Portable Curiosities Read Online Free Page A

protective because I love them too much and I can’t help it I’m jealous of any man who even looks their way and I never meant to hurt them and I only want what’s best for them and please remember the serenade in the piazza and the English roses and my great-grandmother’s rings and the strawberries and the chocolates and all those times I sat through interminable dinner parties with their friends and how if you add all that time and effort up it shows I love the breasts more than any other breasts in the universe.
    And when the breasts have stopped trying to self-harm by throwing themselves against the wardrobe and the windows and the bathroom mirror and when I’ve got them down on the carpet and they’re a bit calmer, I remind them they’re not babies anymore, they can’t be so emotional, they’re embarrassing themselves by being such drama queens, all I wanted was to conduct a normal conversation like normal grownups do, that I only start these conversations sometimes when I’m feeling down, that a guy needs to be able to vent his feelings once in a while without the threat of breasts going psycho, that it’s not like I even beat them up, and I also remind them of how much I care about them even though they’re so sheltered from reality they don’t even realise no other man alive would treat a pair of breasts like them so well, and they should always remember there are other breasts out there who’d be grateful to have a man as loving and protective and understanding as I am.
    Then I forgive them for making such a disgraceful scene and I cuddle them and let them lie against me again like helpless, blind puppies.
    And as I sit there, stroking them to sleep, I think about how the Fantastic Breasts need me and how the metropolis, in turn, needs the Fantastic Breasts and therefore how, without my continued commitment to the care of the Fantastic Breasts, the metropolis faces doom. Then I close my eyes and I don’t feel so bad anymore, comforted by the knowledge that I am the manliest manly man the world has ever seen.
    But a man who is the manliest of manly men must also think responsibly about the future of the metropolis. So I start considering how in-built obsolescence is a fact of life and how mammary glands are no exception to the rule. And I decide that, once the Fantastic Breasts begin to slouch and sag, and when they begin to miss the fly balls at Tokyo Dome, and when no one marvels at them anymore when I take them out for a stroll, I’ll need to begin keeping an eye out for a more youthful, more fantastic set of breasts that are likely to come tottering out of nowhere, preferably a set synthetically enhanced so that they depreciate in value at a much slower rate than the ugly old hag of a set I once picked up at that miserable conference on The Difficulties of an Objectified Existence in a Patriarchal World.

Satirist Rising
    She has a strange feeling about the man sitting next to her on the skyglide.
    He is dressed in a three-piece tweed suit and a red bow tie. His grey hair is slicked back.
    He is eating a courtesy packet of peanuts and thumbing through an old copy of The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy .
    From the corner of her eye, she watches him rub his thumb against his fingertips to rid himself of the salt. Under the overhead reading light, the cufflink on his left sleeve gleams at her: it is the head of an onyx panther baring ivory fangs.
    He stands in the next line at Immigration. He inches forward with her until they are both at the head of their queues.
    She waits for a family of four to move through the gate. Then it is her turn.
    She wheels herself forward.
    â€˜Evie Bluhm?’ says the machine.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Enjoy your stay in Auckland.’
    At the baggage carousel, he waits next to her.
    He steps forward and pulls a tan leather suitcase off the moving belt.
    Instead of hurrying off, he lingers. He doesn’t look at her but