The birds, the bees, and every other woodland animal: Act III

An aura of confusion engulfed the room as my theory was made public. “What would make you believe the killer is a woman.” My newly found detective instincts were telling me it was the truth, but evidence is always wanted by those without a gut to tell them what is right. Come on Bernie, think of something, what could possibly indicate this to be the work of a female, “Well for one, I detect the scent of vaginal discharge drenching the victim’s face, however this crime could only have been perpetrated by a woman, or a gay man. I’ve heard of auto-erotic asphyxiation enthusiasts attending German dominatrix parlours that specialize in suffocation by vagina, perhaps our killer is an expert in that field.” My crackpot theory was not satisfying the jury it seemed, since their faces kept contorting the more I spoke, “Wait just a minute there, why only those two?” Columbo asked, waving his hands at the air in front of him as though there was an invisible fly. It was helpful since if I was deaf, I would still understand what he was trying to convey. “Who hates men the most? Women, and gay men. These two groups of people are the only ones that I believe, could suffocate a man to death with their crotch.” Silence befell the room, paranoia filled my head, and after a few seconds, the tension dissipated, and they nodded in agreement. I don’t know how, but I had logically made a deduction in the case. My brain was lagging behind what was coming out of my mouth, so the realization kicked in like a bus hitting me head on. How long do they send you to prison for impersonating an officer of the law? I wouldn’t last a day in that shithole, they’d shank me before my foot hit the welcome mat.

I locked my eyes with Columbo’s, but his weren’t meeting mine. As much as I waited, his eyes stayed on the body. Maybe he was deep in thought, I thought. He could either be visualizing the murder, or thinking of the best way to tell me I’m under arrest without having me go into a manic episode, eating his nose faster than a bath salts addict, but what he actually did, surprised not only me, but my colleagues as well. He shook my hand and with a smile said, “I knew you guys would help, I’ll get the word out to be on the lookout for a suspicious woman suspect in the case. You three take care and let me know if you find anything else.” Before leaving the crime scene, and also leaving us alone with this corpse. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” Alis admitted to us, pale as a ghost. I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him in close for a pep talk, “For Christ’s sakes man, pull yourself together, we are the police, guardians of the peace!” I could feel him about to pass out in my arms, but Verlaine suggested we take our leave quickly and return to our own hotel room to process the recent events.

As we left that crime scene and walked down the hall to the elevator, I tried to wrap my own mind around what was happening. When I saw that dead guy on the bed, I felt sorry for him, they’ll have to explain to his mother that his last moments were in a fursuit. The mortician is going to have to get him out of that thing now. For once though, in the moment I was in that crime scene, I didn’t see that corpse as a cult member, but instead just a guy in an overpriced suit that he puts on as a hobby. It felt wrong to even say, but it felt like the truth, I couldn’t see anything cult like about the scene, but that could have been what they wanted me to believe, sneaky bastards. Nope, I can’t even try and convince myself now, it just feels like I’m lying to myself even though I know I’m not, wait, how would I know if I was lying to myself, I can’t read my own body language. “Wait just a sec guys,” they both stopped in their tracks and turned to see me mouthing words at myself in the mirror of the hallway, trying to read Bernard. “Are you having a stroke?” Verlaine inquired, clicking her fingers at my eyes. It took me a minute but after my auto interrogation I turned back to them and resumed our walk to the elevator, “What the hell was that?” Alister now asked, looking at my face for anything I might’ve seen in the mirror, “Oh nothing, just needed to see if I was a lying son of a bitch, which I am, don’t worry. Make sure not to trust a word that comes out of these lips.”

When those elevator doors closed behind us, Alister snapped and pinned me to the wall, “Do you have ANY idea what you’ve done Bernie?!” His aggression was making me tense but getting in a fight with Alis would have ended about as quickly as a cage fighter against a baby. “Look, there’s nothing to worry about Alis, Columbo is completely unaware that we’re just journalists. Besides, journalism is basically the same as crime scene investigation.” His brow furrowed and his grip tightened, “What happens when they figure out we’re not fucking cops, huh? I am not going to prison, cause guys like me never last in prison, those guys are lonely in there, they’d love someone like me to wrap their arms around all night in a strong embrace to take away the thought that they may never see civilisation for the next 20 years of their life, and then when I get released for good behaviour, they’ll shank me in the showers, cause if they can’t have me, THAN NO-ONE CAN!” His breathing was getting erratic, on the verge of hyper-ventilation. Verlaine didn’t seem bothered by the prospect of imprisonment, and when Alis asked for her to back him up, she replied, “I wouldn’t mind prison, I’ve seen Orange Is the New Black, I’ll be living the dream with my lesbian brethren.” I had never been in a longer fucking elevator ride in my life, I know they always called the things death traps, but I thought it would be for the faulty mechanics, not cause you’d be in one with a man that has nothing left to lose. “Alis, baby, bubba, calm your tits. We’re going to solve this case, and we’re gonna disappear like the wind on a spring breeze.” He released me from his grip, but at the cost of his composure. He broke down and sat on his ass trying to cope, rubbing and slapping his face like it was an untenderized chicken, “We’re going to fucking prison, I can’t believe, I am going to fucking prison. I’ll be a hitman’s teddy bear to spoon in his sleep.” Jesus, how long can a fucking elevator take? I swear that floor number hasn’t changed since we got in this thing, there’s only 5 floors on this building, it can’t possibly take this long. “Alis, I know this is daunting, but you have to keep your eyes on the prize. We could help solve this case and have the most in depth piece of crime journalism since In Cold Blood. I know you’re scared, and deep down I am too, but if we go to prison, there’s no-one else I’d want to be sharing a cell with than you and Verlaine.” My sweet words seemed to quell his fears of being institutionalized and looked up at us with a smile, “You really mean that?” We helped him up to his feet and gave him a group hug, making sure to pat his back multiple times to reproduce the feeling of him being a baby and having to be burped by his parental figure, reassuring him the whole time with “I do, I really do.”

Our moment of kinship was interrupted by a mysterious voice, “Uhm, would you guys like to go to a room meetup?” I looked up to the ceiling in search of the voice before falling to my knees, ready to repent for my sins “God, is that you?” but my faith was once again crushed, as we realized there was some guy huddled in the corner of the elevator, holding onto the fake tail wrapped around his waist for dear life. I got back up and looked down at him, composing myself once again, fixing my hair and jacket with a cough, “Do we want to go to a what?” I asked, looking back at that damn floor counter, the thing still hasn’t moved, what the hell was wrong with this thing? “You know, a room meetup, it’s when people meet up in hotel rooms and do stuff. I heard you talking about spooning and some kind of prison roleplay, I know some guys that do that. Also please don’t hurt me.” This man trapped inside this mechanical people dumbwaiter lift, had given us an insight not yet explored in our research of this convention. “So is this like a ritual thing or cul-OW FUCK!” I tried to inquire further, but my bandaged hand was slapped by Verlaine, “What he means to ask is, when do these room meetups start?” After some back and forth about the details of these night-time gatherings, we had new plans instead of sleep. It was only after we asked that quivering mess of a man our last question did he give us the solution to our problem with the stationary elevator, “Are you guys gonna pick a floor to go to? Cause I’m on number two if you could push it please.” We hadn’t pressed the fucking floor button, it was then and only in that moment did I start to worry about our ability to solve a murder case, if we weren’t able to operate a simple elevator. The simple fact was, we were all dumber than a sack of bricks.

Operation Bathhouse began to take root as soon as we got back to our hotel room. As nervous as Alister was not two minutes ago, he understood that in this moment, we could not stifle in our journalistic abilities. We had nothing written for this article yet in the two days we had been here so far, but now that we knew of this night-time activity that was right under our noses, we may have uncovered the gold mine of investigative journalism that we came here to find. This shit was more valuable to us than black gold, or oil for you those of you not in the know of the oil biz lingo. Each one of us understood the gravity of this situation, and how it was of a higher importance than a murder that may have needed to be solved. It’s not everyday that a cult gets exposed, but journalists do suspiciously shoot themselves in the back of the head everyday, so the risks were high for us. We mapped out each floor of the hotel and got ourselves appropriate items to avert suspicion. After a quick trip to a 7-Eleven, we had enough cans of White Claw Hard Seltzer to hydrate a mega church congregation. White Claw was the quickest way to a furry’s heart.

After some debating as to the safety of this decision, we agreed it would be better if we split up, as to have more material to work with by the end of the night. “Alright, we meet back here at midnight, if one of us isn’t here, we’ll call the police and say there’s a hostage situation, the swat team will deal with it from there.” We all nodded with reassurance and gave each other a group hug. As we broke away from the embrace, Verlaine began to rub her temples, “You got a headache or something?” My worry was shushed quickly as she seemed deep in thought. “Bernie, shut up! I’m trying to telepathically sense for nearby lesbians, and your nagging is tampering the process.” I wasn’t just going to let her get away with that bombshell of a fucking statement. “Woah woah woah, telepathy? Lesbians? What is this, some kind of superpower?” She groaned and took her hands off her head looking at me with annoyance, “No, superpowers are rare and unique, this is just something all lesbians possess.” I gave Alis a glance as to say, get a load of this guy, but she continued, “Haven’t you ever noticed that wherever we go, I can seemingly always get pussy no matter what? Even at that gay conversion camp we went to, don’t you think it was odd that I knew precisely which one of the councillors was a closeted butch?” I scoffed with disbelieve in my scoff, oh I scoffed a mighty scoff, so mighty that I did it twice, it was a scoff that said that every word out of Verlaine’s mouth was nonsense and to indicate that I was no fool, I would not fall for silly pranks of this nature, HAH, telepathy? Who does she think she is, Carrie? Nice try but I was not going to entertain this absurd notion, oh how un-sane, one might say, insane, to believe such childish things. The absurdity was getting to a point where a third scoff was necessary, only the third one was met with a hard slap to my bandaged hand by Alis, “FUCK! It isn’t an untenderized chicken, you can stop slapping it!” I hunched and heaved in pain fighting back tears, before shaking it off. “Fine, you go find your lesbians, we meet back at midnight, don’t forget.”

We went our separate ways after that, but Verlaine’s telepathy was at the forefront of my mind. What a shitty superpower to have, being able to read the minds of exclusively lesbians. How much She-Ra and the Princesses of Power fanfiction has she had to inadvertently hear by listening in on the inner thoughts of all those rambunctious butch bitches. I’ve always wanted to help Verlaine pull, but she never seems to have any issue in that regard, and it pisses me off cause I can’t pin point her type. Most of the women she hooks up with either growl at me or bore me to sleep with their opinions on gothic 18th century paintings, so I never get the chance to see any similarities in them. There doesn’t seem to be a preference between bodacious bull dykes, or petite femmes. Verlaine’s preference would forever be up there with the unanswerable questions of the universe, such as, how did it all begin? Why do we love? Why is my Showerhead Leonard Nimoy? And what is the meaning of life? They’re all equally mysterious and existential to think about. Now that I think about it, all Verlaine’s partner’s look a little like her mother, or am I just thinking of her mom now? Put it up there on the existential questions never to ask myself again.

I roamed the halls by my lonesome, equipped with nothing but my fisticuffs and a box of White Claw cans to fend off any thirsty bitches that might see me as a snack. Noises began to be heard from thin walls to rooms where God knows what could be happening. If I had the imagination that I craved, I would probably just be able to create a cohesive timeline of events up until midnight, but nothing ventured is nothing gained. I needed to have a first-hand account of everything that went on in these rooms, come nightfall. I faced a difficult conundrum before I could continue however. From where I was standing, there was two rooms opposite each other, both with invitations that indicated serious sexual escapades would be committed in these rooms. Both had unofficial placards nailed to their door, one reading “D&D Club” the other being “Throbbing D&D Club~” I began thinking this was some sort of test, I’d have to pick the right door and present my gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, only in this case it was White, Claw and Seltzer. I couldn’t see a difference in these rooms, so I left my decision to chance. I spinned in a circle for a minute, most likely worrying anyone that walked down that hall while I was doing it, and when I reopened my eyes, I was standing in front of the D&D club door. On one hand I was excited to learn how to play the game that everyone wouldn’t shut up about, on the other I would have to sit with nerds for 6 hours while Verlaine and Alis were laying more pipe than a plumber.

I walked to the door, giving it a knock with my fist, looking back at that Throbbing D&D Club door one last time, wondering what opportunities I had missed. The door swung open and I turned to greet a Big Bang Theory cast lookalike, only my expectations were shattered, like my face this morning. Towering over me was a walking sculpture of a man, arms folded, looking very capable of snapping my spine like a twig. I was intimidated at first, then slightly turned on. I upheld the cans of White Claw and made a noise that resembled no English word. He grunted and pulled me into the room by the collar. As soon as I was in, I had a feeling I would not be getting out until the deed was done. There was absolutely no boards or dices to be seen in the room, but there was a dungeon master, clad in nothing but a gimp mask and leather jockstrap, with whip in hand and dragons bent over, ass up for him. Everyone in that room had their eyes on me, I was fresh meat for them. I had a cold yesterday, I don’t know if I mentioned it, yeah, couldn’t really smell a thing to be honest, Jesus I would French kiss a plague victim to not be able to have my sense of smell right now. Oh, that last sentence goes against everything I said in the last Act? How did I smell the cunny juice if I had a cold? Oh yeah, I made that shit up, did I not tell you? Must’ve been wrapped up in all the excitement, but yeah, I was just thinking of visiting a dominatrix while I was looking at that corpse, it’s kind of my happy place, so I just said I could smell that pussy piss on that guy’s face. I hope you don’t think of me less now that I’ve revealed I’m a lying son of a bitch, wait a minute, I did that earlier, so it’s your own fault for believing me, for shame.

The room was a sight to behold, it was like a Joan Baez wet dream, animals of all species, making and spreading love with one another, foxes kissing rabbits, wolves fucking sheeps, even an eagle feeding a fish. It was all so beautiful, if it wasn’t for the very definite sickly-sweet scent of semen in the air. I could feel my stomach in desperate need to expel itself, but before I could turn them on even more, I was pushed from behind into the pile. I found myself drowning in a sea of skin and sex, loosing sight of the world as I was consumed into the culmination of this apex sex pile. It did feel nice to be apart of something. With every sense and nerve being attacked from all angles, I froze in pure fear, allowing them to have their way with me. My vision was getting blurry and I didn’t know if I couldn’t feel touch, or if it was because I was being touched all over my body, but my skin felt unnatural. I was losing sense of reality and as I do in all sexual encounters that are going south, I shouted “STEVE URKEL GAVE ME AIDS” where upon every body and soul in the room clung to the walls to be as far away from me as possible. I gasped for air and found the door wide open for me to exit, which I did, post haste. It wasn’t until I was outside the door, did I realize my pants and only one of my shoes were gone, and when I looked down at Evelyn, somehow 6 hours had passed in that room.

It was 11:55 and I had to get back to that meeting point before this place became hunting season. After running up those flights of stairs shoeless and pantless, I realized it would be difficult to explain this one when I got to Alis and Verlaine. I made it there with a minute to spare, taking the time to pant and have heart palpitations. I turned my head to see Alister walking down the hall, dressed head to toe in purple, complete with a crown of gold and every gemstone imaginable, and I thought I’d have a hard time explaining what had happened to me. “Why do you look like Prince?” I said, hands on my hips, still catching my breath. “And why do you look like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?” I recounted my time bending experience in the sex pile and how I came to lose half my clothes by suspicious circumstances. Alis began to recount his tale of woe, taking off all the royal attire clad on his back, “Well I picked a room called The Bear Den, thinking I would fit in there, only when I walked inside, they put a bag over my head and zip-tied my hands behind my back. I could feel them stripping me then, so I thought “aw shit, it’s gonna happen, finally gonna lose my V-card” but no, they start putting clothes back on me, not just any clothes, silk clothes Bernie, SILK! When they took the bag off my head, I was sitting on a chair made from naked men who had volunteered to kneel for me to sit on their backs, everyone else was bowing before me. I asked them what was happening, and they told me I was the chosen one, the bear to rule them all. I was kind of honoured and a little flustered at first but then after a few hours of them feeding me grapes and washing my feet like I was Jesus, it kind of got boring, and weird cause they were cleaning me the same way a cat would, you know what I mean? Yeah, I don’t want to go into it, but it all ended when they grabbed a butcher knife and asked if they could “Display my Royal cock just like Rasputin’s in a formaldehyde jar.” I noped out and got the fuck out of dodge by telling them my wife wouldn’t like that, and that’s when they all picked me up and threw me out of the room.” I snapped out of my shocked expression and looked around in a 360-degree angle. “Wait, where’s Verlaine? It’s five minutes past midnight.” Alis shared in my worry and checked his pockets, “Well I don’t have a phone, since you threw mine out the window on the way here,” but that wasn’t the worst part. I punched the walls like they were my wife, cursing her for this situation, “FUCK! I don’t have mine cause I chucked it out our window this morning.” We we’re now severely worried for the safety of our trusted colleague, and we’d have to go back into the heart of darkness if we wanted to save her.

The search was on, and Alis had begun biting his nails, “Oh Bernie, what if she’s been caught by that snatch killer on the loose? I don’t know what I’d do if we lost her. She’d know how to take care of herself right? She’s smart, she wouldn’t end up asphyxiated on a hotel bed would she? Oh this stress is killing me.” His stress was bleeding over onto me, as much as I tried to keep my cool, I snapped at him, “Look, we’re going to find her! Now just keep calm and carry on,” I began whistling the tune of Will.i.am Shat In Her’s Rocketman, and only after that did I lose all hope of ever seeing her again, she would never just leave me whistling that tune on my own, none of us would, it would be morally wrong. I fell to my knees and began sobbing, “YOU ANIMALS KILLED HER! HOW COULD YOU!?” Alis joined me in grieving, holding me for comfort as did I for him, only it was interrupted with, “Hey guys, what you been up to?” Alis and I snapped our necks towards Verlaine, standing in the doorway of the room right next to us. We rushed her with a hug, still crying “We’re so sorry Verlaine, we shouldn’t have left you with these wild creatures. Did they hurt you? Did they worship you? Whatever they did, we will rip their throats out for it!” She didn’t seem in distress at all to our surprise, and we noticed behind her were a number of women fully clothed in flannel shirts and denim jeans reading Virginia Woolf while girl in red played on a vinyl player in the background, it all made sense to me now, “Wait, this is a lesbian meetup room, but there’s no sign on the door, how the hell did you find this place?” and with a sigh, Verlaine repeated herself once again, “Bernie I told you before, lesbians are telepathic.” My crying ceased immediately and was replaced by a fourth scoff, “You know you sound crazy when you say that,” only she had her comeback ready as always, “Says the guy with no pants and one shoe on at the moment.”

I sighed feeling defeated by the operation, I suppose a failure would be the right word to use for it, at least that’s how I felt about it, I mean I didn’t get to hang out with lesbians reading feminist literature for 6 hours, I only spent two minutes in a room that somehow equated to 6 hours of time. “Fuck it, you guys want to go get food?” They nodded at the suggestion, and we walked for the exit, “Where would be open at this time?” I lumbered forward, giving off the same emotion as a depressed puppy, “It’ll have to be fast food, I saw a Burger King down the street,” although Alis made the alternative suggestion that we go to McDonald’s, but I gave him disapproving eyes and he remembered the problem with that idea. You see Verlaine had chronic Coulrophilia, an extreme attraction to clowns, and ever since the last time we visited a McDonald’s, we’ve sworn to keep her on the straight and narrow, and off Ronald McDonald’s cock. It was a cold night outside, I could feel ice nearly forming on my legs and cold breezes blowing up my briefs onto my balls. I tied my blazer around my waist to give me at least some protection from the elements, but it did as much as covering the homeless with tissue paper instead of blankets. We reached the kingdom of the burger royalty and while most would bow to a king, all I was in desperate need of was a ciggie before I ate. Wasn’t there something about how you shouldn’t eat before smoking? Or was that swimming, meh, tomato tomato. I reached into the inner jacket pocket to find those bastards had robbed me, “Thieving shitheads! Stole my fucking jenkem ciggies, I’m gonna need to improvise, Alis you order, I gotta use the bathroom.” It was always a pain to have to streamline the jenkem production process, without the proper facilities, it just felt cheap and unclassy smoking the shit, which was not the life I was about, but when push comes to shove, I shit bricks and smoke it up.

It didn’t take more than thirty minutes, but I had gotten my fix for the night and satiated my cravings. Contrary to the name, the food wasn’t fast at all, and only came out of the kitchen as I walked out of the bathroom, it’s amazing how lazy minimum wage workers will get at one in the morning. I sat down at the booth my colleagues had chosen and looked around to see we were the only ones here at this time of the night. Our food was placed in front of us, but before we could dig into the buffet, there was a slight error in the order, according to what I was seeing, “Why is there three burgers? Alis you glutton, did you order two for yourself?” but Verlaine interrupted, just like that lesbian movie with prominent lesbian Whoopi Goldberg, “I ordered a burger for myself Bernie, don’t worry.” I was confused and slightly shocked, as to why a devoted vegan such as Verlaine would order a slab of meat for consumption, but I was too hungry to stop her from abandoning her morals so I just started eating my own and waited to see what would happen.

We had filled our bodies to the limits, but that burger still sat in the middle of the table, still wrapped and untouched. Alis reached his hand for it asking, “You gonna eat that?” only to have his wrist slapped away by Verlaine, “HAH, doesn’t feel good when it’s your hand getting slapped now does it?” I chuckled only to get my shin kicked under the table, “AW FUCK YOU!” While I rubbed my freezing legs, Verlaine picked up the burger and walked outside with it. We followed with curiosity, me limping now cause of Alister’s swift kick. We walked to a patch of decorative grass in the parking lot, as Verlaine produced a small trowel from her own jacket pocket, “You carry around a trowel at all times?” She began digging a grave fit for a baby and looked up at us, “It can be used as a weapon, and you never know when you’ll need to relive stress with some gardening. You smoke shit, I plant seeds, to each his own.” I couldn’t argue with her, I had been known to garden a bit in my time, it was always a calming experience, planting your seed into mother earth, but then every time I would say that to myself something felt wrong about it so one day I up and stopped doing her, I mean it. I should really get back to breeding with mother Earth, wait, there’s probably a better way of phrasing it but, you know what I mean.

Once the hole was dug, she placed the still wrapped burger into it, before standing and asking us if there was anything we’d like to say, “Wait, so this is a funeral now? For the burger?” She folded her arms at me, making me feel inadequate, same way my mother used to do, damnit why do women have this effect on me, “Yes Bernard, that burger was a living breathing creature you know, before they chopped it up into itty bitty pieces for human consumption, and it deserves the same treatment and love, just as much as a dog or a cat or even a parrot. All animals should be cared for.” I felt shitty and ignorant, and I could see it on Alister’s face as well. I nodded and apologized, “You’re right, I’m sorry. He’s was a good man, hell of a drinker, could talk your ear off, but a good friend and a better father.” Verlaine nodded back, “Thank you, that’s more like it.” She kneeled back down to bury the patch of cow, but I stopped her before she could pour the first handful of dirt into the hole, “WAIT, what should we name it?” Alis rotated his head towards me in annoyance, “What?” I rotated mine back, “Well we have to give it a name, to put on it’s gravestone,” Verlaine sighed, “Bernie there is no headstone, what would a name matter?” I placed a hand on my hip in an act of displaying sass, “We go through all this trouble to bury this cow and we haven’t even named it? How inconsiderate is that? I mean, what names would suit a cow? Ruby, Charles, Mike, Cassandra, Daisy,” but Alis made the observation that, “Bernie, those are all the names of your ex’s,” I feigned surprise, “WHAAAAT? Noooo, are you sure?” They groaned and Verlaine started burying the meat patty, “Wait, we still haven’t decided on a name yet,” Alis stopped me, “And we’re not going to.” How inconsiderate of them to not even humanize this beautiful animal, “Oh that’s just typical, way to shit all over my positivity there Alister,” I could see him about to crack but he remained composed in his best effort, “I’m not shitting on your positivity Bernie, I’m just saying it’s silly to name a cow that we know nothing about,” I lashed out, saying the dreaded words “OH SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS.” That’s the last thing I remember of that night, before getting punched in the face by Alister’s hand and losing consciousness, I couldn’t really blame him, I would’ve done the same, or should I say, I did do the same. Wait, didn’t I say nothing interesting happened during the convention? Oh, well I did say I was a lying son of a bitch didn’t I so, it’s really your own fault, for shame.