Oh my God. Over there—I saw it again. I swear I did. There’s something watching. Glinty little eyes staring from that corner, right under my daddy’s stinky beaten-up old sneakers. I think it’s one of those eight-legged furry men I saw running around before.

I don’t understand. Doesn’t mommy love me any more? Why did she lock me inside daddy’s closet?

That thing is still spying on me. I can feel its prickly little eyestalks all the way down the back of my neck. I tried to stomp on it before, but it just scuttled away and hid. Ever since then it’s been waiting, getting ready to jump, to run over my skin and take a bite out of my hiney.

I hate those fuzzy eight-leggers. Even more than I hate running big-teeth barky boys. Even more than I hate grandma’s ginger longtailed meow-meows. Perhaps even more than those feathery flappy seed-eaters that come at you when you’re walking to school and try to crap right into your hair. All of them give me the hairy-licking creeps, bigtime.

Oh, Jesus! Something just moved! I swear to God, something just moved.

I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. Don’t like it. Don’t like it. Mommy, mommy, mommy. Please come and let me out. Please, mommy. Pleeeeaaase.

I don’t understand what just happened, anyhow. Why did mommy go so crazy like that? Right out of the blue?

“Bobby-boy! You filthy, stinking little piece of no-good shit! Can’t you go one minute without taking off all your clothes and touching your dirty little self right where the neighbors can see? Bringing shame onto your mommy who’s working so hard to raise you right!”

My head’s still ringing on the side where she whupped me good. Everything keeps going all wobbly and gray. I know that I’m still wearing the shorts that mommy calls my baby-blue shorts, for her baby-blue Bobby-boy, but I can hardly even see the color any more.

I do love my mommy. So, so much. When she’s having one of her good days, she musses up my hair with the biggest smile on her pretty round face, and she gives me a pile of kisses. Pretty sweet kisses for her sweet little Bobby-boy. Then her breath smells like nobody else’s mommy ever does. Sour, sharp and special, and just for me. I wish she were like that all the time. I love her so strong it’s sometimes it’s like she’s whupped me again, but from the inside out.

Why is my hand in my shorts again? No! No, no! Quit it! I didn’t do that! Honest, mommy, it wasn’t me!

Oh, sweet Jesus—is it supposed to feel that good when you put your hand on your dingaling? Kinda comforting and nice?

No, no, no, no! Quit doing that, Bobby-boy! Mommy said she didn’t like it. I don’t want her to stop loving me all over again. I oughtta hold my arms tight behind my back. That’s better. Now I can’t make her mad at me no more.

Please let me outta the closet, mommy. I’m sweating so bad now. It’s so hot and so close. I reckon I’m gonna die if I don’t get out of here soon. I’m breathing the same air I just breathed five times already and it’s not working any more.

Just let me out. Please, mommy, please. Bobby will be nicey-nice. I’ll show you what a good baby-blue boy your Bobby-Bob-Bobby-boy can be.

Please, mommy.

Pleee-eeaaaaaaaease.

London, England, the summer of 2002
inside the zookeeper’s hut: Vince Noir and Howard Moon
approximately 12.37 in the afternoon

“Have you heard what they’re saying, Howard?”

“And what would that be?”

The word on the street is that you’re Bob Fossil’s tiny bitch.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. That every Tuesday afternoon you put on tiny blue pants and do your special little dance for him. He gives you coin, you give him booty.” Vince Noir cocks his head to the side. He widens his eyes in challenge. “It’s no secret.”

“Really?” One eyebrow lifts; an attempt at disdain. “Whatever you say, little man.”

A tannoy unexpectedly cuts through the air, scratchy and hissing. DING DONG! Mr Bob Fossil’s voice follows, hideously amplified.

“This is a staff announcement. So listen up good. Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing, standing about listening to staff announcements? You should be raking in the dung! My dung! It’s my zoo! Get back to work! All right then. And would Howard Moon get his fat, homunculus ass into my office. Now!”

DING. DONG.

“You’re not going to go, are you, Howard?” Vince lays one hand on my arm. “It’s lunch break! Why don’t you stand up for yourself?”

“Of course I’m going,” I reply, standing up. “Listen. I’m working Bob Fossil from the inside. From the inside.”

London, England, the summer of 2002
Trapped inside the closet of Mr Robert Fossil, Junior
approximately 4.58 pm

I grant that to the casual observer, I, Howard T J Moon, may appear to have been trapped here, inside Bob Fossil’s wardrobe, for approximately the last four hours. And yes, I would also appear to be wearing nothing but a pair of tiny blue pants. But I assure you, there’s a deeper truth to this situation.

Consider the ancient Trojans. Didn’t they spend an entire night in hiding, waiting for just the right psychological moment of surprise? If you will, consider this wardrobe as my metaphorical wooden horse, from which I will presently emerge in triumphant glory.

Admittedly, most of the Trojan warriors carried mighty weaponry and antique bronze armour about their person. As opposed to one small pair of blue knickers and a poking device fashioned from a wire coathanger. But the true man of action improvises from whatever the flotsam of life throws at him.

My left knee is starting to cramp up quite badly now. I find myself speculating as to how long it will be until Mr Fossil returns. And what he’ll make me do in return for my release. No. Don’t think about that, Howard. Only madness that way lies.

Finally; the longed-for, dreaded sound of a key scrabbling in the lock. The closet door opens. Sunlight pours across my welcoming face like honey on a bee’s back after long, desolate months of winter hibernation.

“Alright, Howard?” Vince’s grin pokes through the door. Oh, thank God! I’ve never been happier to see his pointy-featured face in my life. “I know you said you’d be working Fossil from the inside, but I didn’t think you meant from inside his chest of drawers.”

I step stiffly out of the wardrobe, gathering my dignity. “Sometimes, little man, things are not all they seem.”

“Is that right?” Vince stands back to consider. “So you’re not really as naked as a greased eel, apart from some stretchy blue pants? That’s a pity, because they’re quite a good look on you. Though, personally, I’d accessorise them with a bumbag. Perhaps even an Jacobean muff.”

“Well, that’s the difference between you and me, isn’t it? You spend your time accessorising whereas I’m a man of action.”

“Yeah. Hot booty action, I’ve heard.”

I pause in the middle of a particularly dynamic stretch, which as well as demonstrating all my most active qualities, is quite good for the muscle spasms a man of my stature is bound to acquire when trapped in a wardrobe for several hours. I throw my all-too flippant companion a look of disdain. We men of action have long learnt to rise above such insinuations.

Suddenly, the door to the office crashes open. Bob Fossil bursts in, legs wide, panting madly, his pale blue safari jacket half-unbuttoned so that his twin forested hillocks spill out threateningly and generously towards us. Before I can stop myself I’m running for cover behind his desk, my body crouched up and curled over. I wait a cautious few seconds, then lift one eye over the table top.

Vince is just standing there, one hand on a hip. He sighs impatiently. “Whatcha doing here, Mr Fossil?” He sighs again. “This wasn’t part of our agreement.”

What the hell is he talking about?

“I’m sorry, Vincey-baby. I couldn’t help myself. I want it so bad. I need it now.”

Vince sighs again. “Alright. But then you’ll have to do it with Howard here, as well. I can’t leave him now, can I?”

Fossil squirms. “Do I have to…”

“Take it or leave it.”

“Ahhhh… okay, then.”

“Howard,” Vince casually beckons in my direction, “come on out. Don’t worry. Mr Fossil’s not going to hurt you.”

I’m entertaining some extreme doubts about that, but I unwrap myself from behind the desk anyway. Involuntarily, my hands clasp in front of me over an area that feels all too vulnerable right at the moment.

“Mr Fossil’s been telling me all about the special blue pants dance you’ve been doing together.” Vince’s voice stays even, but his eyes are suddenly glinting crazy like ice. “Yeah. All about it.”

Oh. My. God. I wish I were back in that wardrobe all over again. The skin on my body is burning alive with mortification, hot and cold, up and down my limbs in waves. No matter how tightly I scrunch my eyes closed and wedge my head down into my chest, there’s nothing on earth I can do to stop this all from happening.

The very thing I’ve been trying to hide from Vince for so long, and now he knows. And he’s found out exactly the kind of person I really am. I just want to die.

It all started years ago. I was trying to make a good impression with the new zoo manager, to get one up on Vince in the race for the Head Keeper position. Mr Fossil told me he’d a bad habit he was trying to cure himself of—could I help? It sounded reasonable enough. But when, at our next meeting, he produced the photographs in all their incriminating glossy colour glory, I couldn’t believe how I could have ever been so stupid. Me—bent over him. Me—brandishing various and imaginative devices of punishment. Him—wide open-mouthed and screaming for his mommy. At that point, I already knew that I would do almost anything to keep it a secret.

And so that’s how, for the last three months, Bobby-boy has been compelling me to dress up in skimpy blue underwear and dance around his office. On his command, I have to reach into my underpants and touch myself. When I do, he then shouts abuse at me and then hits himself with a rancid old pair of trainers. And for this, I get to keep my job.

Believe me, you can’t despise me any more than I despise myself.

Fossil is shuffling and looking shamefacedly towards the floor. “Bobby’s a bad, bad boy,” he repeats, over and over. “He can’t touch because it’s dirty and the neighbors might see. If Bobby-boy touches, then mommy should whup him, real bad, and that’ll learn him. That’ll learn him good.”

Vince strides over to the desk and with a swing, hoists himself up onto its cluttered top. He leans back onto his hands, crosses his skinny legs with a flourish and then circles one ankle, very slowly. For some reason, I find myself looking at the tip of his white cowboy boot as it lazily navigates the air. It’s almost mesmerising. By now, his quiet confidence has generated an aura of hushed expectation throughout the room. Fossil and I both look on at him in silent anticipation.

Although I don’t know why I’m expecting words of wisdom from someone who for holds to the belief that Vitamin H is essential to the proper functioning of the ‘style muscle’, and that the H stands for Haribo.

“Mr Fossil,” says Vince. “I really can’t see what your problem is. I mean, we’ve all had a wank or two in our time. Right? Are you scared you’ll go blind or something? Like, as if! Cause if that’s the way it worked, Howard here would be mucking out the flamingos with a white stick and dark glasses on.”

Thanks, Vince.

Immediately, Fossil becomes even more agitated, hopping from one foot to the other and plucking at his nipples through his bri-nylon safari shirt. “Mommy said no! Mommy said bad!” I think he might even be crying. His face is all red and screwed up. I turn quickly away, intensely uncomfortable.

Vince spends a moment considering, his head on one side. As he raises his eyes towards the ceiling, I’m almost sure I can hear his brain cells rub together. It makes a sound like five small shiny marbles rolling round a large amphitheatre. I lower my gaze to the sprouting hair on the back of one of my naked big toes, wishing I could escape. The whole situation seems crazy with bad ju-ju possibilities.

““I know!” An overjoyed light spreads across Vince’s face, as if he’s suddenly discovered the cure for split ends. “Right—get this! I’ll make out as if I’m your mum… what’s her name again?”

“Skunky-Lou Fossil.”

“Skunky-Lou?” Vince’s expression changes to disbelief. “What kind of name is that? Did she fall into the ugly name pit or something… okay, okay! Keep your hair on! No need to crease your face up about it. Okay—so imagine me now as the lovely Mrs Skunky-Lou Fossil.” He adopts a high-pitched pseudo-American accent, crosses his hands and perches the fingertips on top of his kneecaps. “Maaaa dear son. C’mere, son. Ah’ve saam-thing to tell ya.”

I notice that his voice is quavering considerably, possibly with the effort of imitating an elderly American lady. I could be wrong, though. All of a sudden, I get the impression that there’s something else going on here. Something that I don’t quite understand.

Fossil stops sniffling. “Muh… mommy?” He turns his face up hopefully.

“Now, son…”

“Bobby-boy,” interrupts Fossil, eagerly. “Mommy always called me Bobby-boy. Or shitface; depending on her mood.” His voice turns wistful. “I liked it better when she called me Bobby-boy.”

“Now, Bobby-boy,” quavers Vince. “Suhmtimes a man has certain urges. Whenever yuh feel one of those urges comin’ on, ah want ya ta…”

“Yes, mommy?”

“Ah want ya ta grab hold uh little ol’ Bobby there and ful-feel those urges. Yuh unnerstan’ me, mah boy?”

Fossil looks up at Vince with big, serious eyes. ““No, mommy,” he says. “Can you say it again using more easy words? For your Bobby-blue-boy?”

Vince’s shoulders are shaking up and down now. His voice has gone even higher pitched, his American accent even more extreme. “Ah-m a-telling you to masturbay-te. Pull one a-off. Play with your mee-ayt saw-sage. Bay-ash the bee-shop. Have a jerk whay-never you like. Pull yooo-ur willy till eet cries. Got it, Bobby-boy?”

Fossil nods, incredibly intently.

“You’ll do thay-at for your dear old momma?”

“Yes, mommy,” says Fossil, his head still bobbing up and down. “I’ll make it cry. And can Bobby-boy have a kiss? Please, mommy? Just one little kiss, just like you used to?”

Vince’s voice returns to normal with a deep rapid kick. “I’m not doing that!”

Fossil begins to sob, thumping his clenched fists against his temples. “I knew it! You do, you hate me, mommy! You think I’m a filthy little ballbag because I shame you so bad when I touch myself and then the neighbours saw and threw Chickadee doodah all down the side of our trailer!” His eyes are filling up again, watery and pathetic.

“Howard!” hisses Vince out of the side of his mouth. “Kiss him, for Chrissake!”

“What!” I say, aghast. “Why me? No! Do it yourself!”

“No way!” replies Vince. “You know he’s always had that thing for me. Every time I come near the office he’s after me to sit on his lap or trying to cop a feel. Imagine he’s halfway through kissing his mother and he gets a boner! Freudian nightmare! No chance of that if you give him a little peck. Go on, Howard. It’s safer this way. You do nothing for him at all.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

“Hey, it’s for your own good! Come on, think about it! A happy Bobby-boy means no more need for the dance of the little blue pants.”

I hadn’t even stopped to think of that. Could it really be possible? No more furtive office meetings? No more obscene and humiliating practices? No more torment and blackmail?

“Okay. You’re on.” I hardly even care now that I’m still in my little blue dancing outfit. Let’s get this done and dusted.

“Bobby-boy,” says Vince, back in his high-pitched Fossil-mommy accent. “Exactly how did I used to kiss you, son? Speak up an’all, I’m a trifle deaf.”

Fossil looks up from his sniffing. “Well… you used to kinda muss my hair and call me your good baby Bobby.”

I reach out to Fossil’s head of bouffant hair and fluff it hesitantly. At the same time, Vince croons, “Good boy, who’s a good Bobby-boy then, who’s my little love,” over and over.

Fossil drops to his knees in front of me. “Mommy was a lot taller than I was back then,” he explains.

So now Fossil’s crinkly red face is approximately level with my crotch. Great. I arch my midsection away as tactfully as I can, while continuing to stroke the top of his head. Fossil leans into my caresses, flickers his eyelids shut and gives a weak little smile.

“Ahhhh…. yeah. Then mommy would pull me right up against her heaving lady lumps.” His eyes are now tightly closed. “Oh, that used to be so good.”

I look over at Vince. With my free hand, I frantically point towards my lack of tits, implying that it might spoil the illusion somewhat when Fossil notices his mother has developed the breastage of a male English nakedman. Vince just shrugs and indicates in the direction of Fossil, urging me to get on with it.

I bend down, pull Fossil’s head into the middle of my chest and curve my shoulders around, trying to create as much woman-like cleavage as humanly possible.

Fossil sighs deeply and happily. “Mommy, that feels so good. I missed you so much.” He snuggles into my artificial bosoms. “Mommy, do you still love me?”

“Of course ah loves you, Bobby-boy,” warbles Vince, “and you have to promise me to love yourself too. And a lot. Yuh promise me that, my Bobby-boy?”

“Yes, mommy. I promise.” The breath of Fossil’s words tickles across my chest.

“And none of this weird guff about it being dirty?”

Fossil’s forehead wrinkles. “But mommy, you said…”

“Never mind all that. Just you touch your cock whenever you want. Remember, you promised your dear old momma.”

“But mommy, I’m so confused.”

“Mommy will kiss it all better.” Vince jabs his finger again furiously in my direction.

Oh, dear Lord. I bend over further and plant a kiss on Fossil’s forehead, right between his eyebrows. My moustache brushes his temples.

Fossil wriggles in my arms. “Ooh! That tickles!” He sighs blissfully. “Just like it used to. Ahhhhh! It’s so good to be back with you, mommy. Promise you’ll never leave me again. I love you so much.”

“Ah love you too, Bobby-boy,” quavers Vince. “But mommy can’t be with you all the time. You’re all grown up now. You have to live your own life—but you remember your promise, now.”

“Okay, mommy. I’ll remember. But don’t you go yet. I need another kiss. Please.”

This time I kiss Fossil’s joyfully rounded cheek. He rests for a while quietly there in my arms, just breathing in and out. My left forearm is starting to get pins and needles, but I hardly dare move in case it breaks the mood. It’s hard to recognise this peaceful face pressed up warmly against my skin as the same tyrant and petty blackmailer who’s made me dread coming to work on Tuesdays for the last few years of my life.

Has Vince really cured him of his need to torment me? Is Bobby-boy a happy boy now? Slowly, as if in a dream, Fossil begins to open his eyes. He turns his head and looks up at me. We are frighteningly close.

First, Fossil takes in a long, preparatory breath. Then he narrows his eyes. Pulling his head back, he hisses loud and clear. “Howard Moon. You stinky, gargoylian man-whelk. Never, ever touch me again. Never speak to me. Never breathe in the same metric mile as me. Or I’ll amputate your liver and fricassee it into the shape of a disappointed anus.”

I step away, holding my hands up defensively. “Fine, fine! I get the message!”

It looks like some things never change after all.

London, England, the summer of 2002
inside the zookeeper’s hut
approximately 5.54 pm

Vince is sitting at the table, sucking on his end-of-the-day strawberry shoelace. Me, I’m pacing about the tight boundaries of the hut; back and forth, back and forth.

“Howard—you alright there?” asks Vince.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” I reply.

I’m hoping he gets my unspoken message, which would be roughly:

Alright? Of course I’m not alright!

But just do me one tiny favour, Vince—let us never speak of today’s events ever again. Let us never, ever discuss how you discovered me today, ie in our managers office, in a poky wardrobe, wearing only a pair of tiny blue pants. Nor do I ever want to talk about the dancing in the blue pants. Nor the kissing of Bob Fossil. And above all else, I definitely never want to talk about this pesky habit I somehow seem to have developed of performing certain sexual practices on command for our beloved zoo manager.

Please Vince. Just let me push it all to the back of my mind.

Or at least until the next time I have to put on the blue pants and go dancey-dancey touchey-touchey for Mr Fossil. Because believe me, there’s no way I’ll be able to ignore the horrors of it then.

“I dunno… “ Vince says. “I thought perhaps you might want to go for a drink after work. Or whatever.”

“A drink? Do you mean with Charlie and Gideon and all the rest? But they never invite me along.”

“No, just us two. Might be a laugh.”

Bugger. He does want to talk about it. He’s going to get me drunk and vulnerable and ply me with questions. That’s how he found out about the time I dislocated my jaw giving mouth-to-mouth to that wasp. By teabreak next day, the whole zoo knew about it. Sniggering around corners. Making buzzy-buzzy noises.

“No thanks. I’ve got some urgent business with the sea eagles.”

“Come on, Howard! You should be kicking back! Partying! Don’t you realise you’re free?”

“Am I really? Free to do what, exactly? Free to shovel up sea eagle guano into pleasing pyramidical piles? Free to string their fallen feathers into a magnificent boa and present it to the flamingos?”

Vince stares at me. “Free from being Bob Fossil’s little blue-pants bitch, you great northern twat.”

“Yeah? Well, forgive me if I don’t explode with happiness.”

“I thought you’d be over the moon! What’s up with you? Do you miss the Fossil fun dollars he used to give you for shaking your booty, or something?”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be back for more. And in the meantime, you can have lots of laughs with your little friends, telling them all about what I get up to with Mr Fossil.”

“What? I’d never do that! No way!” Vince slams a sheet of paper down onto the table in front of him. “And if this is all the thanks I get from you, I’m beginning to wish I’d never bothered.”

I pick up the paper. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Only that I got Bob Fossil to swear, in writing, on his mother’s life, that he’ll never make you do that stuff ever again. He’s completely shit-scared of his mum. Dunno why.” As I scan the affidavit, Vince nonchalantly inspects one of his shiny new badges. He gestures at the document. “There’s her address at the top. It took me all of last year to track her down. Kinda like she didn’t want to be found.”

“It was?” I say. “He did?”

“Yep,” replies Vince proudly. “Well, I couldn’t just watch Fossil turn you into freakazoid central every Tuesday without sorting something out, could I?”

“You couldn’t? You didn’t?” I think I may be babbling. But really? Can it really be true? No more dancey dancey? And Vince spent a whole year working on it for me? Oh God, please let me not cry.

Vince comes over. He squeezes my shoulder. I feel myself welling up into the warmth of the contact. My blurred gaze fixes determinedly onto the document in front of me. Finally, Vince takes his hand away; I exhale carefully with relief.

“Course I couldn’t!” Vince says. A cheeky grin tugs at the corners of his face. “So how much were you raking in per dance of the blue pants?”

“Why, Vince?” My throat is horribly tight. It takes a lot of effort to reply with just the right air of offhand nonchalance. “Interested in purchasing my services?”

“As if! To watch you dance in blue pants? You’d have to pay me, just to get my sense of taste regrafted back on afterwards.”

Typical. Vince does something nice and two seconds later he’s back to casting assertions about my potency. This cannot go unchallenged. “Not everyone can handle the mighty sexual energy of the Moon. Of course, it would be far too much for a flimsy-boned electro-poppet such as yourself.” I quietly fold the document into a small, precious square and unobtrusively slip it into my pocket.

“Sexual energy? I’ve seen you dance. It’s like a eunuch with ten pointy elbows doing the shuffle. All the ladies duck for cover.”

“We’ll see about that, shall we? Tonight?” I offer. “You and me? Cutting an ambient arc on the dance floor? Letting the spirit of the music take us where it will?”

“Genius. But what about all that sea eagle guano?”

“I’ll tell you a secret, little man—never worry about the future. No matter what you do, the same old shit will still be waiting for you tomorrow.

“Ah, I gotcha. You mean you’re gonna come in early in the morning and shovel it all up then.”

“That’s exactly what I mean, Vince. Now, let’s go! I’ve beer to drink and elbows to point!”

And with that, off we blaze, side by side, towards the welcoming comfort of the ‘Trojan Mule Arms’, in search of a dance out there with both of our names on it.

accioarse

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Bobby-boy and his baby blue pants

Bobby-boy and his baby blue pants by accioarse

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Bobby-boy and his baby blue pants by accioarse

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