Ménage à Troll

Chapter One-2

I’d had my eye on a place for some time, in a building at the western end of the old Hawthorne Bridge, one of the spans over the Willamette River, dividing Slateville into eastern and western halves.

It was a brick building, set above a ravine behind one of the the bridge’s abutments, called Hoosegow.

I was drawn to this building, as the nearby bridge held an irresistible fascination.

Eventually, I saved enough money, and my dream of my own place came true. I paid the first and last month’s rent on a one room studio, plus deposit. With my busboy salary I’d be able to (barely) afford it, but it was thrilling to move in, be on my own, away from my foster parents.

At last!

Bit by bit, I accumulated furniture, housewares, linen and other necessities, while working at at a job that was less than ideal. For two years, I was a busboy at Applewood’s, six hours a day, six days a week.

There aren’t many jobs more grubby and poorly paid than that of busboy. Going from table to table, cleaning up after customers, is one of the crummiest of jobs. And by poorly paid I mean poorly paid. To give you an idea, I had to be on the payroll an entire month before I was allowed a busboy’s one percent share of the tips.

Should harbor negative feelings about the human race, I warn you busboying is a job which will nurture them.

From table to table I went, scraping scraps into plastic bins, stacking dirty dishes in a metal cart. All these stupid people and their brats scarfing one appetizer, one entree, one side, and a dessert, for a set fee.

They would look at me, in my busboy mask, gloves and apron, and I knew they looked down on me.

Humans gobbling their greasy meals, like pigs in a sty, I thought to myself, carefully hiding my revulsion. I often felt like I saw the food passing through their digestive systems, like clear plastic Visible Man or Visible Woman educational dolls.

There it went—the salads and sodas, fried steaks and mashed potatoes, the barbecued chicken, the peas, carrots, and beans. I watched the digestion of macaroni, spaghetti, meatballs, pizza, milk, coffee and icewater, steaks, cookies, fruit and whipped topping confections.

I observed what they ate working its way through their alimentary canals, the contents relinquishing nutrients as it passed through their intestines, and feasted on by bacteria, before congealing in their colons.

Thereafter, the whole business would be grunted out as brown, stinking stools while they squatted over porcelain toilets throughout Slateville and beyond.

Meanwhile, there I was, cleaning up the dregs of those meals, seeing such horrors as cigarette butts snuffed out in uneaten piles of mashed potatoes. If this sounds negative, I apologize. As I have already noted, he job of busboy is not one that lends itself to psycholgical uplift. But don’t think my ambition ended, or ever ended, at being a busboy. I am one of the greatest Troll actors of all time, I will have you know. My ambition has always been to become a major star of stage and screen.

And once I became an actor, my next ambition after that was to play a doctor in a TV drama series.

Thus, my career goals could be summarized as follows: I didn’t want to be a doctor, but I did want to play one on television. To keep my dream alive, I performed in plays and did TV bits in Slateville, a place where paid acting jobs exist hardly at all. All along, I kept saying to myself: I gotta get out of this place, if it’s the last thing I ever do.

While employed at Applewood’s, I reached age twenty one, the age of majority. I was free and on my own. On the other hand, I had never had a s****l relationship, although opportunities had many times been presented to me.

I refused them.

And likewise the gay men.

Whatever else you could say about my sexuality, I knew from the get-go I was solely focused on women of a certain age—mature, fully fleshed, and vivacious. The problem for me was the women I was exposed to in my low paying job weren’t the kind of women I wanted. What I sought was a sophisticated, worldly woman, a woman who could help me explore the kinks in my sexuality my former religious education and living with the repressed George and Ellie Mae had given me.

At home, I eagerly poured over my collection of Big Boob Babes magazines, featuring mature, curvy women of a certain age, and m*********d to them.

***

We Trolls have never fit into the stereotype of hideous, hunchbacked creatures with massive deformities, lumpy green skin, horrible pop eyes, lesions, boils, warts, and big, insane grins. Patently untrue.

Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth.

But what is the truth?

Since I exhibited none of the standard warts, blotches, rashes, or scabs commonly associated with Trolls, when it came to interacting with humans, I was on solid ground, In short, because I was the opposite of repellent by human standards, the characteristics that make a mythological Troll a Troll were not operant in my case.

How did I come to be here, on planet Earth, in the year 2020, CE?

Somehow I knew, at some level, that I came sealed in a stone, like a chick in an egg, my natural features unreadable to humans. The stone struck Earth and from it I emerged.

What happened once I arrived is as interesting as my origins. And, at long last, I finally know who I am. Thanks to Vivian, who encouraged me to discover my roots. Now I am more knowledgable about my blessing and my curse. Here is my Troll secret:

Though long-lived, I’m mortal. And have in abundance a special seed that restores physical youth and vitality to the human female. Could anything be more magical?

***

Before my success could happen however, I was slaving away at my poorly paid, mundane job.

Then I got a break. After a year of living on my own, and working at Applewoods, I saw an ad for a male model. The ad was at pains to assure readers it was for legitimate advertising work.

I called the number listed and was given an appointment and the address of the studio where the interview was to be conducted. A young woman informed me that she was Jody Van Alst, the photographer’s assistant.

Jody made an appointment and told me what to expect when I came later that day, after my shift at Applewood’s.

I was surprised to learn the address for my appointment was right at the opposite end of the Hawthorne Bridge, in a building similar to mine. Jody and her boss, a certain Vivian Loberg, maintained a studio there in a second floor loft.

Seldom had I been so nervous and excited. I dressed in the manner that Jody suggested—blue jeans, white t-shirt, and sneakers. It was a sunny day as I rode the trolley from my job in downtown, wondering if there was a chance I could get ahead as a male model.

At home, I prepared for my appointment, deciding that I might enjoy walking across the Hawthorne Bridge to the studio. On the bridge, there’s a sidewalk that runs parallel to the road bed. It so happens that the Hawthorne is located in central Slateville. Another bridge across the river, of which I am also especially fond, is called the Broadway.

Dressed in the casual outfit Jody indicated, and wearing my brown leather aviator’s jacket to boot, I sauntered across the bridge to my appointment.

The day was splendid, for mid-February. The overcast sky from the morning had burned off and while it was cool, there was enough sun to know spring was coming.

Through the steel grating at my feet, I saw the roily waters of the Willamette, named for a long lost tribe of indigenous human beings.

I arrived. At a desk in the anteroom sat Jody Van Alst, a brunette with a pair of pretty brown eyes and a fetching figure. The bronze nameplate on her desk said she was the Personal Assisant to fashion photographer and business owner, Vivian Loberg.

Jody gave me the once over, a look I am used to getting from women on account of my exceptional looks. Jody did this while flipping her hair up from the back of her neck. Whatever judgment she came to, she didn’t bother to share.

“Take this form and fill it out,” Jody said, handing me a clipboard with an attached form. Smiling, she showed a nice set of teeth, white as chalk.

I wasn’t entirely ignorant about completing forms. After all, I’d been to the dentist. Though I disliked writing things about myself, I filled this one out.

Slowly and laboriously, however.

Handwriting is not my specialty. I am more comfortable talking into a microphone, using a keyboard, or being in a situation where my gift of gab gets me through.

There were other young men in the room, filling out the form and waiting for their turn.

Ignoring the others, I wrote out my age, clothing sizes, the address of my apartment at the other end of the bridge, and my phone number. On the line where it asked whether I had done previous modeling assignments, I wrote “No.”

Some of the questions stumped me. I told Jody I wasn’t sure of my chest or bicep measurements, the prominence of my buttocks or the dimensions of my “package.”

“Not to worry,” Jody answered. “If Ms. Loberg thinks you’re worth a second look, she’ll measure you personally. She likes to be sure about such things.”

“Thanks,” I said.

I finished filling out the form. My hand is the clumsy cursive I learned during grammar school from the Society of Truth Sisters. It is during such exercises I am reminded of the the fact that I am not naturally fluent in the human tongue.

Few Trolls have the ability to master it. I’ve had to learn from scratch, and liken human language to riding a bicycle or figuring out a complex mathematical problem. I can do it if I must, but I still have trouble.

What you read here, for example, is the result of careful and conscientious effort, and much diligent editing.

My fluency is thought, which is far more eloquent than words. But I wrote a note on my form, asking, “What is a package?”

After handing the clipboard with my completed form to Jody, I returned to my seat and awaited her response to my question. She never clarified what a “package” was, or how to measure it, but I decided to take things as they came.

What else can a Troll do?

One by one, the other prospective models were taken into the studio by Jody, and came back out. For the most part, they were the kind I figured would apply for a job as a male model—a soft, smooth, fine-featured, and short. They were only two tall fellows.

Outwardly like me, one might say.

Jody escorted each into the studio, but they left on their own. I was the last called.

“Darwin Grendel,” Jody said. “Follow me.”

We entered the studio, Jody in the lead. As we left the anteroom, we came to a large open room which had once housed a clothing factory, with floor to ceiling windows facing south. It had old hardwood floors and an open, airy interior.

Although the exterior of this building was similar to the building I lived in on the opposite side of the bridge, it had been used very differently. Only recently had it been broken up into units and business spaces.

Across from the windows, a grandstand arrangement of benches filled with potted plants received the best sun in the room and the lacquered wooden floor was covered with a whisper soft wool carpet in a subdued Persian pattern.

A tiny secretary desk was off to one side of the carpets, and the straight backed swivel chair occupied by a medium sized, and slender yet fully-fleshed blond, dressed in a black skirt and matching jacket. Her hair was straight and went past her shoulders. Her breasts were unusually large but seemed to nevertheless hang just right.

This was an exceptionally beautiful woman, probably in her early thirties. Not only was she lovely in the classic sense, she filled that skirt and jacket outfit like a hand fits a glove. Besides, there was something that I sensed coming from her. A barely perceptible pheromone?

“Just a minute,” she said, never taking her eyes from the note she jotted. “Be right with you.”

Where I stood, the brightly golden color of the woman’s blond hair looked one hundred percent natural. Beneath her jacket was a black top, enclosing her imposing bosom, and on her feet were a pair of high-heeled pumps as black as the skirt and jacket. A woman unafraid of wearing all black. She put down her pen and swiveled in her seat to focus her full attention on me.

“My goodness,” she said. “Look at you.”

Her visual review was even more penetrating than the one Jody gave me. Her eyebrows arched while she took me in. Then she smiled. It was an enigmatic smile I would soon come to know well.

“Hello, how do you do?” she said, standing to offer her hand. “I’m Vivian Loberg. I see from your application that your name is Darwin Grendel.”

“Yes, Ms. Loberg, I am he,” I answered.

Vivian smiled again. She too, had a set of chalk-white teeth, perfect in every respect. Trolls notice stuff like that. She ushered me to a sofa, and sat down beside me. We were in a kind of living room, smack dab in the center of the open loft. Several pieces of furniture in an otherwise empty spot were grouped around the carpet. It was a living room all by itself in the surrounding space.

Well, not quite. Here and there around the loft were various backdrops, depicting outdoor scenes or blanks in pastel colors. Vivian commenced to talk. She made a sign to Jody to remain with us. Jody shut the door to the anteroom and sat in a neutral-colored, overstuffed armchair

“Photography,” Vivian began, “has been a particular passion of mine since high school. My senior year at South Slateville Girl’s Normal, the pictures that graced our annual were in all but a few instances taken by me.”

“Ah. How interesting,” I said.

“But you know, nowadays every half-wit with a camera phone considers themselves a photographer, Darwin dear. Oh—may I call you Darwin?”

“Please do.”

“In any case, some of the most compelling photographs ever taken were by accident. What a professional brings to picture-taking is art. To be a model, you must also be an artist, Darwin. As I am an artist.”

To confess that the woman was knocking my socks off by her intelligent, calm, and commanding presence would be to understate by a lot how smitten I was. Vivian was so striking in her physical appearance and personal allure I was literally gobsmacked.

“Being an artist is a good thing,” I finally managed to say. Meanwhile, I kept listening to Vivian, getting powerful erotic vibes from her.

What could I say? What could I do to? The only thing that came to mind was to let Vivian take the lead, to let her guide the conversation and later, if appropriate, to make the arrangements necessary for a “relationship.”

“Thank you. The truth is, Darwin, I am discouraged that I haven’t yet been able to earn the substantial sums I seek from my art. Recently, I signed a contract with Skive Pilot, a men’s underwear brand, to produce a series of pictures designed to send their products flying off the shelves. And you can help, I do believe.”

“Oh, wow,” I said, employing the shorthand argot of my generation to show respect. “Double Wow.”

“Thank you. This time however, Darwin, I expect to make something special of this opportunity. The crux of the matter is finding the right model for my pictures. So far, I haven’t found him. At least I hadn’t until you came through the door.”