Saffron’s Menagerie. Phil Stevenson

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      “Not good Saff, for then it was on at the 3 p.m. after school punch up. I loathe that shit. He wanted to beat me up!”

      “It was fun. I came upon you both and you were saying, ‘I don’t want to fight OK’, and Wanker wanted to fight anyhow. So I stepped in and said, ‘fight me instead bozo’. To which Wanker shied away. He knew with my parents influence I could make things uncomfortable for him.”

      “And his bike was reported stolen the next day, and found burnt out in the forest. Right?”

      “Right,” says Saff, with a wink at Reg. “Later on, in high school he once told me, that the look I gave him that day, scared the bejesus out of him.”

      After a few more glasses of Madam’s drop, Saff drops her head on Reg’s lap.

      “Reg, I’m nearly twenty-one, and you’re you, right?”

      “Huh’? says Reg.

      “I don’t want to have any heavy relationships while at MIT, but I like sex.”

      “So?” asks Reg. “What about the school basketball captain, Trev Rixon. Weren’t you . . .?”

      “Yes, we did it lots. OK.”

      “OK then, so where do I fit into this entrancing story of yours?” Reg is a bit drunk.

      “Well I want to have sex with you on a regular basis. Got to wear a condom because I’m not doing the pill. And no stay overs either.”

      Reg is stunned, but at the same time elated. He felt his manhood rustle.

      “So, let’s go and perfect our Saturday night stress relief, plus some.” Saffron takes Reg by his hand and pulls him into her bedroom and onto her bed.

      Reg whispers, “Can I play with your feet. I’ve always loved them since primary school. Perfect toes. A five-star rating.”

      “Whatever, you nerd’, giggled Saff as she pulled off her socks.

      3.

      It is three months before bozo Warren Clapper kills her parents. Reg and Saff have done some amazing chemistry biological work over their last years at MIT. They have amazed their professors.

      They were allowed to import reptiles and arachnids from all over the world. All kept secure and safe from anyone else. Of all the arachnids, Reg and Saff find the scorpion mesmerizing.

      From all their experiments on these biological masterpieces', how could you call them a species, they miraculously discover the mother lode. No, not the typical mother lode, being a vein of gold or silver. This was actually the ‘Mother Key’to sublime awareness.

      The Indian Red scorpion, the most venomous, matched the Australian Eastern Brown snake. They both topped the bill.

      They wanted to deal with the most dangerous. Why not?

      “Who wants to work with cuddly caterpillars? Let’s do Godzilla verses Mothra, or the Predator verses the Alien,” Reg said at the time.

      They are soon to discover the perfume, that’s right, a perfume, an elixir. Not a smell or odor. A perfume that connects a mother with its siblings. By secreting juices from both creatures when they gave birth, Reg is able to reproduce the prehistoric Mother Key, between a mother snake or scorpion and it’s offspring.

      In privacy, they experiment with Reg’s elixir. Yes, they had the Indian Red scorpions running up and down their arms with no reprise. And the three Australian Eastern Brown snakes that hatched from eggs, loved them the same. Slithering all over them and through their clothes. An exhilarating high. They had cracked it.

      4.

      When the news came of Saffron’s parent’s death, she was devastated and was not quite with it for a while.

      Reg thought that their work would never be finally completed. However, after the funeral and months away from MIT, Saffron returned to complete the work with Reg. For now, she was on a mission. A personal mission.

      A Saturday night at Saff’s apartment.

      “This Clapper fucker. What am I going to do? Forget it all, or unfetter the dragon of revenge?”

      “He was the best buddy of that Wayne Kerr wanker,” Reg looks at Saff. “I loved your Mom and Dad. They were great people, and they gave me my future. They gave me my adult life. My old man, being the long-time cab driver in the Hampton’s, could never have given me the opportunities your folks did. I love my Dad, make no mistake about that, but your folks were so special.”

      Saff looks at Reg.

      “Saff, I’ve thought about this while you’ve been away and this is what I’m going to do.”

      Saff takes a large sip of Bollinger, “OK, what?”

      “Did you ever see any of those seventies Kung Fu movies on TV?”

      “Yeah maybe. That Carradine actor was in it.”

      “Correct. It was a great series that grew songs, ‘Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting’and Kung Fu schools were the big thing. But, the character in Kung Fu, Caine, as a young boy was taught Kung Fu as a discipline for self-defense. Not only that, he went through an amazing spiritual training process with his Master Po at a Shaolin Temple.”

      “Right,” says Saff sipping from her flute.

      “One early episode that had a profound effect on me was when Caine, after his training and now an adult, met Master Po, who is totally blind, in a Chinese street. Master Po sensed Caine’s gait as he approached him. Do you remember that Master Po would call the young Caine, ‘grasshopper’ with such love and affection?

      Standing in the street they chatted, when a strong-arm guard came through the crowd demanding passage for the Emperor’s nephew who was being carried high on a covered chair.”

      Saff sat there mesmerized by Reg’s words. She realized that she loved the dude. He is a very gentle, but determined friend. And she loves making love with him. Saff was getting a bit turned on by Reg’s rhetoric.

      “Master Po, being blind, tripped the approaching guard with his walking stick by accident, which called him to be rebuked. He identified himself as a peaceful monk, meaning no harm. To that the Emperor’s nephew waved his hand and Master Po was struck across his face. As that happened, Po gripped the man’s thumb and brought him to the ground. Master Po says, ‘you do not rebuke a blind man twice for something that was an accident’.

      All of a sudden, the Emperor’s nephew fired his pistol at Master Po, who fell to the ground. Caine, without hesitation, grabbed a spear from a guard and thrust it into the Emperor’s nephew as he was reloading his pistol.

      He returned to the mortally wounded Master Po, who asked, ‘Did you kill him’? To which Caine replies, ‘Yes Master’”.

      Saff now realized Reg’s commitment.

      “That СКАЧАТЬ