The Walrus Waits

She is as fat as a walrus, so that's what they call her. The Walrus. Lovingly.

She is long and thick like a tube of almond paste—although to be fair her ripply skin is not Walrus coloured or even almond-coloured, but rosy pale like whipped cream into which a half-eaten strawberry has been dipped. Lovingly.

She is beautiful. They love her in the salons, at the opera. The young men carry her across the city, arms outstretched, hands softly folding into her generous flesh like bakers' hands kneading dough.

But tonight The Walrus has stayed in. She is waiting for her love. She has put on her heaviest jewelry: diamonds the size of quail eggs, pearls that spill like treasure between her breasts. You'd barely notice them.

She is waiting. She waits. She longs for the lover who will enter her room and enter her everywhere—her whole body can be penetrated, that is its beauty. She waits for the kisses like the pecking of bird beaks on her skin. She waits for the slim man she will smother. She waits for her lover.

She lies on her side; her bulk pools like a spill on the plush satin bedcover. In her hand she holds an oyster, plucked from the salt-covered dish by the bed. She is holding the oyster to her open lips; her lips are not quite yet touching the sharp ridge of the shell. A drop of sea water shimmers there like a pearl, about to fall. Perhaps her tongue—the most agile part of her body, her tongue pink and plastic and warm like molten candy—will be quick enough to catch it when it falls.

In that moment, The Walrus can almost see the oyster recoil, pulling its fleshy mantle and salty pool of juice back before it slips out of its pearly bed and falls down her throat. She will not chew it, for chewing is not a thing that ladies do. And she is a lady.

The hanging moment stretches on.

The Walrus should've waited for the young lover to come before she began to eat, but she was bored. She is about to eat an oyster out of boredom. But she is still bored, even now. An oyster is not cure for boredom. Not like a healthy young man is.

She waits. And she will wait for longer still.

The Walrus doesn't know it yet but her lover will not be able to come tonight for he has just received a bullet in the neck. It was a stray bullet from a duel he was watching a moment ago.

As he dies the lover thinks of The Walrus, her hot flesh like curtains falling over him and sweetly taking all the breath from him as his blood spills out from under his neck and pools like a pillow on the pavement. He tastes salt; blood must've splattered on his lips. The sweet breeze pulls the breath out of him. He stares up and sees the moon like a pearl shimmering faintly above the city. The light is beginning to dim.

The Walrus will never know if he forgot about their rendez vous or if he was merely running late. She will learn of his death at first light.