Iron Princess (Iron Palace Book 2)

by Lisa Ferrari

  She shares the flautas with Mark but for dessert she orders her own deep-fried ice cream. Mark suggests they share one but she refuses so he orders upside-down pineapple cake. It’s served warm with cinnamon ice cream. Of course Denise eats half of it. Kellan and I simply order coffee to compliment the clean, relatively low-cal, grilled chicken salads we ate.

  The server clears and we sit and enjoy our coffee.

  Denise goes on and on about a case she’s working on. But I have difficulty listening. I’m too busy watching her, wondering if she’s having intestinal distress yet. Every story must have a ticking clock counting slowly down. This one’s in Denise’s pants, the Stella McCartney’s she got at Barney’s for $700.

  Seven hundred dollars.

  For pants.

  We finally get around to talking about Kellan investing in Mark’s new dealership. Mark has a lot of information and sales numbers and national data about which brands are the most profitable, as well as what he’s seen work and not work at many different dealerships.

  Kellan says it sounds tempting.

  Denise starts to act funny. She’s been quiet for the past few minutes. Very quiet.

  “What’s the matter, babe?” Mark asks.

  “I dunno. My stomach hurts. Think maybe the pork was bad?”

  “Hope not,” says Mark, “you don’t want to have worms crawling out of your ass.”

  Denise begins to sweat. Her forehead and cheeks become shiny. She looks pale.

  “You need to poop?” Mark asks.

  “You know I don’t poop in public,” she growls, kinda loud. “Get the goddamn check. I’ll be in the car. Come on, Claire.”

  Denise scoots out of the booth and makes a beeline for her SUV. If I weren’t so fascinated with the prospect of impending intestinal doom, I’d be offended by her barking orders at me. But I go with her and we sit in the SUV while Kellan and Mark pay our bill.

  Denise sits behind the wheel. She begins writhing and breathing heavily. “Fuck. Hurry up.” She honks the horn. “Fuck.”

  Mark and the server are examining the bill, discussing something. A manager-type in a shirt and tie comes over and joins the discussion.

  Denise is breathing loudly. “What the fuck are they doing? Fuckin hurry up, goddamnit.” She really lays on the horn.

  At last Mark and Kellan come out and get in.

  “What the fuck took so long?” Denise has the vehicle moving before Kellan and Mark can close their doors. She drives through the parking lot, fast.

  “I had the manager take your food off the bill since you’re not feeling so hot,” Mark says.

  “I don’t give a shit about the stupid bill,” Denise shouts. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, fuck.” She’s holding her stomach, rocking in her seat, driving with one hand, whipping through traffic.

  Kellan and I look at one another. Kellan shrugs; I tried to warn her.

  Denise is breathing through her mouth like a woman in labor. “Oh, God. You guys remember that scene in Bridesmaids? Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck!”

  Denise swerves suddenly across three lanes of traffic. Horns blare and tires screech. Somehow we don’t hit anyone, and no other cars collide.

  Denise bounces us over a curb, plows through a hedge, and screeches into a Bank of America parking lot which, mercifully, is empty.

  “You okay, babe?” Mark asks.

  “No, I’m not fucking okay! It’s happening!”

  Denise stops the car. She can barely get her seatbelt off. She’s in a panic.

  “Claire, help me!”

  What am I supposed to do? “How?”

  “I don’t know just do it!”

  Denise opens her door and pretty much falls out of the car onto the parking lot asphalt, landing hard on her butt. “Oh my ass.”

  Mark leans across the seat to check on her. “You okay, babe?”

  “No, you asshole! Oh Jesus–” Denise pushes down her $700 track pants and her panties. “Claire, hold my hand!”

  From the back seat I dive across the center console and lie across the driver’s seat, stretched out so I can grab hold of Denise’s outstretched hand to help her squat.

  “Oh Jesus…” Denise gasps. She’s never been a particularly pious woman.

  Her eyes clamp shut. There is a loud ripping sound.

  It goes on and on.

  And on.

  And then on some more.

  Denise gasps in relief at last.

  She opens her eyes and they’re actually crossed.

  Denise looks down. “Oh, Jesus, what is that? Is that carnitas?”

  “It’s the pills,” Kellan says.

  “What?” Denise calls.

  “It’s the pills,” Kellan says, louder. “Your body is eliminating all the fat it couldn’t absorb because of the pills.”

  “So fast?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh God, there’s more.” Denise evacuates her bowels again. “Oh God, it stinks.”

  VROOP-VROOOP!

  A police squad car pulls up with its red and blue lights flashing. A police officer gets out. He walks around the rear of the BMW X6 and sees Denise squatting with her pants down.

  He immediately turns around, jumps back into his car, and drives away.

  I think I see him gag.

  “Yeah, you better run!” Denise calls after him. “Run home to your mommy! Oh Jesus, it’s still coming out.”

  My hand and forearm are burning and my grip is slipping. “I can’t hold you any more, Denise.” It’s like Stallone in the opening scene of Cliffhanger.

  “Don’t you dare let go of me, Claire Valentine! I am not falling into my own… green and orange… butt oil. God, it stinks.”

  The parking lot has a sloping grade. We’re parked at the top, away from the bank building, and Denise’s ass oil has trickled down to where the ATM machines are. Some people have come to use the ATM and are stepping in it and making footprints, and getting it in their cars. Mark and Kellan and I look on.

  “We should say something,” Kellan says. “If it were me, I’d want to know.”

  “What are we going to say?” I ask. “ ‘Oh, excuse me, kindly watch your step. There’s anal leakage on the ground.’ ”

  “Something like that,” says Kellan.

  “Are you guys talking about me?” Denise asks. “ ’Cause fuck you if you are. Oh God, here comes some more. Oh, it’s green. Kellan, when will it stop?”

  “When it all runs out of you. Probably in an hour. Maybe two.”

  “Two hours? I can’t crouch in a goddamn Bank of America parking lot for two hours. My legs hurt. Claire, get the Kleenex out of the glove box so I can wipe my ass.”

  “Um, babe,” Mark says, “we used all the Kleenex last weekend when we did it at the Kings game, remember? They beat the Lakers in double overtime,” he adds proudly.

  “So what am I going to wipe my ass with? Give me your underwear.”

  Mark kicks off his shoes and begins to take off his pants.

  “Claire bear, avert your eyes,” Denise commands. “You too, Special K. I don’t need any dick jokes right now.”

  Mark gives Denise his tighty whities and puts his pants back on, commando.

  “I need more,” says Denise. “They’re saturated. Oh, Christ, it’s on my hand.” Denise smells it. “Oh, Lord, it smells like taco meat. I didn’t even eat tacos. Kellan, give me your underwear.”

  “Can’t.”

  “I’ll give you twenty dollars for them.”

  “They’re silk.”

  “Fifty.”

  “They were a gift from Claire.”

  “I didn’t know you were wearing those,” I say. I’m touched.

  “I wanted to surprise you later.”

  I’m touched and horny.

  “A hundred,” says Denise, upping the ante and ruining my fantasy.

  “No,” says Kellan.

  “I’ll give you five hundred dollars for them.”

  “They’re not for sale,” Kel
lan replies.

  “What am I going to use?” Denise scans the area, looking for God knows what. Old newspaper, maybe. “Go ask those people for their ATM receipts.”

  To his credit, Mark gets out of the car without hesitation. No one will give him their receipt. It is kinda weird, asking for a receipt with personal information.

  “Tell him to look in the garbage, too,” says Denise.

  “She says to check the garbage,” I call to Mark.

  Mark reaches into the big, round, stone garbage can and finds a whole bunch of receipts. He gives them to Denise and one by one they all turn orange and brown and green.

  “Whoever invented that pill is a dick,” Denise says, going through receipt after receipt. “The king of all dicks.”

  Eventually, Denise finishes cleaning herself. She carefully removes her pants and gets into the back of the SUV, naked from the waist down. “Mark, drive.”

  Mark gets behind the wheel, Kellan sits up front, and Denise rides in the baggage area on her hands and knees like a dog, trying to keep her ass away from the plush two-tone red-and-charcoal-grey leather.

  “Oh, God, I think there’s more. I have to fart.”

  “Don’t fart,” says Kellan.

  “Don’t fart?”

  “No, it’s not a fart. It’s a big ball of oil. If you fart in that position, the oil is going to spray out all over your nice new car and the rest will run down into your vagina and get all over everything. And Mark doesn’t want that.”

  “Yeah, I don’t want that,” says Mark.

  “How do you know so much, Kellan?” Denise asks.

  “I took that stuff a couple years ago and it ruined my mom’s sofa cushion on Christmas morning. I thought I had to fart.”

  Denise laughs. “Did she find out?”

  “Hell no, I turned it over when no one was looking.”

  “Why did you take it? You’re fit. You don’t need it.”

  “If I could take a pill and eat a pint of Chunky Monkey or Cherry Garcia or New York Super Fudge Chunk or Mission to Marzipan or Shweddy Balls every night and not gain weight, I’d take it.”

  “Did this same thing happen to you?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “What did you eat?”

  “Mexican. Chips and salsa and cheese and sour cream. Same as you.”

  “Why didn’t you warn me?” Denise looks at me. “You knew about it, too, didn’t you? You fuckers. You guys wanted to see what would happen, didn’t you? I hate you guys. I guess I had it coming for all those times I tried to get in Kellan’s pants. Sorry about that, by the way.”

  “What?” Mark asks. “You tried to get in his pants?”

  “Oh please. You’re the one who said Kellan makes you wish you were gay.”

  Mark inhales in shock. “I never said that.”

  “The hell you didn’t,” Denise counters. “It’s okay. Kellan is a fine piece of ass. Lots of guys want to bang him. Ain’t no shame in it. He’s enough to turn a straight man gay. We can all see that. Kellan, how many guys have you turned?”

  “I haven’t been keeping a tally. Sorry.”

  “No problem. Drive faster, babe. Something’s about to come out of me.”

  We finally reach Denise’s house.

  Mark parks in the driveway, jumps out, leaving his door open, and runs to the rear of the SUV so he can open the tailgate for her.

  Denise climbs out butt first. She hands Mark her pants, scampers half-naked to her immaculate lawn, squats down, hitting a perfect Garland Pose, and shits in the pretty green grass.

  A guy walking a yellow Labrador passes by. The Lab sees Denise and gets happy.

  “Keep walking, Ted,” Denise calls. “Tabitha shits in my yard all the time. You’re lucky I’m not doing this at your house.”

  Ted and Tabitha hurry on their way and disappear inside.

  Denise finishes squatting and drags her bottom across the grass.

  Mark takes several pics on his phone.

  “That’s right,” Denise calls to him, “I’m dragging my ass in the grass like the bitch that I am.” She stands and walks bow-legged into the house. “Goodnight, guys! I hope you enjoyed yourselves as much as I did!”

  Mark shows her the pic of her dragging herself across the lawn. “Let’s send this to your mother. She hates me anyway.” Mark laughs, waves awkwardly to us, and closes the door.

  Kellan and I get into his white Mercedes. He starts the engine, we turn and look at one another, and can’t help but erupt in laughter.

  Chapter 21

  A FEW DAYS before Christmas, Kellan and I go to a Christmas party. It’s so nice to be attending a Christmas party instead of working one, carrying trays and restocking the buffet and stacking a million chairs at the end of the night. It occurs to me, fully, that I’m not going to have to work a Christmas party ever again. I’m not sure how I feel about that. Liberated and happy and free, sure; but, also, kinda scared, as if, somehow, it may not be true.

  Best not to dwell too long on that.

  Like Kellan says, let’s focus on what we want (not on what we don’t want).

  The party is at a beautiful home on the other side of Folsom Lake. It’s a big pool party with a luau theme. A bunch of Kellan’s business associates are there and he graciously introduces me to everyone.

  Everybody is so nice to me. Many of them comment on my Coronado beach video with the SEALs, and others have heard about the movie and they ask questions about the latest developments. Kellan and I tell them that things are looking good and are on track but we won’t know for a while yet if we’re going to get the parts.

  The pool and back yard have a bunch of tall propane heaters to keep everyone warm, and the pool has been heated. A lot of people are swimming and sitting on the edge, sipping exotic froo-froo drinks with little drink umbrellas and fresh fruit garnishes.

  Kellan and I are standing at a pub table, chatting with a nice couple from Benicia when a woman approaches us. She’s clearly quite drunk. She’s wearing a black one-piece bathing suit and has a towel wrapped around her waist. But the towel is too small and it won’t stay in place so she continuously fiddles with it, retying it over and over again as she proceeds to tell me that I’m setting a bad example by working out so much and trying to lose weight to be something I’m not, like some Barbie. She lays in to Kellan, too, telling him he has bigorexia and he needs counseling and it’s sad that he has to abuse his body in order to satisfy an illusion that’s all in his mind, and that he’s setting a bad example for other men, the same way I’m setting a bad example for other women.

  She herself is quite, er, rotund, with a big, big belly and massive chest and large arms.

  Kellan tries to diffuse her by saying thank you and turning to the man beside him, resuming our previous conversation.

  But the woman is relentless. She becomes angry and gets loud. People stop talking and stare as she goes on and on about my body and how I should accept myself the way I am and not let Kellan change me. She pokes me in the shoulder a few times. She reaches over and pokes Kellan in his shoulder, too.

  Kellan suggests we go inside.

  She follows us, ramping up her verbal tirade. She says it’s my fault she’s fat. It’s because of me and people like me who put pressure on her to be skinny and anorexic, but I can go fuck myself because she’s happy with her weight, she’s fine with the way she looks, and she doesn’t give a shit if airlines make her pay for two seats when she flies, because she loves her Twinkies and she loves herself.

  The host and his wife come and take her to another room to gather her things and someone volunteers to drive her home.

  “See?” Kellan asks me, once we’re alone out by the Jacuzzi. “That’s the kind of stuff I was talking about awhile back, about how people look at you funny when you’re fit. Most people are cool about it, and they want tips. But every now and then you get someone like that who chooses to try to shame you and to bring you down to their level to make themselves feel bett
er. It’s a lot easier to be fat and out of shape than it is to be fit and in shape and to eat right and train hard and to get your ass up and do your morning cardio and adhere to your nutrition, and to do it consistently day after day and week after week and month after month. You just have to shrug that stuff off like you have a bubble around you, like a force field that their negative energy can’t penetrate.”

  “Like the shields on the Enterprise?”

  “Exactly.” He beams. I can tell he loves the fact that I pulled out a Star Trek reference to underscore his point. I’m not a Trekkie, per se, but I am familiar with the franchise in its various iterations. Kellan and I spend the next ten minutes reciting our favorite Trekisms, mine being “Damnit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a pool man!” Laces out. Your gun is digging into my hip.

  BACK HOME, IT’S after midnight and Kellan is still pissed about the fit-shaming snatch at the party. That’s how he refers to her during the car ride home, and now as he moves about the kitchen, venting.

  He pulls out the stash of Sour Diesel and packs some into the bowl of the little wooden Golden Gate Bridge pipe. Kellan takes a big hit and hands the pipe and lighter to me. I take a hit, not sure exactly what we’re doing. Kellan takes the pipe and hits it again. He prepares two shaker cups full of protein powder. I count four scoops in each cup as he dumps the brown powder in. That’s a lot. Usually it’s one or maybe two scoops. Kellan adds a half-teaspoon of cinnamon to each one, along with a heaping spoon of instant coffee. He drops a pink chewable baby aspirin into each cup, fills them with water, and screws the lids on and shakes them vigorously. He hands one to me.

  “Cheers,” he says. “To that fit-shaming snatch at the party. May we never look like her and may we never see her fat fuckin ass ever again.”

  “Cheers.” I guess.

  We bump our shakers together and drink. The shake is thick. With four scoops it has almost eighty grams of protein. That’s a lot.

  I’m concerned that Kellan is so upset. It’s unlike him to let other people bother him.

  But the Sour Diesel kicks in, Kellan returns to his normal, loving self, and I feel great. The shake is smooth and sweet and chocolatey and delicious in the disgusting sort of way protein shakes always are unless you cheat and make them with milk and Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup.