Chapter 4: The Pigs

[The previous chapters of this long piece of dreck can be found here]

I suppose that you, like Sterling, know nothing of pigs, so I will describe them to you. The first to come through the door was a Gloucester Old Spots, which is a white bacon pig with black spots. They sometimes have floppy ears that hang in front of their faces, but this one did not. His ears were neatly tucked beneath a bowler hat, which he did not take off.

In addition to his hat he wore a coat, vest, and tie. Across his expansive waist was a large gold chain, and in his hand he carried a cane. Behind him came three other pigs. Two Landraces (those are large, pink pigs) and a Hampshire, who was clearly a sow, since she wore a pink bow in her hair. The Landraces, who were boars, wore Navy uniforms. Their white caps had “H.M.S. Pigtail” written in gold letters across a red band that encircled the caps, and long, powder blue ribbons trailed down their backs. They had the sleeves of their stripped shirts pulled up to the elbows, revealing meaty forelegs complete with tattoos of piggish mermaids.

The four pigs were no sooner in the door than the old spots in the bowler hat stopped, looked at Sterling, and said in a loud, forward, voice:

“Ah, I see you have a visitor, Mr. Rabbit. An American, I presume.”

“Yes, indeed. An American.” Randy replied. He motioned Sterling to come closer and said, “Sterling, allow me to introduce you to Senator Chazer, our representative to the House of Lords. Senator, this is Sterling Macy, a lost American that Shash found wandering in the woods.”

The big pig bowed, but not very deeply. Sterling understood the hint. He realized that he should bow also. As he did he locked eyes with the pig, who kept staring, which Sterling understood was another hint to bow lower, so he did. He kept bowing lower until he had bowed quite low, as low as he thought he could, at which point the pig’s gaze softened and the Senator broke into a wide, piggish, smile.

“I see Shash has already introduced our young visitor to your dreadful skunk weed. The cub has already begun to sprout hair.”

Sterling looked at his arms, and to his amazement they were covered in fine black fur. He would have been, and he should have been, horrified, but his head was still full of dope smoke, and the whole day had been so odd that he was easily distracted by Randy the Rabbit, who was suddenly talking and flitting about the living room brushing off seats, dumping ashtrays, and madly collecting glasses.

“Here, come in, sit down, please,” he said, stuffing newspapers and magazines under his arms. “I’m sorry the place is such a mess.”

“No need to clean up,” said the Senator, moving to the yellow Naugahyde chair, “We’ll only stay a moment and we don’t mind the mess, after all…” he said looking directly at Sterling “… we’re pigs.”

He smiled. Randy paid no attention and kept picking up, Shash sat motionless on the couch. Sterling stared blankly at the pig, who seated himself and swept his hand towards the other pigs still standing by the door.

“Allow me to introduce my companions. This is my grand-nice, the fair Lady Petunia.”

The sow curtsied. It looked absurd. She wore a Hawaiian-print muumuu that was so thin it did nothing to disguise the wild gyrations of her ventral teets as she tried to dip into a curtsy.

“Come sit with us, dear,” said the Senator, “That is, unless, of course, Shash would like to give you a tour of the rabbit hole.”

Shash, who up to this point had remained perfectly relaxed and almost motionless on the couch, turned his head slightly toward the pig as if noticing him for the first time.

“She can sit,” Shash said.

“You heard the bear,” said the Senator, “come, sit with us, Petunia. Take a seat next to our friend Shash here, that he might smell the sow a bit.”

Shash rolled his eyes and exhaled loudly through his nose.

“Those other two gentlepigs,” The Senator continued, looking at Sterling, “Are Otto and Oscar, my security detail. Come,” he said gesturing to the pigs by the door, “sit down boys. You’ll make the rabbit nervous if you stand by the door. As the old saying goes, ‘when pigs are at the door, the wolf can’t be far behind.’”

The pigs all laughed. Petunia in a high pitched giggle that she hid behind a hoof.

Randy swept back into the room, a microburst of frenetic energy. He put down a large platter of acorns, apples, and cheeses. Then he set glasses next to each of the guests and began to fill them from a large brown bottle of beer.

“You are too kind,” said the Senator.

The pigs all helped themselves to the treats that had just been set before them.

“Tell me, Sterling,” the Senator said, pointing his snout directly at Sterling, for it was the snout, and not the squinty eyes behind it, that seemed to be the old pig’s most expressive facial feature. The wet nostrils and tip twitched for emphasis as he spoke, “How is it that you ended up here, in the land of Acheinishingbeingfronderlock?”

Sterling, still stoned, struggled for an answer. First because he was transfixed by the pig snout now pointing at him, and secondly because he couldn’t understand the name the pig had just applied to the place he was in. He had many, many questions, and knew very little, but he was sure that he had already had this discussion and knew the name of the place as “Mushamaguntic.”

“Well,” he stammered, “shifting uncomfortably in his chair and running his hands through his hair, “I’m not really sure. I was in a bar… and there was singing… and I saw this woman… and…”

“Faeries”, Shash interrupted, without moving a muscle. He sat rather stiffly on the couch, careful not to touch the female pig beside him.

The sow giggled again, as did the pigs by the door. Senator Chazer’s face broke into a wide smile.

“… and you wanted to mount the faerie, didn’t you?” I think the word you use is ‘fuck’.”

The pig said “fuck” with gleeful emphasis. He laughed, but his laughing wasn’t the high pitched giggling of the sow and the flunkies behind him. His laugh started as a deep guffaw that shook his belly and waist coat. Then he reached his snout upward, opened his mouth, and he let out a big, hardly laugh.

The laughing circled around the room. The other pigs began squealing. It was a most unpleasant sound. Shash seemed to chuckle a bit, and Randy, who was now settling into an end of the couch near the Senator, had a wide grin on his face.

“Those faeries,” the pig said. “Everybody wants to fuck them, but you’ll never fuck a faerie, Sterling. You know what happens to you if you fuck a faerie?”

There was a pause. Everyone looked expectantly at Sterling, but the silence was short lived because suddenly one of the security pigs cried out.

“Your dick turns into cheddar cheese!” shouted the pig named Otto, who seemed genuinely happy to have the answer.

“That’s right!” said the Senator, “Even those factory bred morons,” he gestured to the security detail, “know what happens if you fuck a faerie.”

“Oh, that’s bullshit,” said Randy while lighting a cigarette. “That’s a bunch a crap that mothers tell their sons to stop them from whacking off to faerie porn. If that was true you couldn’t have Umblogs and half-fairies and all that crap.”

“Really, Randy,” The Senator said, “You suddenly seem well versed in faerie lore. I knew you were knowledgeable on the law and how to subvert it, but as to faeries… this is a new area of expertise. You are telling me, Ser Rabbit, that you would fuck a faerie? I know you rabbits will fuck anything, but would you really chance your rabbithood by sticking it in a faeriehole?”

“I wouldn’t fuck a fairy,” Randy said definitively.

The pig seemed to relax, in a satisfied sort of way, not realizing that Randy had only paused for effect.

“Because,” he continued, “I wouldn’t want to get shit on.”

The room exploded in laughter. Peturnia began with a loud shriek and was soon joined by a chorus of squeals from the sailor pigs. The Senator kicked back in his chair, his hams lifting his back hoofs into the air, his forelegs stuck to his belly. Randy laughed in a crazy staccato, mouth wide open, eye’s bright, and ears, for once, standing straight up. Even Shash, the calmest animal at the party, laughed heartily. His big mouth open, his nose pulsing vigorously with each guffaw.

“You see, Sterling,” said the Senator, recovering himself and taking out a large spotted handkerchief that he used to wipe his eyes, “Faeries are perverted creatures. High minded in all things… speech, art, letters, warfare, government, et cetera… except sex. When it comes to sex they are filthy. They indulge in all manner of perversities… bug crushing, big babies, water sports, and, of course, they like to play with poo.”

Sterling was bewildered by the mirth that had exploded around him. The truth is he was quite worried about the hairs growing on his body. He felt utterly strange, and what he could grasp of the conversation didn’t seem to jibe with his memory of the faeries he had seen in the bar. They had seemed so lovely, so warm and friendly, so good and kind and wholesome that the idea of them having sex seemed utterly incongruous, and, not being able to fathom what the pig before him was saying, he merely repeated what had been said.

“They play with poo?”

There was a pause. The Senator leaned forward and was about to speak when he was interrupted by one of the Landraces. The one named Oscar, who said;

“I’ve eaten poo.”

The Senator froze. There was a most horrible silence. The sow began to make an almost inaudible squeal beneath her breath. Randy stared wide-eyed at the pig. Sterling looked at his hairy arm. Shash blinked.

“Revolting!” the Senator thundered. He stood up, his face suddenly flushed with a cocktail of embarrassment and rage. “No decent pig would ever do such a thing… and if he did… if he were forced to commit such a horrible and shameful act through circumstances of deprivation beyond his control, he would have the good sense never to mention it.”

The senator stood taller, puffing up to his full height with his ribcage swelling, his ponderous bulk now rigid and bent towards the cowering Oscar. His voice rose in both volume and bombast. It was a voice of indignation and frustration, a scream of annoyance that seemed utterly out of proportion to the tiny comment that proceeded it.

“For the sin of such comments is in the fact that they serve to perpetuate and solidify the prejudices and stereotypes that all other animals have regarding pigs. Such idiotic inaccuracies cement the unfair characterization of the noble porcine class as base, dirty, and untrustworthy creatures. Even gutter pigs like this,” he pointed dramatically at Oscar, “don’t do the things we are accused of. Raised in the factory farm, forced to live in filth, made to grovel for slop… uneducated, unwashed, undervalued and wretched in every way… even such a pig would be able hold fast to the noble heart, would, through nothing more than cultural inheritance, refuse to commit the acts of fecal ingestion and cannibalism that we, the pigs, are so often accused of.

Say that it isn’t so, Oscar! Recant! Tell me you never ate poo.”

The senator glared at the poor, quivering pig and repeated the command.

“Say that you never ate poo!” He shouted.

“I never ate poo” Oscar managed.

“It was a mistake to say you have.”

“I was mistaken.”

“You lied”

“I lied”

“You will apologize to our host”

“I am sorry, Mr. Rabbit, for talking about such subjects in your house.”

The rabbit’s eyes were wide with sympathy. With a wave of his hand he dismissed the offense, saying, “It’s not the first time such things have been talked about in this rabbit hole.”

A quick “hrumph” from the snout of the Senator marked the big pig’s displeasure at the lightness of the rabbit’s acceptance, and so nobody laughed or giggled. The room was quiet, as if everyone had been chastised equally. Shash alone looked unconcerned and Sterling looked as if he were horrified by the pig’s dressing down, but, in reality, his expression was a result of the inward panic he was feeling, for it was clear to him that he was turning into a skunk.

Continue on to the next chapter.