Capital Furs

Oh for fuck’s sake, I swore to myself as I stared down at the spanner in one hand and the pink speckled dildo in the other. I had no idea what I was doing. Faradon gave me an arched brow, his tendrils of green, fern-like appendages waving lazily and mockingly behind him. I stared at the instructor and the rest of the class, cursing the day my parents ever enrolled me in AstroAcademy. Me, Julie Vincenza Winters, teen actress of the millennium! With my show, Planet Party, topping the charts and dazzling across vid-screens in the three galaxies of the known empire, in over five million star systems! And they were expecting me –me, Julie fucking Winters—to be able to negotiate myself through 4th-level diplomacy sessions with a fucking plant?

Oh… kay… Julie needs to get a grip. She needs to breathe deeply. This is not the time for a complete meltdown. She does not need to utterly ruin her star-shining reputation by calling the Verdumanian ambassador “a fucking plant”. Julie needs to calm the fuck down and get to the task at hand.

And what, exactly, was the task at hand?

I skimmed my memory as fast as I could, going through the exchange of the last ten minutes. There was the bow from both of us, the pleasantries –“May the stars’ light shine upon you” “And may the suns’ rays keep you healthy and full”, and then… did I lie? Oh please tell me I didn’t lie. “Are you aware of what feast day it is?” “Why yes, of course, Ambassador Faradon of Verduman. It is the Day of the Stand.” “Then of course you’ll know what to do with these, Ensign Winters, of AstroAcademy.”

That’s when he handed Julie Winters, of all people, the wobbly fibercon phallus and the rusty crescent wrench.

“Yes… yes of course I know what to do with these,” I mumbled. Sweat beaded on my forehead. I barely could breathe. Briefly, I considered shoving the dildo up my ass while smacking Faradon in his shiny perennial bulb with the spanner, then reversed the actions, though wincing at the thought of the metal tool up my bum. How’s that for your shit-eating grin, Ambassador?

Bad Julie.

Focus. Julie has to focus on The Day of the Stand. Julie didn’t take acting lessons and been in primetime gigs since she was 18 months old just to lose face in the equivalent of high school for space diplomats. Julie didn’t spend most of her glittering, fame-bedecked life on the space station HollyWay, influencing the culture and behavior of humanoid younglings everywhere, just to be kicked out of AstroAcademy and smeared on interstellar tabloids. The hallowed HollyWay, a place where most people aspired to go to but few have rarely seen…

And with that, I had him. I stood very straight and proud, and then lifted my arms in the air, both tools pointing skyward, to the sun.

“What, by the great burning orb, are you doing?” Faradon demanded, aghast. My instructor looked like he was about to faint. Some smartasses in my class snickered.

“I’m practicing the customs of the Day of the Stand—”

“—but that isn’t—”

“—as it is done by my people, of HollyWay.”

The Ambassador stared at me, mouth agape and speechless, as his fern appendages shook and waggled wildly. I calmly returned to him the wrench and the phallus. I then serenely reached into my pack and pulled out a signed Julie Winters thong.

“As it is the Day of the Stand, I trust, Ambassador, that you know what to do with this.”

Copyright F.C. Estrella 2009

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