One night I watched an old black and white version of
Pymalion. The next morning, another chapter in Arty's Friday
Chronicles was born.

humor

Copyright 2003. All rights reserved by the author (that's
me, Mark Reed). Posted here with permission.

Read at your own risk. If smut offends you, don't read this.
If you're younger than 18, don't read this. 

Girl Friday and Alienor, thanks for being good sports.

My Fair Friday
Or Fridaymalion
By Mark Reed

Once upon time in merry old England (well, at some point
when they had cars, anyway) there was a young woman named
Friday. 

[Oh no, not you too!]
[Hush, dear girl. If Arty can do it then so can I]

She didn't have much money, so her clothes were always torn
and ragged- just barely enough to cover her more sensitive
parts from the cold British air. She didn't mind being poor,
though. She was an unusually beautiful girl (if you could
see through the dirt and grime) and rather enjoyed the free
feeling she got from wearing her clothes.

[Oh, please! Could you be even more obvious?]
[Sure I could! Does the phrase 'scantily clad nubile young
body' strike your fancy?]
[Ugh! Can we just hurry up so I can get out of these rags?]
[As you wish, my dear...]

Being the poor girl that she was, she made her living
selling the only thing she had left...

[Hey there, buster!]

...flowers. And that's exactly what she was doing one rainy
evening when two professor type people found each other.

"Is THAT who you are? Well! I came all the way from India to
meet you!" Colonel Hickory said.

"And I was just on my way to India to meet YOU!" Professor
Dickory crowed. 

"Buy a flower, sir?" Friday asked. The two men looked at her
with an appalled expression.

"I say, chap. Have you ever heard a more atrocious use of
the English language?" Hickory asked. 

"No." Dickory answered quickly. "The only thing keeping that
poor girl in the gutter is her horrible mangling of her
native speech. It would be no problem for men like us,
though. Why, within six months I could pass this gutter
trash off as a Duchess." Hickory scoffed in reply. Dickory
reasserted his claim in an even more grandiose (not to
mention rude!) manner, and so it went on for several
minutes. Friday had moved on and sold three more flowers by
the time the two men quit tooting their own horns and
decided on a plan. They quickly grabbed her and hauled her
off to Dickory's house.

"Hey, whattaya think yer doing!" Friday protested. "I'm a
good girl, I am! Let go of me!" The two scholars hushed her
cries of protest and went inside the house.

Inside the house, Dickory's maid presented herself. Her name
was the only thing it could possibly be in a story with
characters named Hickory and Dickory: Ali. (Hah! Fooled ya,
didn't I? Don't worry. I never let a bad pun slip by.)

"Hey! Why'd *I* get dragged into this?" Ali said to the two
startled professors.

[It was the logical choice,] the author protested as the two
professors suffered a small lapse of amnesia. [Can you think
of anyone better to stuff into a French Maid outfit?]

Ali rolled her eyes and shared a look of frustration with
Friday as the two professors remembered where they were.

"Right then," Dickory said. "Ali, this is Friday. She'll be
sharing your room for a while. Please take her upstairs to
the bath and while she's busy, burn her clothes."

[Hey there buster! I am *not* spending another story
prancing around naked!]
[Don't worry, dear. I just saw Pygmalion last night, and
it's in the play. You get some much better clothes after the
obligatory screaming and shouting in the bath.]

With the matter of her clothing settled, Friday and Ali set
off to fulfill Dickory's wishes. Ali burned Friday's clothes
and stuffed her into the bath. For some reason, Friday knew
she shouldn't like the water, but after feeling the soap and
bubbles wash across her chest… 

[Oh come on Friday, you know I HAD to get that picture in
*somewhere*]
[Why not? Everyone has seen it.]

…decided that some parts of the play this story is based off
of were just plain silly and enjoyed the feel of the warm
water thoroughly. Somewhere far up in the sky where Friday
couldn't see, the author realized that the precedent of
diverging even further from the original play had now been
set and smiled evilly.

Alone in the bath, Friday noticed that the bubbles
completely blocked the view of everything in the tub and
snuck a hand under the water to enjoy herself more
thoroughly. Outside the bathroom, Ali heard the moans and
decided Friday would be a while. Ali took up her feather
duster and flounced about the house, shaking and jiggling
certain parts of her body while she cleaned. Suddenly she
looked to the ceiling and rolled her eyes again. "Is this
all really necessary?"

[Hey, I've got to keep the readership entertained! I could
pan back to Friday's fun in the tub, but frankly I've seen
what happens to authors who mess with that woman's libido
too much.]

Ali gave a heavy sigh and decided to be a good sport and
play the martyr. With that settled, music began to play from
one of the rooms below and Ali found herself getting into
the sway of the music. She jiggled and shook and rotated her
hips around and rose up and down on the balls of her... er..
high heels. She in the process of grinding her pelvis into
the nearest solid object when she stopped and looked once
again to the ceiling. "Just what kind of music is this,
anyway?"

Will Smith's "Boom, Shake the Room" suddenly transformed
into eloquent ballroom music, more fitting with the times.
Ali gave a snort of disgust and continued to wiggle and
jiggle and she cleaned the house.

Back in the bathroom, Friday finished making sure her
breasts and certain other parts of her body were squeaky
clean, and stepped out of the tub. She dried herself off,
concentrating on certain areas...

[I'm done, thank you very much.]
[Oh, fine. Spoilsport. You know, I never have this much fun
writing any of my OTHER stories. You could at least have the
courtesy to let me fantasize in peace!]

...until she was nice and dry. She found a mirror to look
into and gasped. It would have been a certain
currently-out-of-work magic mirror, but the author figured
that THAT author/character didn't need any more trouble, so
it was just a standard mirror. The narrative being broken,
Friday gasped again at the mirror. She beheld her own image,
amazed at how beautiful she looked when not covered in
grime. Her days on the street had kept her eating only the
necessary foods and exercising frequently. As a result,
there was not a pound of unnecessary flab on her long,
delicate legs. Her breasts were both large and firm, having
learned how to defy physics while escaping from boobies,
bobbies, or whatever they called policemen back then, in
long mad dashes through London. Her hair glistened and
shined, a perfect compliment to her unblemished skin. She
glanced down to notice that there was not a hair on her body
below her neck, and again wondered why she had been born
that way.

[Don't you think you're laying it on a bit thick?]
[A beautiful spirit deserves an equally beautiful mind.]
[Thank you. You're sweet, in your own perverted little way.
Now, can we get back to the program?]

Friday smiled in satisfaction at herself and stepped out of
the bath. She called for the maid, and raised an eyebrow at
the sight Ali presented as she rushed back into the room.
The maid outfit did a splendid job of revealing certain
areas of the body and hiding the rest to tease the
onlookers. Ali's skin was flushed and glistening with sweat,
her chest jiggling as she heaved from the exertion of
running in such high heels. Vaguely, Friday noticed more
Will Smith music playing down below, and Ali glared at the
ceiling. 

The beautiful nude Friday and the gorgeously near-naked Ali
shared yet another look, and slowly descended the stairs to
meet Hickory and Dickory on the first floor. (The author
would have used the phrase "going down below," but it's best
to choose your battles carefully.) 

Downstairs, Hickory and Dickory watched in stunned amazement
as the female pair presented themselves. Dickory snapped
himself out of it, leaving Hickory and the author to drool
in peace, and got on with the show. He dismissed Ali to her
other household duties and began teaching Friday the nuances
of phonetics. Friday frowned and interrupted the lesson.
"Shouldn't I be wearing clothes by now? I was promised a
pretty dress." 

Dickory looked sheepish. "Well, while you were up in the
bath, I was reviewing my money books and suddenly realized
I'm a bit short on pounds right now. I'm afraid I won't be
able to afford a dress until the ball in six months." Friday
shot a murderous glare at the ceiling, and everyone in the
room blinked their eyes as the thin air began to whistle
innocently. Friday sighed another heavy sigh and allowed
professor Dickory and colonel Hickory to teach her how to
speak like a lady.

It was six months of hard, intensive, mental labor. Hickory
would teach her during the day, and Dickory would take over
in the evenings, keeping her up most of the night. The pair
of professors decided that their student needed as few
distractions as possible, so they kept her chained up
against a wall during her lessons, arms and legs stretched
wide. The logic was that she could concentrate better on the
phonetics if she didn't have to worry about moving her body.
During these lessons, Friday would occasionally groan in
frustration and shoot murderous glares at the ceiling. 

When the lessons broke for mealtimes, Hickory and Dickory
took it upon themselves to feed Friday. Since her hands
stayed chained to the wall, they would sit next to her and
take turns feeding her. Occasionally something would drip
from a spoon and land on her chest, but the pair of
professors were quite fastidious and quickly cleaned up any
spills with their tongues. Oddly, many of the meals in that
house involved an excess amount of honey or chocolate syrup.

Occasionally, Friday would behave unordinarily bad during a
lesson, and the two professors would be forced to do
something about it. The first time this happened, they
unchained Friday and took turns taking her over their knees
and spanking her. Ali, cleaning something nearby, decided
that this was going too far and spoke up in defense of
Friday. Hickory and Dickory decided that Ali had a point-
they shouldn't be the ones to punish Friday. From then on,
whenever Friday would misbehave too badly, the pair of
professors would call for Ali, unchain Friday, bend Friday
over Ali's knee, and have the maid spank her. Ali's breasts
always jiggled and bounced along with Friday's rear during
these punishment sessions, and both women would roll their
eyes and silently plot revenge. 

During the lessons, Friday would break out every once in a
while with a sudden "I'm a good girl, I am!" or "the Rain in
Spain falls Mainly on the Plains." The fact that these are
the author's favorite quotes from the movies has NOTHING to
do with it.

The six months passed, and the night of the ballroom finally
arrived. Hickory and Dickory chipped in enough money to buy
Friday a perfectly stunning outfit. Ali waved goodbye to the
other three as they left the house and silently thanked
whatever gods watched over unfortunate yahoo group members
for her part in the story being over.

Buckingham palace was an inordinarily snazzy place. Every
year, the king and queen would invite a select number of
people to the ball in an attempt to find a woman who caught
the eye of their son, the prince. Hickory and Dickory led
Friday into the ballroom, until the eyes of the three
characters fell on the Long Awaited Bad Pun.

The queen had invited Dickory's star phonetics student so
she would have a kind of spy at the court. His job was to
listen to everyone speak, and from that tell the queen what
languages they spoke and where they were born. He was very
good at his job, and because he could do it with a variety
of languages across Europe, he had an honorary PHD in
phonetics. As a result of this, he preferred to go by the
name of Doc.

Hickory, Dickory, and Doc all hugged in greeting. They were
thrilled to see one another again, but Hickory and Dickory
were concerned by Doc's presence. They were afraid the jig
would be up if another expert in phonetics heard Friday
speak. Dickory looked around worriedly, noticing that for
the moment they were safe, because Friday had disappeared.

As soon as Friday saw Doc, she immediately shuffled off to
the other side of the room in an attempt to get as far away
from the ensuing bad pun as she could. As it happened, this
put her within a short radius of the Prince.

Prince Mark was known far and wide as the only prince who
had ever taken up surfing as a hobby. Some people wondered
why the royal family would allow a surfing prince, and the
rumors were confused. It somehow involved physical threats
of violence to lowly author, and even worse, threats of
extortion by an unnamed muse to the same author who depended
on the muse for story ideas. At any rate, it all resulted in
surfing being discovered quiet a bit earlier than it should
have been, and the British Royal Family boasted the only
known surfing prince in history.

Prince Mark immediately approached Friday, who was charmed
by his sexy voice, dashing good looks, incredible charisma,
perfect hair, suave and stylish sense of fashion, and
unbelievably muscular chest. (Note that for SOME muses,
there is no such thing as 'laying it on too thick.' *Sigh*) 

Prince Mark was in turn captivated by Friday's beauty and
perfect speech. The pair spent most of the night dancing,
and quickly fell in love.

The queen noticed Prince Mark's sudden infatuation and
quickly signaled Doc to investigate her background. The
message was never received, however, for just at that moment
the three professors were chatting amiably across the room
when they all noticed a mouse scurrying across the floor. It
shuffled over their shoes and ran towards a large
grandfather clock adorning a nearby wall. Before the mouse
could run up the clock, Hickory, Dickory, and Doc all gave
out long, curdled screams at the continuation of an already
incredibly bad pun and ran out of the palace like madmen.
The three professors all ran quickly back to Dickory's
house, where Ali saw the bad pun and immediately resigned as
their maid. 

The queen, not having access to any method of researching
Friday's background, decided that after waiting so long for
Prince Mark to find someone he was interested in, she wasn't
about spend years searching for another phonetics professor
with an equally bad name. The interviewed with Friday
personally, and decided that with such lovely clothes, firm
grasp of etiquette, stunning beauty, and perfect speech,
Friday *had* to be duchess from some place or other.

With his mother's permission now granted, Prince Mark asked
Friday to marry him. Friday gladly accepted, and was
immediately picked up in the Prince's arms and whisked off
to begin the honeymoon.

[Hey! The honeymoon is supposed to happen AFTER the
wedding!]
[Yeah, but I really liked Fridayyella, and decided there was
really no point in waiting.]
[Just remember what happened to the author AFTER
Fridayyella, buster!]
[*Gulp* I'll be good, I'll be good! I'm a good boy, I am!
Really!]

And with the honeymoon commencing and the wedding date set,
everyone lived happily ever after.

~fin~