 day,” I bragged.
The flatulent rainbow slowly dissipated. I stroked my stomach in appreciation. Fiona was pinching her nose shut, but that slight, alluring smile still remained. The sunlight spilled through the window. It was going to be a good day.
ling by the minute. Her skirt appeared to be growing shorter each time I looked, but I’m willing to pass this off as an optimistic hallucination. More than anything else, though, it was her skin. I could see my fuzzy reflection in the pristine smooth, porcelain white of her thighs. Hers was a body better suited to polishing than washing. I imagined the slightest impact breaking her shell and revealing the hollow space within.
The suburb we were in was unfamiliar to me. The sky in this part of town had a slight green hue. All the houses were made of cardboard and threatened to topple whenever a gust of wind licked them. Groups of men in pink golf shirts, and carrying rifles, shot at each other from opposite sides of the road. Whenever a bullet tore through Fiona’s car, I flinched. She didn’t even seem to register the potentially deadly interruptions. What if a bullet broke that skin?
“Are we nearly there?” I eventually asked.
Her use of the word ‘dear’ intoxicated me. Her everything intoxicated me. A bullet shattered a back window, but I remained calm. The golf men didn’t appear to be after anyone but each other. For some reason, this thought consoled me. Being a casualty of another’s fight sat better than being the target.
One of the cardboard houses flipped over and blew onto the road. Fiona gently applied the brake and waited.
She was holding a lighter to my mouth before the cigarette was even out of the pack. 
“You sure like it when I smoke,” I said. I was just filling the silence that existed between us, not really looking for or expecting a conversation to develop.
Through the haze I watched as six magpies lifted the cardboard obstruction from our path. In a display of barely controlled coordination, they awkwardly flew away.
“Are they the council workers?” I asked snidely.
I had already worked my pants halfway down my thighs before I thought to ask why. The thought never evolved into verbalisation. I just sat bereft of pants, feeling the warm leather car seat cling to my arse. The car turned into a driveway and the throat singing was turned off. The absence of sound unnerved me. A man in a sailor uniform and brandishing flags stepped in front of the car and communicated to Fiona in semaphore. She responded with a series of finger movements and he stepped aside. His eyes were glued to mine as we cruised past him.
“Who the hell’s that?” I asked.
 It looked how I felt. We were in a garage. It was made of cardboard but still felt like an inescapable prison. Fiona motioned for me to stay seated. She left me alone and vanished through a doorway. I jammed three cigarettes between my lips and sucked them for dear life, willing my anxiety away. I’ve never liked being introduced to new people. Without pants, I could only assume it would be worse. Ash crumbled from the cigarettes and powdered on my legs, which were jittering restlessly.
I watched the swivel of her arse as she led the way. Each cheek was a perfect peach I wanted to sink my teeth into. I remembered that I was about to meet new people and stopped my perverted stare. First impressions usually flounder when erections are involved.
Fiona’s knuckles wrapped upon a steel door.  My knees were throbbing in pain and I wanted to extend my legs. A bald Asian man greeted Fiona with a wet kiss. A flash of jealousy blinded me and a strange urge to beat the man nearly took control. He helped Fiona to her feet and left me alone.
“This is him?” asked the man, eyeing me up and down.
He was an odd looking sort. Each eye had four pupils that churned like a tumble drier and didn’t blink. His eyebrows were below each eye like little beards.
Fiona gave me a reassuring look and took my hand. The Asian man scoffed and left us alone. We entered a small red door marked “specimen”. I gulped a wad of accumulated saliva while pondering what I was walking into.
I nodded, trying my best to feel reassured. She punched a number into a keypad and the door sprung open. I followed her through.
I was standing on a spot-lit stage. The lights burned the outer layer of my eyes away and if it hadn’t been for Fiona’s measured demeanor, I’d have bailed on the whole thing. Before me sat a barely visible crowd of 20 or so people. They were whispering amongst themselves like hissing snakes. I could feel their judgmental stares painting me yellow. Fiona approached a podium and, with a swipe of her hand, hushed the audience.
What background information could she possibly know about me? I barely even knew anything about myself. I wasn’t interesting enough to have ‘background’. I was intrigued.
 This was met with applause.
She approached a small table draped in red satin.  With both hands, she dramatically ripped away the satin. My excavated tumour was now on full display. It was housed in a small glass box and still wore the refuse from Fiona’s handbag. My tumour filled the screen behind me and the audience fell silent. I’ve never been good at deciphering silence. They were either in awe of my growth or uninterested.
A man with a totem pole head stood up and slowly clapped. He was joined by someone else in the shadows. The clapping picked up speed as others joined in. Within an hour, the whole crowd was applauding with fervor. It was the most energising experience of my life. I felt like I finally had a purpose, like I was the recipient of a prestigious award.
The applause exploded, cracking my eardrums in little pink puffs. I didn’t know what else to do so I curtseyed, mashing my testicles between my thighs. They ate it up. I swanned about the stage like a diva, flashing my cosmetically poor teeth and star jumping. When I attempted an ill-fated version of the Charleston, Fiona put a merciful stop to it. With a hand on either shoulder, she guided me to the back of the stage.
A child dressed in wooden clothes wheeled out a gurney covered in sleeping cats.
She urged me with her eyes and I responded accordingly. I brushed aside the cats, many of whom scampered away, and lay down as instructed.
I waved as I did it, eliciting slight laughter from several of those watching.
Fiona was holding a long, flexible device with steam valves running along its length. The thought of her sliding that thing inside me inspired both excitement and fear.
I nibbled at my bottom lip and listened to her resonant footsteps behind me. I could feel the air stir as she moved and the anticipation sent chills.  Fiona’s endoscopic device tickled and scraped suggestively. She was toying with me, right there in front of all those people. I loved it. It slid inside me with a squish and I felt mucous drip out of me. I closed my eyes and thought about board games.
Curiosity got the better of me. My eyes were soon open again and my neck craned painfully to see the screen. I had to know what I looked like inside. The walls of my bowel were mapped in graffiti, some of it rather fetching. Small chandeliers swung from the roof, lighting the way. To my dismay, advertising also lined my bowel walls. Was no place sacred? The endoscope pushed further, through rivers of fecal muck and thick blood and hissed as it released scorching steam. I winced, but allowed it to continue. I had to see them. I had to understand why I was so special.
“We’re nearly there,” whispered Fiona.
She arrived at a U bend littered with miniature, discarded furniture and moth wings. The endoscope slid past and there they were: my tumours.
A collective gasp rose from the audience and splashed against the ceiling. Fiona’s body twitched and a small, enamored moan escaped her lips. My tumours were clustered together majestically — more than I could count. Perhaps it was just an illusion brought about by the endoscope, but they looked so large and perfect. Each appeared to be breathing and rotating like fleshy planets. Here in their putrid little ecosystem, they thrived and absorbed the secretions around them.
“I’m going to go deeper,” said Fiona.
The tumours gathered around the endoscope as if trying to feed on it. It pushed forward, uncovering more tumours of even higher quality. I could hear some people in the audience crying exalted thank yous to no one in particular. The endoscope arrived at a tumour much larger than the rest. It was covered in a rich netting of veins and spindly protrusions. Right in its centre was something no one would have expected — an unblinking, coal-black eye.
“Oh my lord,” said Fiona. “It’s more amazing than I expected. It’s a guardian! This means, Bruce… that you have a queen inside you!” She let go of the endoscope and collapsed to the