Roo Blog

Zaz Inverness…Zaz Inverness…she pondered.  Somewhere deep in her brain, something stirred, something pulsed and flickered, some spark of-

“Nope,” She said dismissively, picking a cuticle. “Never heard of you.”

Zaz looked at her sourly. “Then we’re even,” he said.  He stood there looking at Jezebel as she studied the copper stubble on her shins with far more interest than she had thus far shown in him.  He was astounded!  She really did not know who he was! Nor, it seemed, did he care.  This had to be an act, he decided.  Some devious female plot to lure him into the chase. Women were wild for Zaz Inverness! She could be no different.  Unless, she isn’t really a wom- no!  No!  Impossible. He rejected that thought utterly.  Well, two can play hard to get, he resolved.

“So, I guess I’ll see you around,” he said breezily as he started to walk away. He received no response. Fine, he thought. Just keep walkin’ Zaz!  But he froze, his back rigid, when the sound of snoring reached his ears!  Slowly, he turned.

Jezebel was slumped, head fallen back on the wicker, sawing wood in a rudely exxagerated manner that let him know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the vixen was absolutely NOT asleep, but instead greivously insulting him!

 Zaz got a gleam in his eye.  She’d be sorry…He decided that now was not the time to exact his revenge. He melted soundlessly into the jungle. 

Jezebel heard nothing and continued to snore for a moment longer, just for good measure, so he could not miss how utterly disinterested she was in him. Men needed to be put in their places.  What, she fantasized, would be a suitable place for Darius?  The vision of Darius staked naked to the gound surrounded by coked up monkeys with cheese graters pleased her immensely! A nasty smile played about her lips.  And where would she like the unheard of Zaz Whats-his-name, hmmm?   The unwanted image of him glistening with bubbles in her clawfooted bathtub at home shocked her out of her reverie.  Now why would she think that?  After all, the man was obnoxious, unctuous, ubiquitous, smarmy and only had one eye!  Definitely NOT her type.  Still, her temper had run away with her.  She had meant to befriend him so she could get out of this pickle, yet she’d wound up shrieking like a morrigan and beating him with a dead snake.

If only she could resist the urge to be unpleasant! Why did it come over like a black cloud and make her behave so badly? In the fashion world, it was an asset, but in the real world, it wasn’t seeming to serve her well. She sighed and glanced around her, realizing that she was utterly alone. The waiter was terrified of her. She had deeply insulted that Zaz man, and had even alienated the lovesick monkey.  What now?

Now it would have been Jezebel’s turn to laugh, but she was dreadfully premenstrual. She wanted to bay curses to the sky. Certainly her teeth were growing points, her hair was smoking and rising about her head in hissing tendrils. She wanted to pummel the winded smirk off that loathsome man’s face, to kick that libidinous animal into his midriff again, but he was still cradling the monkey, as though they were in cahoots. For all she knew, the two of them had some sort of racket going, the creature would molest women while the eyepatch got his jollies. Jezebel glared at both of them, her green eyes as sharp and hard as the shards of a shattered heineken bottle.  Still he smirked.

“Don’t you think that was funny?” He asked.

“Funny?  FUNNY?” She advanced on him menacingly. “Do YOU think THIS is funny?”

She plucked the monkey from his arms and flung it into the bushes.

“EEEEEP!” it cried as it sailed. 
“Now that wasn’t very ni-” the man began, but Jezebel cut him off.

“Do you think THIS is funny?” In a flash she had reached up and pulled on his eyepatch, letting it go so that it rebounded with a vicious snap.

“Hey now!” he yelled.

“And surely,” she bellowed, “you’ll find this hilarious!”  She reached down, plucked up the headless snake and began whipping her victim with the scaly corpse, screaming “HAW! HAW! HAW!” with each lash. Suddenly she realized what it was that she was doing-holding a dead snake! 

“Gah!” she cried, hucking the snake away into a spiny bush, where it stuck, impaled , a warning to other snakes.

The man stood there, accusingly, his ivory linen suit striped with legless reptile blood.

“You certainly do have a dark side, don’t you,” he observed dryly.

“My dark side goes all the way around,” Jezebel agreed through gritted teeth.

There was a long pause, broken only by the sounds of the surrounding jungle. Jezebel stared at her chipped Rococo Mocharuby toenail polish.  In the aftermath of a fit of temper, she generally felt a bit sluggish.  The man mistook this for remorse.  He thought he saw his moment.

“Now that you’ve booted a primate into my gut, and whipped me with a headless Fer-De-Lance, perhaps the ice is broken?” He gave her a forgiving grin.  She gazed dully at him. Her tantrum had used up all her energy reserves.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” he persisted, “I am Zaz Inverness.  And you are..?”

“I need a rice cake.” she mumbled.

“Anita Ricecake?” he repeated uncertainly.

“I. Need. A. Rice. Cake!”

“Oh. Uh, I have a banana.” He did have a banana, wedged in his holster.  It looked squishy and unimpressive.

“Bananas are fattening! I hope you didn’t hit my ricecakes when you shot my handbag.”  She rummaged through her bag, found the ricecakes unscathed and fell upon them like a starving wolverine.

“Your name…” the man tried again.

This time she deigned to respond, with imperiousness.

“My name is Jezebel. Just Jezebel.” She spewed ricecake dust as she spoke.  “And don’t bother trying the old ‘I don’t recognize you’ ploy. They always try that one. I know everyone knows who I am.”

“Well, I can’t believe you don’t recognize ME!” the man sid with a hint of a huff.  “I am Zaz Inverness!  THE Zaz Inverness!” 

Episode Four
 
Jezebel quirked a sardonic brow at this information. If she had a dollar for every lie she’d been fed by a man, she’d have enough lucre to hire a goon to off that stinking Darius! Still, she decided to play along. She had nothing to lose. She was already broke, dirty abandoned and humiliated.  She drew a deep breath, nearly popping the buttons on her chemise, and meowed with saccharine admiration, ”Oh, really?  Show me your spy weapon, then, spy man.”
 “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” came the rebuff.

 “Why not!” she demanded, a trace of petulance creeping into her voice. She could only be nice for a few seconds at a time. It was taking every ounce of her strength to refrain from kicking that accursed monkey, which had crept up behind her and was stealthily stroking her honeyed calf.  At least she hoped that was the monkey.

 “Because then I’d have to kill you,” he said.

 Jezebel weighed this, giving him a filthy look while doing so.

 “That was a joke, “ he added.

 She gave a fake whinny of laughter, and changed the subject. “How did you get that scar on your lip?”

 “Shark bite.”

 “I don’t believe you,” she scoffed.

 “I really don’t care.”

 They measured one another with a mutual glare. What a manhater, he thought. What a hateful man, she thought. A tense silence elongated between them before Jezebel tried again.

 “That eyepatch-” she began.

 “Blinded by an acid pen.” 

She stared coldly at this and said nothing.

 “Japanese throwing star?” He offered.

 Nothing.

 “Venom-spewing gecko?” He tried again, hoping to make her smile. She HAD to be human.

 “What do you think I look like!” she barked, out of patience and beyond annoyance. He was mocking her! Her blood cooked with ire!

 “You look like a woman in trouble,” he said with honesty.

 Jezebel gasped with dismay To her horror tears began to well. “So you’re saying I LOOK FAT!” she wailed.

 “NO! No! Not at all!” The man paled and verbally backpedaled. Tears! No! “I just meant you look like you could use a friend!”

 Unwilling to seem pathetic, but knowing that she did, Jezebel snapped “I HAVE a friend!”

 They both looked down at the little monkey, who at that moment elected to begin bumping and grinding on her leg.
“GAH!” she shrieked, lurching around the courtyard in an effort to shake the beast loose.

 “With friends like that-” the man began to laugh just as Jezebel gave a mighty kick in the air, launching the monkey straight into the stranger’s midriff. “Hoo-augh!” he oofed, his laughter cut short by the monkey missile.
 

Episode Three
 
Jezebel realized that she was sprawled, legs akimbo, in a most inelegant fashion. The little monkey, who had so deviously lured her into a game only moments before, had popped up from behind the courtyard wall like a lecherous simian jack-in-the-box and was leering up her dress. Even monkeys wanted her! She wasn’t sure what to think of that, but now was not the time to ponder it. Jezebel momentarily forgot the man, the gun, the bullet hole, the hideous beer stain, and the headless snake, imagining how Darius would laugh if he could see what had become of her! Fury boiled in her like magma and like magma, it spilled over. She lashed out at the nearest target-that smarmy one-eyed know-it-all!

“What d’you think you looking at, Winky?!!” She spat the words like venom.

“One angry, ungrateful supermodel,” the man said flatly.

Her mood changed on a dime.

“Oh,” she cooed, “so you recognize me.” He might be from the tabloids. This would make a fine scoop. She began planning her lawsuit.

“Well, no,” the man said, “I just wanted to get on your good side.”

“I don’t have a good side, she hissed.

The stranger backed away imperceptibly.

The beauty lunged to her feet and tugged her dress down. Tossing her tousled titian mane with a practiced rake of her hand, she cast her gaze about to take stock of her situation and found that the day was darkening rapidly. Rain! What next! A swarm of killer bees? Army ants? Cannibals? Did they even have cannibals here? Jezebel did not know. She only knew that she would be delicious. She also knew that she had no money, as Darius had taken her visa, her Fortrani bag was desecrated with snake blood and a bullet hole, and she had not a single ally in this place.

Time for a tactical adjustment.

“So,” she said to the one-eyed man in an unexpectedly conversational tone, as though they had just met for drinks at a cocktail party, and as if none of that nasty snake business had happened. “Are you a spy?”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am.”
 
 

Episode Two

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to persons Living or Dead, Hot or Not, Scoundrally or Vain, is purely coincidental. No monkeys were harmed in the writing of this pulp.

Stricken by the sudden fear that her lipstick was feathering, Jezebel reached down to her handbag for her compact to do some repair. One never knew when one might encounter paparazzi, the wily rapscallions. The stranger erupted into motion! He leapt to his feet and roared, “Don’t move!” Jezebel froze, arm outstretched, as the man smoothly pulled a gun and fired.