The Second Tuesday

The Second Tuesday.

Malcom always dreaded the second Tuesday in every month. All of the
other Tuesdays spent toiling, tediously in the storeroom of the 'Elixir
Of Eternity' health food emporium were calm by comparison. Marvellously
serene. Just aromathereaptic oils and crystal wisdom. The smell of
coldpressed wheatgerm and grapeseed extract. The second Tuesday in the
month,however, was dynamically different. Completely at odds with
Malcoms' quiet, conventional existence. For this was delivery day.
Vitamins and seaweed suppliments, mineral powders and herbal tinctures
of all kinds, were dispatched in a van driven by Malcom, to the
housebound and agorophobic all over town. To those odd souls who
required a wealth of addtional nutients, perhaps even Feng Shui, to
maintain a fragile sense of well-being. To those unprepared to make the
trip to the shop, themselves. It fell to Malcom, on the second Tuesday,
to deliver supplies of a very specific type to these benighted
individuals. Most striking of these people was a Mrs. Alicia
Offenbacher, former Baroness and notorious Bon Viveuse.

Her very name inprinted an interesting kind of fear onto Malcoms'
heart. Drawing up outside the Offenbacher residence, a large and
rambling victorian townhouse on the faded edge of the park, he would
find it necessary to offer up a prayer, enlist the help of some devine
power, to protect him from the humiliations of the immediate future.
Man-handling her large and inconsiderately heavy package from the back
of the van and struggling with it through the rellentless rain (it was
always raining on the second Tuesday), he would curse the day he'd ever
agreed to delivery duties. In those fraught and emotionally charged
moments, the whole of his life would flash before his eyes: His simple
upbringing in Anglesea; the pastoral charm of his early schooldays; the
smell of baking bread from his mothers' kitchen. The agonised question
'Why?' would bubble up from beneath the surface of his boiling
resentment 'Why me?'

No answer ever came. The world was a wilder, much more deranged place
than he had ever been lead to believe. No-one had warned him of the
existence of creatures like Mrs Offenbacher. His sense of betrayal was
accute. Why had the fates, ruthless and indiscriminating as he knew
them to be, singled him out for such a punishment? What had he ever
done to deserve such retribution? He had tried to live a blamelessly
chaste and virtuous life. He had washed on an almost regular basis and
his only real sin was a fondness for speciality cider and only at very
occasional weekends. Forty-seven years of primitive methodism had set
him in good stead and pointed him in the direction of a life of
humourless austerity. So why had he chanced upon Mrs. Offenbacher? It
could only be the work of some obssessively spiteful demon.

That day had come round again.

He stood, sodden, outside her house, spindly legs buckling under the
unseemly weight of all those vitamins, anticipating the moment when she
would open the door. When finally she did and he laid his horrified
eyes upon her, a small part of him never failed to be astonished. All
the rumours were true.

At the age of 114 years, Alicia Offenbacher could still sqeeze her
deeply tanned and wiry frame into a sureally tight, leather cocktail
dress. She was a triumph of cosmetic surgery and Estee Lauder. It was
not difficult to understand. looking at her, how she had outlived all
of her children and most of her numerous husbands. Her numberless, red
curls, all of them gleaming artificially, bounced coqettishbly when she
greeted him whilst, at the same moment she emptied the champagne glass
held in her heavily jewelled left hand. In Marlene Deitrich tones she
said:

'Greetings, Malcom. So marvellous to see you, my darling. Come
in.'

Turning with a sort of teetering grace, she beckoned him. Her
movements, it must be said, were a little stiff, but what she lacked in
flexibility, she made up for with sheer, naked effort. She hadn't got
to 114 without picking up a thing or two. She knew every trick in the
book and was more than prepared to use them . When looking at her, the
words 'force of nature' sprung effortlessly to mind. Malcom followed
her, every part of him trembling.

In the drawing-room, freshly, yet unsurprisingly decorated in matt
black and chrome, distorting mirrors aligned at disconcerting angles,
Mrs. Offenbacher lowered herself, gingerly into a PVC armchair,
carefully making no reference to the creaking of her various joints,
natural or technological. She gestured towards an array of stylishly 'a
la mode' drinks, saying in that movie-star voice:

'Have a drink, Malcom , my darling, before we begin. And let me have a
look at what you've brought me..........'

Malcom gulped down something sweet and dangerously potent before
ripping open the box, exposing its' dazzling contents. Pills and
capsules of an infinite variety. Preparations for the preservation of
the more mature complection. Enzymes guarranteeing superhuman energy
and , most crucial of all, a selection of powerful, chinese
aphrodisiacs.
With shining eyes, Mrs. Offenbacher grabbed a handful of these,
swallowed them with a little champagne then lay langourously back in
her armchair. She threw back her head revealing a brown, somewhat
mottled throat gleaming with Advanced, Skin Revitaliser. Her voice was
a voluptuous whisper.

'Now take me. Come to me, Malcom. Come to my arms and take me. Sieze
me. Fullfill me. Make me yours.'

Heaving a heavy sigh as he too downed rather too many of the Chinese
aphrodisaics, Malcom struggled out of his slacks, walked towards Mrs.
Offenbacher and set to work. At some point, during the four hours of
rampant activity it took to satisfy her, he became dimly aware of her
limbs flailing like snakes, like some superannuated Medusa, as they
struggled towards their not necessarily inevitable conclusion.

This had happened every second Tuesday in the month for five years.
Sometimes with a selction of antique objects of torcher. At other times
with exotic fruits and syrupy honeys. Mrs. Offenbacher was a woman of
prodigious needs, fathomless yearnings. Her erotic oddyssies with
Malcom had driven him to very limits of psychological endurance . He
had begun of late to fear for his sanity. There had to be some way to
escape her heaviily exfoliated, somewhat arthritc clutches before his
mind gave way. Or even his heart.

Wet, suburban Wednesdays were spent feverishly dreaming up possible
plans. Could someone else go in his place? Was there such a thing as an
anti-aphrodisiac, a potion to turn off that terrfying torrent of
geriatric desire? Stop it in its tracks? Applying a little TCP to the
deep scratches Mrs.Offenbacher had left on his back, sadly eyeing his
exhausted member, a brilliant idea occured to him. A new product had
arrived at the shop. A disturbingly intense and super-efficient way of
boosting the flagging sex-drive.. Marketed under the name
'Hyper-desire', it was a worldbeating blend of rare herbs and
unspeakable organic extracts. Even the most indifferent of partners
could be transformed into a slavering beast by ingesting a little of
this. So effective was'Hyper-Desire' that some people questioned its
legality. Malcoms' plan was elegantly simple. Rather than refuse Mrs.
Offenbacher what she desired, he would consume a full bottle of
'Hyper-desire' and offer her an embarrassment of riches. Give her so
much that his attentions eventually bored her, bored her to the extent
that a nice game of whist would seem like a fascinating
adventure.

He couldn't wait to get started. The second Tuesday in the month
dawned, dull and dreary. But this time things seemed different. Malcom
had set off in the van with new resolve illuminating his usually
overcast mind . The night before, had crumbled ten of the
'Hyper-Desire' tablets into his Horlicks and today he was raring to
go.

He bust into her house, already delirious with unhinged lust.

'Mrs. Offenbacher, I'm going to.......................'

Before he could finish, she threw off her gold lame bikini and fell
upon him, shieking like some primordial carnivore.
The plan was set in motion. His last thoughts before being submerged in
carnal hysteria, as he noticed the series of new, avant-gard tattoos
cascading over her thighs, were simple and delightfully clear. He knew,
with an almost religious fervour that she would soon tire of his body,
that six days spent incessantly ravishing him would turn her off sex
forever. He would be free.

Two weeks later, when the ambulance arrived, it was a refeshed and
radiant Mrs. Offenbacher who opened the door. Speaking to the
paramedics as they marched into the bedroom, she said,

'I just don't know what's happened to him. .One minute he was fine, the
next, this.'

She looked despairingly at Malcom who lay gibbering and twitching on
the floor next to the bed.

One of the highly trained medical professionals spoke, his gruff voice
betaying a note of confusion.

'He looks a bit sore and those buttocks look rather tender. Any ideas
about how he's got into this state?'

'No idea.'replied Mrs. Offenbacher, treacherously, 'although he always
was a little on the odd side- if you understand my meaning.'

She shot him one of her smouldering looks and offered him a
drink.

Several years later, on the eve of her 121st birthday, Mrs. Offenbacher
published the third in her highly aclaimed series of self-help books,
'Being Naughty - Health and Beauty for the over-nineties'. At a party
to celebrate the launch of an accompanying aerobics video, she was
heard to advocate a strict regime of rigourous erotic excersises. This
regime, she announced over a fifth Brandy Alexander, had been the
secret of her famous longevity and notoriosly smooth skin. She
generously proposed a toast to an acqaintance of hers, someone who had
been a fountain of inspiration to her a few years back. Malcom . In
those days, he worked at the health food shop. Now, rather sadly, he
was incarcerated, in that place up the road. For his own safety, poor
man. She'd send him a signed copy of her book. It was, she said, the
least she could do.

Ends.