Read Woman for Free Online Page B

feces?"
     
         "Feces?" she
asked.
     
         "Oh, shit," Val
said, "you explain it, Doc."
     
         "It's nothing,"
David said to Candy.
     
         "But it is," Ganine broke in. Everyone
looked at her with varying reactions from mild surprise to criticism. The room
grew momentarily silent as Candy wedged herself down on Charlie's right side,
filling the sofa and David and Val took chairs.
     
         Charlie had an angry
expression on his face. "For Christ's sake," he snarled. "What's
the difference if some lousy, fucking cats die out?" Barbara, Liz and
David looked at him in surprise.
     
         "Amen," Val said.
"Kudos, Charlie. Who needs leopards anyway? Well, Candy does. Right, Sugar
Pussy?"
     
         "Oh, stop," Candy
said, looking embarrassed.
     
         "So what the hell are
we talking about?" Val asked, "Emmys or endangered species?"
     
          "Emmys" Liz said sharply, glancing at Ganine with a frown.
     
         "Right!" Val said.
He looked excited suddenly. "Forget to tell you, Liz," he went on,
"I'm working with some of the writers on a segment where I get to go
dramatic."
     
         "Oh, shit, here we go
again," Max said, casting his gaze heavenward.
     
         "Fuck you. What do you
know?" Val said. "You're only the head writer. You give head but
can't write shit." He looked at Liz. "Like this," he said.
"Country Boy gets caught up with a traveling Shakespeare company and the
lady director gets the hots for him and teaches him how to do Hamlet's
soliloquy."
     
          "What?"  Max muttered with a pained expression.
     
         Val ignored him. "She
tells Country Boy it doesn't matter if the fucking words were written in the
Stone-Ages—"
     
         "Middle-ages," Max
corrected.
     
         Val waved away his
objection, looking irritated, "Hamlet's just some ordinary cocker deciding
whether or not to screw his mother, kill his uncle or blow his fucking brains
out."
     
         "Never heard
Shakespeare explained so well," Max said. Val gave him the finger as David
glanced at Ganine to see what her reaction was to all this. She looked
perplexed, he saw. No wonder, he thought, God, let's just all get out of here.
     
         "What'd you think,
Sis?" Val asked.
     
         She looked dubious.
"Well," she said.
     
         "It'll work, it'll
work," Val told her. "Wait till you hear it." He took a big
swallow of his drink.
     
         "Let's get back to
woman's lib before he decides to do King Lear," Max said.
     
         "Who the hell is
he?" Val asked, sounding aggravated.
     
         "Some blind
cocker," Max told him. "Man versus woman, folks? It was just getting
interesting."
     
         "What are you talking about?" Val demanded.
     
         "Woman's Lib," Liz
told him.
     
         "Oh, shit, who wants to
talk about that?" Val said.
     
         "Doc Harper thinks it's
going down the toilet," Charlie said.
     
         "No shit." Val
sounded interested now.
     
         "What do you think, Val?" David asked.
"What should woman's position be?"
     
         "Oh, on her stomach
definitely," Val said. He pointed at Candy. "Candy likes it that
way," he added, leering at her. "Don't you?"
     
          "Val," David said. As Val looked at him, David looked toward Ganine. Val
shrugged.
     
         "In other words, women
should be exclusively sex objects, right, Val?" Max said, goading him
obviously.
     
         "Not in other words,
Maxie boy," Val came back. "Them's the words. Sex objects, period. I mean except for their period." He held out his glass, chanting, "Wha-wha," in burlesque style.
     
         "Val, be serious,"
Liz told him. Her tone was more affectionate than serious, though, David noted.
     
         "Why, aren't you a sex object, Liz?" he said. As
she gave him a mildly critical look, he added, "You are to me."
     
         Liz groaned softly.
"God," she murmured.
     
         Val