More Than a Kiss

Operation Meltdown, Final Phase

As the audience quieted and took their seats, the theme song from Jaws blared from off stage right. Petronella looked offstage and made slashing motions across her neck. The music continued. Petronella looked out at the audience and put her finger up as if to say “Wait, I, the Ice Queen, Mistress of the Universe, will take care of this.” She strode toward the offending music.

Petronella stopped.

She froze with eyes wide open, horror-struck.

She took a step backward.

Edison’s remote control tanker car wheeled onstage. Edison had built another car like the prototype that had caused the Mr. Pip-falling-out-the-window accident. Only this car had a tank on its back. A tank filled with blue, red, green, and yellow paint. The paint nozzle was attached to a retractable arm that could be raised or lowered from the remote control that Edison was now pointing at the stage.

Petronella took another step backward.

The audience clapped, mistakenly thinking this was a part of the show.

The car braked. The paint nozzle raised and pointed at Petronella who was too confused to move.

Edison punched a button on the remote. Irma shrieked. She threw her body at Edison, shouting, “Do not shoot!”

But Irma was too late. The tiny car shot a stream of paint out of its nozzle. The red paint arced high in the air and splattered Petronella right in her angry vagina.

Jordan threw her body on top of Irma’s body who was on top of Edison’s body and they all three rolled around the floor. Edison’s glasses flew off and her remote control skidded down the aisle and out of sight.

Chaos erupted. Petronella shrieked. The audience screamed. Claire and Lillian stood on their chairs so they could see all the action. Amy covered her face.

The house lights flickered on and off like a strobe light.

Jordan climbed to her feet and chased after the remote. She ran from person to person as it was kicked around the audience like Charlie Chaplin’s hat.

The car obeyed each command from the remote as it was kicked. The car shot paint left and right, up and down; red and blue and orange and yellow paint spewed from its nozzle, splattering Petronella and the audience. The car whizzed back and forth across the stage, in elaborate figure eights, gushing paint like a rabid, demon-possessed lawn sprinkler.

Petronella, now wearing a rainbow-colored tux and tails, picked up her stool and chased after the car, shouting Dutch obscenities.

The audience was a swirling mass of hysteria and color. The people bumped, banged and barged into each other, smearing the paint into one swirling mass of brown.

Petronella cornered the car against the proscenium arch and brought the stool down, hammering it, over and over and over, until the car was smashed to smithereens and nothing more than a giant rainbow puddle.

Once the car was demolished, the audience quieted down except for a few intermittent sobs. Everyone stared at the stage. Before them was a striking tableaux vivant: Petronella, legs spread, arms akimbo, a la Rambo Warrior, Victorious Vagina Woolf. The Ice Queen brought her hands up over her head in a victory gesture.

Claire and Lillian began clapping. The audience joined in, whooping and hollering their approval.

Petronella bowed deeply. The audience went wild, stamping their feet and chanting her name.

Jordan dejectedly walked back to Amy and collapsed in a chair. Edison fell into the chair next to her.

“Operation Meltdown failed,” Jordan said. Amy sat down beside her and patted her shoulder sympathetically.

Irma sat next to Edison. “What the hell were you doing?” Edison said.

Irma gestured helplessly. “Irma does not know. Irma was overwhelmed by feelings here,” she pointed to her heart, “and here,” she pointed to her lap. “So sorry. Irma hear rousing poem and lose control.”

Jordan stood and pointed a finger at Irma, saying, “You owe me. Big time.”

Irma nodded. “Irma will make good. You will see.”

Claire and Lillian joined the trio, grinning broadly. Lillian said, “So what do lesbians do for fun next?”