Karkataka or How the Crab Got Its Knees By Jeremy Edwards (Part 3)

Here you go, folks: part three (part one is here and part two is here) of the fantastic Karkataka or How the Crab Got Its Knees by Jeremy Edwards.

Karkataka
or
How the Crab Got Its Knees
By
Jeremy Edwards

And so Man-Man rushed home to Woman-Woman, running so fast that he made the five-minute journey in only five minutes. He told Woman-Woman what Tepid Rhino had said (but leaving out the song, because he couldn’t remember the tune, either). Woman-Woman became so excited that she wore out another special, elongated persimmon with a distinctive little nubby bit protruding near one end.

Soon after, on a ’ceedingly deciduous night, Woman-Woman said, ‘Let us settle comfortably on the bank of the mediocre Yum Yab River, where I’ve previously noticed the presence of two or three semi-ornamental hassocks, and take our clothes off.’

They arrived again at the bank of the mediocre Yum Yab River, where they took their clothes off and piled them into neat clothing-piles (which are the only kind of piles that you can make from clothing, even in nice weather). Man-Man sat down on the most semi-ornamental of all the semi-ornamental hassocks (of which there were four, because I forgot to tell Woman-Woman about one of them). Then Woman-Woman contrived to sit on his lap, facing away from him—which gave her a good view of their clothing-piles, though Tepid Rhino couldn’t have known that. As she sat, she also contrived to receive Man-Man’s horn, which had begun to swell and stiffen, into her oyster, which had begun to oil itself very admirably.

Woman-Woman’s soft, round, fleshy parts felt very nice on Man-Man’s lap—almost as nice as your soft, round, fleshy parts do on mine, Best Beloved—and Man-Man’s lap, mysteriously enough, felt very nice on Woman-Woman’s soft, round, fleshy parts.

‘Reach around and contrive to lavish some direct pressure on my little hornlet,’ Woman-Woman requested, and Man-Man did exactly that, though not in so many words.

She went all squirmy upon him and his horn went all jolly inside her, and it was like having Marmite and Hob-Nobs and Glenlivet in quick succession. Man-Man’s horn tingled so merrily that soon he felt so good he didn’t know what to do; and he bellowed like the Augmented Mongoose and shuddered like the Lesser-But-Not-Least Treeswift; and, as if by prearrangement, he plied Woman-Woman’s oyster with warm treacle, though neither of them owned a pair of pliers.

Woman-Woman, bouncing on Man-Man’s lap, felt nearly as good as Man-Man. But feeling nearly as good wasn’t nearly enough.

‘Please lead me to one of those very firm but soft-veneered Hooplah Trees that grow
with such studied profuseness in the area,’ said Woman-Woman. Man-Man led her to the second-nearest Hooplah Tree, because the nearest one had its back to them, and Man-Man didn’t want to be rude.

Woman-Woman put her feet on either side of the firm trunk of the Hooplah Tree, and she put her arms around another bit of the firm trunk of the Hooplah Tree; and she rubbed herself up and down, over and over, against the soft veneer of the firm trunk, making faces (though only the tree could see them). Finally, she felt so good that she didn’t know what to do; and she squealed like the Syndicated Ungulate and sang like the Alternate Evening Bat, and ever so much oil flowed out of her oyster and collected in a small puddle at the base of the Hooplah Tree, from which it later evaporated and then got rained down into the Yum Yab River—or, if it was very windy, Lake Geneva.

‘I have the distinct ’pression she’s done that before,’ Man-Man thought. ‘But I’d best pay another visit to Tepid Rhino.’

Tepid Rhino was not terribly happy to see Man-Man again, because it wasn’t in his contract. ‘What’s new?’ asked Tepid Rhino, ‘And do try to keep it clean this time.’

But Man-Man could not keep it clean, because once again the very reason he had come all this not-so-very-long way to the Jaded Meadow was to seek Tepid Rhino’s advice about horns and oysters and oil and all those lovely things.

‘We sat together like two related concepts,’ said Man-Man to Tepid Rhino, ‘on the most semi-ornamental hassock we could find; and still Woman-Woman did not feel quite so good that she didn't know what to do.’ Then he tried to tell Tepid Rhino about the Hooplah Trees, but Tepid Rhino became absorbed in thoughts about credit memos and stopped paying attention to Man-Man.

‘Well?’ asked Man-Man.

‘Well,’ said Tepid Rhino, ‘If you wish to configure circumstances so that you and Woman-Woman feel so good that you don’t know what to do at the same time, then you must not sit together like two related concepts.’

‘But you said before—’

‘Never mind what I said before,’ said Tepid Rhino. ‘That was paragraphs ago, and it’s become tiresome. What you must do now is stand together like two logical corollaries. Then you must ask Woman-Woman to wrap her voluptuous legs around your waist.’ And he drew a ‘stremely handsome picture of this in the air, which I would show to you, if I hadn’t accidentally let all the air out of my air-picture museum.

Then, just to show that air-drawing was not a Rhino’s only talent, he sang Man-Man this song:

O! Do it standing up
In the morning when you sup,
Woman-Woman, Man-Man-Man,
You can do it—yes, you can!

Man-Man thought this was not so very good a song as the other one, though he didn’t tell this to Tepid Rhino. As you can see, Tepid Rhino had not only gotten Man-Man’s name wrong, he had also forgotten that people supped in the evening and not in the morning.

Stay Tuned for Part 4

The libidinous fiction of Jeremy Edwards has been widely published online, as well as in some thirty-five print (and e-book and audiobook) anthologies. His work was selected for the two most recent volumes in the Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica series (and he will appear again in the forthcoming volume); he has read at the In the Flesh series in New York and the Erotic Literary Salon in Philadelphia; and he has been featured in the literary showcase of the Seattle Erotic Art Festival. Jeremy's eroto-comedic novel Rock My Socks Off will be published by Xcite Books in 2010. Readers can drop in on him unannounced (and thereby catch him in his underwear) at www.jeremyedwardserotica.com.