Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [52]
Beneath the logo on the cover, the main character, War Woman, who looked only vaguely like the actual Ms. Waboombas, was drawn in all her semi-naked glory, using her sword to behead a fat, doughy looking gentleman wearing a velour jogging suit. As if to prove he was somehow a ‘bad guy’ his severed head wore sunglasses, and the rest of him was bedecked with a staggering amount of cheap looking jewelry, all rendered with lots of shiny ‘glint’ marks.
Oh, and he carried a gun.
In the background of the cover there were two or three (the art was unclear) semi-naked women tied to some kind of torture device that—apparently in order to operate—must first remove the victim’s clothing in a rending fashion that leaves just enough shredded bits of material to obscure nipples and pubic hair from the view of any stray parents who might be wandering, lost, through the comic book store displaying it. In the foreground, the ‘villain’ (please, God, don’t let him be a rich, innocent fashion executive) clenched wads of money in his soon-to-be-dead, non-gun-toting hand. There was an amazing amount of blood everywhere, and—though you’d think it physically impossible—War Woman’s breasts were actually larger than the real Ms. Waboombas’. In her secret identity she must be a flotation device.
“In her secret identity, she’s a stripper. Like me,” said Ms. Waboombas, correcting my internal monologue and making me fear she could read minds. “The guy she’s killing is a club owner who takes advantage of the girls in the back room, then steals their money,” she continued, then apparently reading my distaste. “He deserved it.”
“Oh, I’m sure he did,” I said smiling, and double-checking the proximity of—and direction to—all nearest exits.
“Inside,” she said, “we learn he’s got a little dick. At the end, War Woman cuts it off and feeds it to him.”
I crossed my legs.
“Would that be before or after she beheads him?” I asked, not really wanting to know.
“After,” she told me, as if it happened every day before lunch. Twice during.
“How very Sin City,” I said.
She pointed at me and winked in a ‘gotcha’ kind of way. “Frank Miller. Love him. He’s got the right idea. People love seeing dicks cut off.”
Not really.
She picked something out of her teeth with an impossibly long fingernail. Whatever she was reaching for was so far back in her mouth, it was practically in her stomach. As she dug, she continued sucking at stray bits of blackened sausage flesh. The combination of sight and sound was simply enchanting.
I briefly thought to ask if her War Woman ‘story’ had any basis in fact, and if she had any wants or warrants, then quickly realized I couldn’t face it if any of the answers were ‘yes’. I strip-mined my brain in an effort to remember if I’d heard anything about headless strip club owners who’d been fed their own penises, miniscule or otherwise, and didn’t recall anything of substance. Not that it would have been in the sports or comics sections. I really should read more of the ‘news’ parts of the newspaper. It was now scaldingly apparent—as my fifth grade teacher had always said about math— that it really did have applicable uses in real life.
“I got a customer of mine to draw it,” Ms. Waboombas explained, still tooth-picking. I began to wonder if there might be a whole pig stuck in there. “He’s in love with me, so he did it cheap. His dad’s somebody.”
I waited. Then asked: “Somebody…?”
“…Famous in comics. I’m pretty sure.” She turned and looked off into the distance scowling. “Or maybe he’s the one whose dad was the dude they based ‘Natural Born Killers’ on.” She turned back to me and shrugged, then went back to roto-rootering her teeth. “Can’t remember.