She Loves Me; She Loves You Not

“You do realize, Buck Studsworth, that she does not love you as much as you believe she does?”

“That’s a lie!” roared Buck with such force that Thurgood Bastardson's hair blew back on the gale of his manly breaths.

“It might be,” said Thurgood, “but it’s not. Do you remember that day the two of you walked hand in hand along the creek?”

“The babbling one whose course brings it near my cabin, filling it with its music on the quiet, moon-bathed nights?”

Thurgood gagged a little, but managed to hide it with a well-placed chuckle. “Yes, the very one. Do you also remember the conversation you and the Swoony woman had?”

“The recollection of that glorious time,” Buck said, unhinging his knees and thrusting his Buckhood forward, “is as the initials of lovers carved just yesterday into the vital bark of a thriving tree!”

“It, uh, was yesterday, Studsworth.”

“Ha! Then I gain the upper hand, Bastardson!” said Buck, thrusting in triumph. “I shall now refer to thee solely by thy last name, in order that I may patronize thee with my tone.”

Thurgood Bastardson stomped his feet and shook his fists. This wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought. This man, this willfully willful man, possessed powers of obliviousness whose true bulk lay mostly concealed, like stupid icebergs in a sea of irrational thought.

“That’s not the point, fool! The point is that Cassidy Swoony loves another man!”

Buck stopped his victory thrust in mid-tilt. His piercing gaze of blue ice skated over Bastardson’s twisted visage like a pack of skate-wolves.

“Other? What you say is truth. I am that other man. I am the only one in whom she feels secure,” he said, but his voice carried an undertone of uncertainty that did not go unnoticed by Bastardson. He pressed in, meaning to clear the penguins off Buck’s icebergs one by one with his mental shotgun of deception. He chuckled.

“Oh, I think you know what I mean. Throw your mind back, Studsworth, and you will recall one particular line of your dialogue. It was when you remarked how wonderful it was to find someone who understood you. Do you remember what she said?”

“As if it were lover’s initials--”

“Yes or no!”

“Yes, I remember.”

“And what did she say, Studsworth? Tell me what she said!” Bastardson screamed. He was really working himself up, face red, hands shaking feverishly.

“She remarked that she found rabbits particularly cute.”

“BEFORE that!”

“Aye. Before that, she turned her face upon mine and told me with feeling that there was yet out there a man who could do the same for her.” Buck said steadily. He pointed to himself. “Me.”

“Arrogant, arrogant man!” Bastardson shook his head. He slammed his fist down onto the table, upsetting the salt shaker and the checkers. “You merely assumed it was you? You just thought that since she happened to be speaking to you, she was speaking about you? The folly! You must allow me a chuckle!”

Before Buck could answer, he took one. It tumbled around the room like a sack of malicious ferrets. Finishing up, he wiped his streaming eyes and glared levelly at Buck.
“She’s a nice woman. A lady. Ladies don’t offer their hearts to savage, uncultured cowboys, Studsworth. You’ll have to learn sooner or later that this is the way the world works.”

“We constructed large quantities of love! Right there in the birch grove!”

“Pity sex.”

“She screamed my name over and over again upon her climax!”

“Autonomic guilt reaction.”

“She told me that if she could cut off one of her legs that she would do so that I might always have it with me!”

“Post-coital crazy talk. Means nothing.”