the eating.”
He let his head fall backwards and stared at the
ceiling. How did it even get into his bathroom? That was a question he’d asked
more than once in his life. He saw a flash of green from the corner of his eye
and saw the tail end of the snake as it whipped between his legs.
“Oh hell no!” He shouted and jumped from one foot
to the other as he felt the cold scales quickly slide up his leg and drag
across his ball sac, still wet from his shower.
“Oh dear Lord please don’t constrict, please don’t
bite.” He reached under the towel between his legs and grabbed the serpent by
the tail. “Okay, no constricting and no biting. Do we understand each other?”
He gently gave a little tug to feel out the
situation. The muscled side of the snake that rubbed against the back of his
sac tightened up. “No no no no no no no!” Marvin started chanting softly. In the
back of his mind he envisioned how this would play out. He’d scream in sheer
terror, his mother would call nine-one-one, then there were sirens, and he’d
have to explain to the paramedics exactly how a snake coiled itself around his
goodies better than any sex toy on the market. Oh this would not end well. “Come
on baby. Work with me here.” He tried to cajole the creature into behaving.
The snake’s body finally relaxed and sagged a bit,
allowing Marvin to pull it out from between his legs. Though most people’s
first knee-jerk reaction would be to fling it across the room or perhaps even chuck
it out the window, he knew he wouldn’t do either such thing. He held it up in
front of his face and stared at its little head and beady eyes. It really was a
gorgeous specimen, roughly two and a half to three feet long and skinny. Its
scales had an almost iridescent shimmer about them.
“Hey little guy, you like what you saw down there?
Lucky you, not many have had the privilege of venturing around there lately.”
He unlocked the bathroom door and headed toward the back porch. “I finally get
manhandled…and technically it’s snakehandled? My life sucks sometimes.” He
muttered under his breath.
“Mama, it happened again.” He allowed the snake to
coil around his forearm and work its way up to his bicep. Marvin looked at it
and humph laughed, it almost looked like the snake was resting his head on
Marvin’s shoulder.
He turned the corner and stood in his mama’s
kitchen clad only in his towel. Didn’t think this one through did he?
“What happened again, honey? Oh looky there, you
have a new friend.” He watched her crack some more eggs over the onions,
mushrooms, bacon and ham in her cast iron skillet. “And isn’t he a pretty one?”
“How exactly do these snakes keep getting into our
house?”
“Oh not our house, Marvin. Your bathroom… your
bedroom…sometimes in the family room when you’re in there, but they never visit
unless when you’re not here. You’re like the Pied Piper of our town, except
with snakes instead of mice. Oh I bet the snakes would like it if you could do
that with the mice though.” She giggled as she started whipping the eggs and
extras together. “They just can’t get enough of you.”
“Yeah well, I’m looking for the huge golden variety
if you don’t mind.”
“Well that’s a little racist of you.”
“Mother!” He screeched and spilt the coffee he was
pouring. “Damn.” Grabbing a handful of napkins out of the holder he started
mopping up his spill. “I can’t believe you said that! I meant snakes.”
She patted his shoulder, cuffed him on the back of
his head and pushed him out of the way as she cleaned up the bigger mess he
seemed to be making. Sighing loudly, she admitted, “I know. Unfortunately I
know. And don’t call me that, I raised you better. Now, why don’t you release
that cutie out back and get some clothes on so you can join us for breakfast?”
“Huh?” He looked to where his mama pointed and
jerked his head back. “Yeah, forgot about this little guy.”
“Little guy? What are we talking about in here?”
Mama immediately crossed the kitchen and kissed his
father hello before returning to the now firming eggs. “How all the snakes seem
to have a thing for Marvin.”
“I thought we weren’t allowed to discuss his sex
life anymore. You know, after The Debacle of 2011 with the Rushmore cousins and
that missing sleeping bag?”
“Oh we are not having this conversation again.”
Marvin quickly walked out the back door to release the snake, letting the
screen bang shut behind him.
His mama’s voice carried out to the backyard, “Clever,
Paul. Actually I was talking about real snakes this time. One visited him in
the bathroom again. I think it’s smitten with him.”
Yeah, it was outright in love with him the way it
wrapped around his neck. He didn’t understand why snakes took to him, but he
always thought it had something to do with that golden one that saved him from
the bullies when he was a kid.
That day had been a life changing experience. Sam
and his gang still thought Marvin was a loser, but after that day they thought
he was a creepy weird loser and wanted nothing to do with him. That suited him
fine. He took to cutting through the woods every chance he got too, hoping to
get a glimpse of that golden serpent one more time. Wondering how it would play
out if they crossed paths again. It never happened. He realized that the woods
were infested with all kinds of snakes, different colors, shapes and sizes. But
that elusive golden one never appeared again.
To make matters worse, no one believed him that it
even existed. The town thought he was a kid with an over-active imagination and
penchant for telling tales. His parents just nodded their heads, patted him on
the back and agreed with anything he told them. The bullies refused to step
forward and corroborate his story. They just stared at him and said they saw
nothing and he was a whack job. And they did all that from a distance,
none-the-less.
Uncoiling his surprise guest from around his neck,
he set it gently on the ground. “There you go you handsome little bugger. If I
forgot to tell you, I love your coloring. Green is my favorite color. But next
time lay off my jewels, I don’t even know your name.” He chuckled. Most people
thought he was crazy when he talked to animals. He personally believed that
even if they didn’t understand the words, the timbre of a voice spoke volumes
all by itself.
His new friend twirled around his fingers a few
times then took off into the grass, disappearing within seconds.
“Marvin, breakfast is on the table. Are you eating
in your towel?”
Entering the house again he hurried through the
kitchen before either of them could stop him. “No mama, I’m getting dressed
now. Be out in a few.”
He closed the bedroom door behind him and looked
around the floor of his childhood room. He half expected to see a snake waiting
for him. He was half disappointed that none appeared.
His parents humored him on everything. The day he
was accosted by the golden reptile they listened patiently, not once telling
him he had imagined it like the rest of the town eventually did. They even
searched the woods with him the next day, never complaining about the hours
they wasted on his overactive imagination. The summer night that he declared he
wanted to be a herpetologist. They figuratively patted his head and agreed that
such a field would benefit from their brilliant son’s input. The night of the
prom, when he was home hours before curfew because his ‘date’ suddenly got sick
and cut their night short, he fessed up and told them his ‘date’ was actually
the captain of the male debate team and had chickened out of going to prom with
a guy. They had smiled and told him the boy had no future in debate and there
would be more, better boys in his future proud to have him on their arm. Even
when he announced after he graduated from college that he planned to accept a
job based in the Florida Everglades. This was the hardest time for them to grin
and bear it. They did though, expressing how the gators better watch out
because Marvin would bite back.
But he wasn’t in that field of science for the
gators, or amphibians, or anything else but the snakes. One particular golden
snake to be precise. In all his studies, in all the lectures attended and
papers read not one could point him in the right direction as to what type of
snake saved him that day. He even was chided by a few professors for making up
a new species for the limelight. Like Marvin gave a twiddling thumb about any
so called limelight to be had.
The only reason he chose herpetology as a major was
to find out all he could about snakes. The fact that Florida’s snake population
happened to be one of the most varied in the country and a terrific job down
there was offered to him made his decision easier to make. He hated leaving the
woods that his golden rescuer lived in, and he hated to leave his parents also.
But the snake never showed again and his parents were just a call away. He
never doubted his memory, never thought that maybe his ‘hero’ wasn’t quite as
golden or as long as he recalled. Even if time tried to dull his recollection
he wouldn’t allow it to. Not on this.
He grabbed his button fly jeans and a t-shirt and
got ready for breakfast.
To
be cont’d…
The
fun is never over with just one turn—we are the Story Orgy™ remember *winks*—so
head over to the next blog and enjoy multiples with us…
Oooo, now part 3 makes more sense! LOL! And AIIIIEEEE about the snake going THERE!!! AHHHH!!!!
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