A STRANGE CONCEPTION

Shades of the coming season with a fat man in green and the introduction of one of my long-running character, Janie Cobweb

It was a long age before our times. The throne of the Kingdom was occupied by a monarch famous for the number of his wives and the land was almost at peace with itself.

“Crikey, it's bloody cold,” murmured the fat man as he rubbed his hands together and contemplated the foolishness of being out on a night like this with a bag of rubbishy presents on his back and the sworn oath to deliver them before dawn. “Bloody kids,” he added as he re-wrapped a wooden soldier, roughly carved but just about recognisable, back into the sack-cloth it had escaped from.

Every year was like this, and for some reason he was dressed in green. It was tradition, he supposed, but he would much have preferred red. There is, he thought, something warm and cosy about red, whereas green isn't anything much. But green it was because green it had always been.

It was half past midnight when he bumped into the weeping man. The night was dark, frost lay like a white gossamer cloak on the ground and even sparkled on the branches of the few trees he could see by the light of a crescent moon and he felt like weeping himself due to numbed fingers and freezing toes.

“What's afoot?” he asked the stranger. “Why, man, are you shedding tears like a sissy on a cold night like this? You're not queer, are you? Not peculiar in any way? Not a Nancy-boy berating himself for his sad condition, by any chance?”

“You ignorant fat man!” almost exploded the tearful gentleman. “Besides being homophobic and deservous of the switch across your obscene back, you dared encroach on a stranger's misery and imply things you cannot understand with your tiny peculiar mind? I, sir, am weeping for the love I have lost!”

“I'm sorry!” almost squawked the fat man, shivering. “Pray tell me, how a handsome youth such as yourself can have lost a love on a cold night like this?”

“Then I will!” decided the stranger. “It is like this. I spied the fairest of God's creatures, a maiden with eyes a man would die for and big boobies. And I said to her, fair maiden, may we lie together for an hour? For I fancy the pants off you...”

“A bit over the top,” mused the fat man in green, “To mention pants in that tone of voice, I mean...”

“She agreed, sir! She took me into her snugly warm cottage and told me that, for two pence, I could have her for an hour... now listen to the saddest part. I only had one penny, and she, angry like a weasel, said that would only buy half an hour!”

“Like a weasel, you say?”

“Like the veriest of weasels, sir! But I accepted, and gave her the penny. I had half an hour of her time and so I started snogging her immediately. And, sir, her breath was sweet as honey! It was like the stench you might imagine wafts from the pearly flowers that grow on the sun! I almost consumed her with my passion and she was quite happy for me to lick her mouth out... for half an hour I was in the greatest, most quivery of delights...”

“You most fortunate of knaves,” murmured the fat man.

“Then, just as I was dragging my breeches to the ground and my knobbly bits were in a state of unbelievable agitation she declared that my time was up! I mean, half an hour is no time at all for a man with as much ardour in his heart as I have! And what a glorious pennyworth! So you can see why my heart is broken!”

“Show me where the tart lives, and I'll give her a piece of my mind!” roared the fat man. “I have a task to do this night, gifts to distribute round the district, for the height of winter is upon us and 'tis Christmastime. But first I shall give your randy lady a piece of my mind! It is the least I can do!”

The weeping man pointed at a cottage, and then shrugged his shoulders and ambled off.

“Silly fool,” murmured the green-clad man, and he made his way straight to the cottage indicated by the knave. It was a smart place, bigger than most and fragrant with the aroma of sweet flowers, which intensified when the door was opened by the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and she was displaying her naked legs as if inviting the devil himself to stroke them.

“I want a tann'orth!” he squawked, meaning he wanted six pennyworth.

She fluttered her eyelashes at him and smiled the most beguiling smile he had ever seen. “Then come in!” she warbled, “and be not so ardent as the fine young man who just left me, for he had only a penny and wasted it on snogging! Come into my boudoir, sir, and do what you must do!”

“I most certainly will!” exclaimed our green-suited hero, and he had his breeches down and cast aside before you could say “King Henry”. Then he approached the queen of his heart and ravished her like no man had ever ravished a woman before. He was everywhere on her, and, to be fair, she was everywhere on him.

“Do it now!” she squealed, “and do it harder than hard, for my life has been a long succession of cheap disappointments 'til now!”

He was as good as her word, and the two frolicked about, and gasped, and oo-ed and ah-ed, and romped and belched, and it was two solid hours before an exhausted fat man pulled his green togs back on, picked up his Christmas sack, and slid back into the night.

“Mistress … I know not your name?” he spluttered as he opened the door.

“Cobweb. I am mistress Cobweb,” she cooed back.

“That was the best shag I've ever had!” he complimented her. “By far the very best! And if any of the juices I provided you with bring forth a child … and they will, they always do, it will be a girl child. Do my a favour, will you?”

“If I can,” she blinked at him.

“Call the baby Janie,” he suggested. “Janie Cobweb. It has a ring to it, don't you think?”