On The Rocks

"You had better mind what was told to you, Rick. I know it must have something to do with this teacher."

He saw that she meant it with her whole face. He couldn't think of anything to say back but then Davy-Jake drove his pickup into the driveway and she went out the door.

As Davy-Jake was filling up the hydrogen fuel tank in his pickup, the first transgenic person he had ever seen in real life stepped out of the store and into the bright morning sunlight. The female creature was pale with long turquoise hair, had a perfect hour-glass figure, and had eight arms. Her face was mysteriously beautiful. She noticed Davy-Jake and Lydia staring. All her eight arms bent up or down at the elbows and each hand started doing an intricate Balinese-style hand dance as the face moved sideways rhythmically like a lizard warmed by the sun. When the octopus-lady finished the dance all eight hands paired together gracefully and the turquoise-haired head bowed. The creature got uncomfortably into her mid-sized car and drove away.

"Did you see what was just in this store?" the cashier, an old man, said to Davy-Jake when he went in to pay.

"I sure did. She was a sight. Gave us a little show."

"She left a business card," the old man said. "She's a masseuse. She's going up to the Mile-High Tower in Peoria to work."

"I would have to say Peoria's a good place for her."