O ~ Set their tights alight

What to report?

Manley &; Hen come up to the harpy kitchen more and more to sate
themselves. They've also taken to invading the harpy rooms when they
can, and lingering there, unwound on the bed, mumbling.

"Let's see what they're up to," Hen will say, as they drain their
coffee cups. Then they wash up and hop up a floor. At night they can
check who's up &; in by laying down in the corridor - press-up
position - and looking for the light under every door. If the light's
on, they can knock. If no light is on, Manley will say, "No luck, Hen.
Let's watch a film."
Two nights ago, Helen's was the only light on, so they knocked.

"Go away!"

Hen and Manley looked at each other, pandering.

"Only kidding - come in!"

They went in alright, and found Helen bent-kneed on her bed, goblin
princess Mary on the chair facing her, both melting in the
warmth.

"Come in, come in - how are you both? Are you alright? Mary and me were
just talking about tights."

As a matter of fact, a good matter of fact, Hen had been thinking
lately about a harpy swimsuit calendar, and tights seemed like a good
entry point, a lead up to the suggestion. He did not intend, however,
to bring about the tirade that followed.

"Tights?" he said. "You don't like wearing tights, do you?"

"They're rubbish!" flared Craggs, becoming jagged. "They make you sweat
all the time, and you're always getting ladders."

"Tights!" hollered Mary. "There's always something amiss with your
tights! I know so many girls who've put their fingers right through
whilst getting up from the loo."

"It's true!" Helen thundered. "Your thumbs always go through when
you're pulling them up. Every time!"

"Ladders?" Hen said, then, whimsically: "Is there nothing that can
stand in their way?"

"You can put nail varnish at the ends to stop them moving," Mary
admitted.

"And they give you thrush apparently!" Helen continued, undeterred.
"And if you bend your knees too much they leave indents."

"In your knees?" Manley asked, but no, he couldn't penetrate the
harangue.

"Then there's the problem with sizes," Mary said. "As a child, you only
have small, medium or large. They either don't fit, or they're falling
round your ankles. There's no in between."

Helen nodded furiously.

"And in the rain, they're like jeans."

"Yes! They stick to your legs and don't dry for ages."

"Tights are the work of the devil. I shall never wear them
again."

"Me neither. And if the rains ever do the walking&;#8230;"

Mary faltered.

"Rain doesn't walk, Mary!" Helen laughed, while Hen and Manley
snickered and shook their heads.

"But you know&;#8230;I didn't mean to say that, I mean when the
rain&;#8230;when you're walking. Oh, I don't know what I was getting
at."

~

Mary is the smallest harpy. She is a robin, and sometimes glows like
cut apple - the spring onion flesh wrapped in red frog skin. She glows
like this when she's embarrassed or laughing. She glowed like this when
Hen found a book in the harpy kitchen - 'The art of dating men' and
read her a line.

"Dab a little vaginal fluid on your wrists&;#8230;"

"Ugh! No, that's horrible!" she glowed and glowed.

She has a wild nervousness even in familiar company - her eyes bolt
about like the robinhead - even when she holds a cup of hot chocolate
to her, and she has the birdsong voice.

"Oo!" she will sing, a tally mark of surprise or attention.

Touch her and she flinches.

Do robins sing? Do they sing like the animated Mary, cross with herself
after losing her purse or her keys yet again? Do they sing like a loud,
smashed Mary, when her flowery Celtic accent is out on the wash line
for all to hear, and when she angrily accuses Hen of stealing the
purse? And the keys. Don't forget the keys.

"If only a robin did sing like that, Manley. Sometimes I do steal her
keys, and it's just to hear the song."

Manley and Hen discuss religion and politics with Mary from time to
time - she is more compliant in these matters than the others - and she
notices her dreams. She will trade dreams with Hen and Manley whenever
she can. The one she remembers best involves her own sister setting
fire to her, and the moment of death.

"But that's nothing compared to Manley's nightly theatre macabre," Hen
told her, and Manley was prompted to serve up the goods. He talked
about the one in which Helen served tea to Jesus, then of his wallet
dream.

"My wallet was too heavy, so I started taking out photos of all of you
- of Hen and you, Mary, and Helen and the others. Coins were selotaped
to the back of the photos, so my wallet got lighter and lighter, so I
kept taking more out."

To this debate, Hen could only contribute his recurring vision of
finding the ninja witch's list of enemies hidden under her bed - and
his own name at the top - 'Henstoat.'

Mary laughed, glowed like cut apple, and said she was sure it wasn't
true.

~

Yesterday evening, Hen took to staring obviously, arduously and
longingly at harpy rump, in the hope that someone might remark, "What's
caught your interest, Henstoat?" and he might reply matter-of-factly,
"Oh, nothing much. Just noticed there's quite a few tonneaus around
that dwarf my own." He had indeed noticed, and been impressed by, the
size of the harpies' haunches.

Hen's ogling was tolerated by the harpies as they waltzed back and
forth across the kitchen, delivering plates and packages. Helen
squeaked, "Oi," now and then, and jumped, trying to get her behind
under cover. Si?n said, "You're a very strange boy," and sat down
firmly. But he was not thrown out, or made an example of. The
dinnermaking went on peacefully, and Hen completed his studies.

Now, boobs, thought Hen - they aren't all big, like asses. Some women
are low slung, and others are like overpacked laundry bags. He'd not
been down their tops yet. So he climbed to the fruitbowl, split open a
tangerine and clawed out a hunk. Lianne was sitting opposite him,
reading a comic and looking Arabian in the medical bright striplight.
He idly leant over, hooked her t-shirt and dropped the flesh in.

"Hen! Jeez!" she squirmed. "What's with you today?"

She went in to retrieve the object, and Hen watched closely for the
mounds. He apologised, waited for an interval, then repeated the act
with Mary, as she came past the table. Same segment, different
cleave.

"Oi! No, don't," she glowed and, likewise, fished.

Hen followed up with Helen a little later, then Si?n, and finally tried
Besse. But she'd grown wise by then, and closed herself off between the
sink and the rings.

"Come on," he said. "Satisfy me."
"Oh yeah. Like you haven't already checked us out anyway," she replied,
keeping her back turned to him.

Hen was unjustly aped.

"What on earth makes you think that?"

"You're a guy."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"You're a *straight* guy."

Hen gave up, and made his report to Manley later, after further
apologies, and a more discrete, snake-glance investigation.

"The harpies have a good range," he said, writing it down in his
notebook. "Besse and Mary both have soft, hot cannonballs. Helen has a
pair of rosy crab apples. Lianne wins on size overall, but both she and
Si?n have billowing caravel sails - in rich clay and bone china
respectively."

"I bet&;#8230;" said Manley. "I bet you know more about their bodies
than they do."

"I bet I do, Manley. I bet they're misguided. Misguided by magazines
and the like. I've seen them lying around in the kitchen now and then -
Mayfair, or whatever it is."

"I've seen worse than that, Hen. I've seen them flicking through,
talking about the price of shoes."

"Fuck," said Hen.

Besse, the ninja witch, meanwhile became convinced of Hen's through and
through, irredeemable perversion. Hen had lost ground with her, and
lost it good. She came into the kitchen today waving a paperback book,
saying, "I bet Hen would like to read this."

And Hen was there eating toast.

"What is it?"

Besse tossed it onto the table in front of him.

"Some 19th century erotica. I had to choose a topic to do a
presentation on, and I thought hey, that looks interesting. But I think
I made a teeny mistake."

Hen read part of the book while he finished his toast, and crumbs went
tumbling between the pages. It seemed to be composed entirely of
straight and lesbian sex scenes, while the carnal action was depicted
through a code of obstructive words. In fact, Hen hadn't really any
idea what was happening - just that the narrator found it thrilling and
illicit. He looked at the front cover, and tried again. No, no -
definitely just thrills and illicitness, and a lot of heat. Furnaces
and moisture, and shivers and the like.

"You know what's more erotic than this, Besse? Listening to Helen and
Mary talk about tights. You should try it."

Helen tittered, and Besse cleared away some pots, clang-clang
clanging.