“I’m too ugly for this shit,” grumbled Fergal McQueen as he
glared at himself in the bathroom mirror, his hands flat against the sink with
his fingers tapping impatiently. His scaly green orcish skin, his thinning black
mullet, his brown fangs, his ill-fitting Sepultura T-shirt and blue jeans, they
came together to give him more than enough reason to want to punch the mirror.
The shattered glass in his knuckles wouldn’t be worth it, so he refrained.
Fergal gazed around the bathroom with sandy yellow eyes and
became jealous of the decorations he believed were more beautiful than him. The
black marble sink, the red glass butterflies hanging over the mirror, the green
paper lanterns with runic symbols on them, they made him shake his head and then
face-palm for a while. He sighed through his pierced nostrils and said, “Here
goes jack shit.”
He stormed out of the bathroom and stood at the lobby desk
with his beefy arms folded, waiting impatiently for the owner of this
establishment to show herself. A few long minutes later, she finally did.
Flapping her butterfly wings and flipping her silken brown hair, she descended
into her seat gracefully, but nearly shot up like a fountain at the sight of
her latest customer.
“Um…uh…” said the owner with wide eyes and quivering lips.
She fidgeted with her white halter top and black yoga pants to stall for extra
time. “Um…welcome to Galatea’s Cuddle Sanctuary. I’m Galatea Lyon. How can I,
um…help you?”
Being as socially awkward as he was, Fergal slammed a bag of
money on the counter and had Galatea huddling on the floor. Once she slowly
lifted her head, Fergal said, “I didn’t come here to be ridiculed. I came here
to cuddle. Do you have an opening or not?”
With shaking legs, Galatea returned to her upright position
and stumbled through her words some more. “Um…sure, I have an opening right now
if you’re ready. Uh…follow me, if you will…” Her flapping and flying became
more disoriented as she guided her customer down the hallway. “So, uh…what do
you do for a living, Mister…?”
“McQueen. Fergal McQueen,” he grunted. “I’m a soldier in the
Dragon Rider’s Army.”
“Oh, uh…that’s…cool…”
“What do YOU do for a living: pretend to speak perfect
English?”
Galatea giggled nervously, still struggling to keep it
together. “You’re funny, Mr. McQueen. Uh…yeah…here we are.” She pulled back the
bamboo curtain and revealed a room with a red velvet bed and white crystalline
walls, which meant more decorations for Fergal to be jealous of for their
comparative beauty. “Have a seat on the bed, if you don’t mind.”
He did just that, not at the plush pillows, but at the foot,
keeping a comfortable distance from a woman who clearly was anything but
comfortable. She said, “Um…so since you’re obviously new here, I’ll explain to
you how this works. This is a cuddle therapy session. This is a non-sexual
service, so everything we do here is strictly G-rated. If you’re uncomfortable
with what I’m doing to you, say so and we’ll try something else. Any questions before
we begin?”
“Yeah, I have a question…so you’re all about unconditional
love and being accepting of everyone just like your ad says, yet you can’t even
put together a sentence around me. How does it feel to be a hypocrite, Miss
Lyon?”
“What? No, no, no, it’s not like that at all.” She scooted
across the bed and reluctantly placed her hand on her client’s shoulders,
squeezing them as gently as she could without getting her hands too dirty. “To
be honest, this is all new for me. You know, the, uh…uh…”
“Look, if you don’t want to get your perfectly manicured
nails dirty from touching my disgusting orc body, then say so and I’ll go
somewhere else. You didn’t even have to complete your sentence. I’d know that
look anywhere. You’re a racist.”
“Mr. McQueen, it’s not like that at all.”
“Of course it is!” he snapped, causing his cuddle therapist
to scoot back in fear. “Everywhere I go, people look at me like I’m a six-foot
tall horse turd walking by. They back away like I’ve got the plague. They think
just because I’m ugly as fuck that it’s okay to walk faster down the street to
avoid me. I seriously thought this place would be different. But no, not you.
You’re about unconditional love as long as your clients are a bunch of sexy
princes with more abs than hairs on my ball sack.”
Galatea gulped. “Um…Fergal, please listen to me. This has
nothing to do with you looking a certain way. It’s just that…um…how do I say
this without sounding insensitive? Um….you…don’t look like you’ve washed
today.” Her voice became squeakier as she finished her sentence and shrugged
her shoulders.
Fergal took a whiff of his arm pits and said, “That’s not
BO. That’s just me looking like a giant green turd.”
“Please, stop saying those things…”
“Look at you!” he shouted as he stood up. He pointed an
accusatory finger at the trembling Galatea and yelled at her some more. “You
can’t even look me in the eyes! You can’t even stand up straight when you’re
around me! Sure, I don’t have the best social skills in the world and I don’t
look like a fucking supermodel, but I still need this service, damn it!”
Unwrapping her hands from her head, Galatea shakily stared
into her client’s yellow eyes and tried her damnedest to keep it together.
“You…you need this service? Why?”
“Because I can’t get it anywhere else, that’s why!” snapped
Fergal while throwing back the red blanket. “Nobody wants to be around me!
Hell, I don’t want to be around me half of the time! And don’t give me crap
about how it’s because I’m yelling all the time! If a sexy supermodel was
yelling at you, you’d think it was some kind of BDSM fantasy or some shit!
Who else am I supposed to cuddle with? A wife I never had?
My fellow soldiers? Yeah, good luck with that! I’m not so sure even a human or
a pixie like you would ever want to snuggle up to a bunch of rowdy ass soldiers
who make fun of everything and call everyone fags! So what am I supposed to do,
Galatea, if that is your real fucking name and you didn’t just steal it from a
poetry book?!”
Fergal’s heavy breath filled the air and intensified the
silence between himself and the shivering pixie before him. The more he stared
down at her, the angrier he became as visions of racist bullies and loudmouthed
politicians swarmed his mind like a war flashback. Rocks thrown at him,
laughing, pointing, running away, and every racial slur in the book pelted his
brain.
To him Galatea was no different despite her pretty disguise.
If anything her prettiness made her casual racism even worse because she
clearly hid something from him while others were at least honest about it. But
maybe the thing she was hiding wasn’t an agenda after all…
“I think we can come to a compromise, Mr. McQueen,” she said
with her hands raised defensively. “If you promise to calm down and take deep
breaths…we will continue our cuddle therapy session…in a bathtub. Of course,
you’d have to change into a pair of swim trunks, but…it’d be the answer to both
of our problems. Clients are encouraged to show up to these sessions clean and
spotless, because…well…it’s my job to hold you and touch you and…”
Fergal held up his hand and cut her off, taking even more
intense breaths, but not out of anger. He was actually trying to calm himself
down long enough to listen to reason. He wanted to give this a shot. It was his
only chance at getting the affectionate touches he needed. “Okay…I give up.
Let’s do this.”
“Great!” said Galatea with a little more pep in her voice.
“There’s a pair of swimming shorts in the drawer over there. I’ll leave the
room for a while and give you some privacy while you change. Okay?” She smiled
with a lingering hint of nervousness and tiptoed her way out of the room.
Once she closed the door behind her, Fergal went to work in
stripping down and changing into a pair of red shorts. They were a little tight
around his waist, so he walked like a penguin in an attempt not to rip them.
From there he followed Galatea down the hall and into the bath spa.
Sure enough, there was a black marble bathtub in the center
of a white crystalline room. Red paper lanterns gave the room a dimmed lighting
affect that did its job in soothing Fergal’s nerves. Galatea flew to the tub
and filled it up with warm water before dropping a bath bomb inside and
creating a mountain of suds and trippy colors. Holding a sponge in one hand,
she waved Fergal over with her opposite finger and patted the rim of the tub.
“Come on in,” she said in her cutesy-wutesy voice, giving a light shade of red
to Fergal’s green scaly complexion.
He dipped his foot in the water and hissed at the warmth,
slowly lowering himself in and accidentally letting out a bubbly fart upon
parking his ass in the tub. “Sorry about that. You probably don’t want to…”
“Nah, don’t worry about that,” interrupted Galatea with a
smile. Without hesitation or nervousness, she gently ran the sponge across
Fergal’s arms, chest, and shoulders while resting her head on top of his. The
warm water, the massaging touches, the extra affection, and even the potent
lavender smell was enough to make him want to squeeze his legs together so that
he didn’t accidentally become…you know…
“What happened to your chest? You’ve got some nasty cuts and
bruises there. Is that from your job?” she asked.
“No, those aren’t war wounds…unless you’re talking about my
war with the racist assholes who pummeled me with stones all my fucking life.
Sharp stones, big stones, little stones, they all feel the same to me. I was
actually kind of hoping one of those stones would be powerful enough to kill
me, but as it is…”
“Oh my god…Mr. McQueen, that’s terrible! I truly do feel
awful for my reluctance around you. I didn’t realize…I mean…Look, I’ll tell you
what. For what I did tonight, your first cuddle session here is free.”
“You…you don’t have to do that, Miss Lyon,” said Fergal as a
singular tear ran down his face, a face he still believed was the ugliest thing
on the planet. “Sorry, I don’t normally cry like this…”
“It’s okay to cry here, Mr. McQueen. I’m not one of your
fellow soldiers. I won’t call you horrible homophobic slurs. Let the waterworks
out. You’re not the first to cry under my care and you won’t be the last. You
are loved, Mr. McQueen, whether you realize it or not.”
Fergal let the waterworks flow indeed as Galatea continued
to gently scrub and massage him into relaxation. No more droughts tonight. Not
now. Not ever. The tears had been a long time coming. They were greasy. They
were oily. But they were less messy than any drop of blood he spilled on the
battlefield, be it with the racist mobs or the enemy he fought in the army.
Crying sucked and felt good at the same time.
