Runaway Pussy

[Absolute Fiction]

Lightly-bearded and handsome freehand artist Max Littlefoot (32), a concept visualizer for a Sydney advertising agency, continues his first love of suppling a daily comic strip to a suburban newspaper company, publisher of four rags (err community newspapers).

The newspapers are sold and delivered to home letterboxes by subscription with an audited collective average daily net circulation of 677,578 copies.

The comic strip tells the daily adventures of a spaniel-wolf hound-cross dog with floppy ears called McMutt, who also shares philosophical thoughts when preparing to chew a bone.

The newspapers circulate five days a week within more than sixty suburbs or localities and since the introduction of McMutt by a schoolboy with a drawing bent into his father's newspapers 17 years ago, the strip has become something of a local institution.

These days, it appears on the bottom half of the back page of each tabloid. Advertisers pay 1.5 times the full-page rate for the half-page space above English-speaking (on paper) McMutt.

That premium back-page advertising space currently is solidly booked for the next 33 months.

And who is this creative genius of the beloved McMutt?

Just someone who sketches McMutt, who is relatively unknown apart from people within Max Littlefoot's tiny social and employment circles.

But that was on the cusp of changing dramatically.

On TV news on Channel 008 that evening, Max was denounced as a 'bearded F-lout who hates cats and probably doesn't even have a dog.'

The accuser who vilified and publicly defamed him was one of Australia's legendary champion female tennis players, the highly respected socialite and divorcee, Baroness Lusk.

Lexi was interviewed by Gwen Smith (24), an inexperienced newly employed media degree graduate who was given the seemingly straightforward task of interviewing her Ladyship about her missing cat.

Unexpectedly, media commentators in the city collectively rated that sensationally volatile interview, with its breath-taking twists and turns on Australian network television, as one of the greatest nine minutes of screening in Australia's television history.

Several critics wrote that Lady Lusk's pragmatically emotive call for the return of her much-loved runaway pussy would rate as the greatest mind-blowing quote on television this century.

Executives and Channel 008 board members watching the broadcast in horror would have been temporarily paralysed in cerebral shock and thinking of law suits and disciplinary action by broadcasting authorities.

Those in charge of the interview production must have been too heavily seduced by the numbing thought they were involved in the screening of a huge moment in television history to have overlooked the need to pull the plug on the rambling interview.

Meanwhile, back to the interview.

Gwen: Good evening, Lady Lusk. I'm your interview host, Gwen Smith.

Lexi: Oh my, aren't you a cutie.

Gwen: What?

Lexi: You look so young, so sweet and so innocent.

Gwen: Thank you. We actually are here to discuss you offer of an astonishing reward of $25,000 for the safe return of your cat that you caught homeless and hungry on your street.

Lexi: And?

Gwen: Isn't that an insane - err, please excuse that choice of adjective - amount of money to offer for the return of a moggy?

Lexi: No, and her name is actually Molly. Tell me this Gwen; what value do you place on you pussy?

Gwen: (very red-faced): I don't have a cat.

Lexi: Well, pity you. Well, let's get on with it. My daughter Lena, who was married a year before she legally terminated the two-timing jerk, gets the hots once a month and practically grabs any guy for you-know what.

Gwen: (nervously): I guess I do.

Lexi: You couldn't because you were never there. Anyway, she bumps into this guy in a pub and brings him home to bed. After recovering from my daughter's onslaught, he comes out and I invite him to sip tea with me. He requests a thick meat sandwich and my housekeeper arrives with that plus a pint of stout. Priscilla knows men.

Gwen: Priscilla?

Lexi: My ultra-promiscuous housekeeper.

Gwen: (turning white): Omigod, that's defamatory.

Lexi: (smiling): Relax darling. I could stump up with the wives of 500 men within three miles of my home to confirm Priscilla has compulsive whorish habits and that means any defamatory claim would never reach the courts. Moving on, the exhausted guy was having a beef sandwich and drinking stout with me while I sipped tea in my best china while nibbling at a cheese and leek club sandwich. His name was Max Littlefoot.

Gwen: Omigod, the professional illustrator and unpaid cartoonist, creator of the fantastic suburban newspaper comic strip of McMutt, the philosophizing dog. Are you sure?

Lexi: Yes, he'd earlier handed me his business card after I asked if he was a suitable person to associate with my alcoholic daughter. Gwen, you appear overly interested in that arsehole (that word would be bleeped during broadcast transmission procedure). Have you bedded him?

Gwen: (frantically): We are running out of time. How did you lose your pussy err I mean Molly?

Lexi: I invited Max to visit regularly and even stay some nights because he was handsome, charming and tolerant of the odd ways of older females.

Gwen: Oh, was that for the benefit of you or your daughter? How old are you, Lady Lusk?

Lexi: Mind you own business and don't bother to apologize. It was a Saturday morning. My daughter had gone early to have her fingernails done and a girlfriend called me inviting me to join her and her sister for morning tea at our local shopping centre. My pussy was doing her morning round of the local neighbourhood. Max was scoffing a huge plateful of bacon, eggs and potato cakes and I told him I was going out, warning him that the housekeeper might hit on him and asked Max to let the cat in when she called outside the backdoor flyscreen.

Gwen: That appeared perfectly in order.

Lexi: How would you know? You weren't there.

Gwen (struggling): And?

Lexi: I later learned that Priscilla, drooling heavily, charged at Max, with her droopy long tits hanging out and swinging.

Half-terrified, Max pushed her away.

Not used to being rejected by horny males, Priscilla felt insulted, grabbed a skillet, charged Max again and clouted him across his right ear.

He decided to evacuate and ran to the backdoor where Molly was waiting patiently.

Not spotting her, Max threw open the outward-opening screen door to make his escape and that sent my pussy flying several feet on to the lawn.

With Priscilla panting and only few feet behind him and brandishing the skillet, Max yelled hysterically, 'Leave me alone you stupid bitch'.

My terrified pussy ran off and I have not seen her since (sob). That (sob) was three days ago (sob, sob).

Gwen: (tears streaming): Omigod. How ghastly for you. People of Sydney. Please be on the lookout for a stray moggy with grey curly fur with a reddish tinge to assist in the return of Lady Lusk's pussy.

By then everyone in the studio including, belatedly, Gwen, were aware the interview had run off the rails.

There was total silence.

It was fully thirty seconds before the male and female readers recommenced reporting the news amid Gwen's anguished cry, "Fuck!"

FOOTNOTE

Gwen's career was briefly dented by her runaway interview but remarkably, her reputation as a fearless interviewer sprouted.

In the following 20 hours of the screening of the infamous interview, Channel 008 received 7032 telephone, texts and email messages requesting at least one advertised repeat screening during prime time within the next fortnight of the 'awesome', 'hilarious', 'heart-warming', 'astonishing', 'unbelievable' Gwen Smith interview with the legendary Lady Lusk about her ladyship's runaway pussy.

Gwen received a bonus and was ordered to immediately register to attend an 8-week course on advanced interviewing training for frontline media journalists.

At 10 pm the day after the screening of Gwen's interview, Lexi heard Molly mewing at the backdoor and found her in good health and with no explanatory note attached to her collar.

The $25,000 dollar reward for the successful recovery was never claimed.

Lexi Lusk became affectionately known in her social circles as Lady Pussy and felt honoured to receive such a sweet nickname as the contented owner of an adopted former stray cat that acted as if she owned Lady Lusk and the historic residence.

The End