So I haven’t explained what the joke is about the little short-short I posted, The Life and (Hard) Times of Shiloh Mars, yet which I meant to. And maybe I gave people the idea there’s more to that story than there is, I should explain, and please accept humble apologies if it’s totally disappointing!
See, that little story I posted was written just so the joke and what it inspired would make “sense” or—I guess—have a context. At first, I was just going to post the result of that inspiration and then explain, but now I think I should first?
To steal a line from one of my favorite movies: “I trust I make myself obscure?”
Ok, I’ll try to explain. Here goes:
Back when I was in high school, I was browsing the fantasy section of a local bookstore and a book caught my attention. I don’t remember anything about; not the title, the author or the plot. All I remember is this: it was fantasy, the main character was a girl and bad guy was an evil wizard (not a super-cool video wizard like Riley!).
Yeah, I know; that totally narrows it down. I also remember (obviously) that it was intriguing enough to flip through to see if there were any “good” parts. (I’m really good at finding “good” parts in a book—it’s a gift.) Anyway, I didn’t exactly find any “good” parts, but I did find this:
The girl falls into the clutches of Evil-Wizard Dude and he transforms her in a statue. The description of the her as a statue is detailed. Of course, the statue is nude. (Who’d have a clothed statue, anyway? Especially in a fantasy novel?)
Her as a statue has onyx breasts, moonstone nipples, and—this is it!—a malachite crotch and mons (as the book said).
Huh!?!
I don’t remember my exact reaction as the time, but that part is burned into my brain at the expense of just about every other detail about the book!
The girl had a malachite pussy! 🤣
So at some point—I don’t remember when, but early on—it occurred to me that the perfect title of a hard-boiled PI parody would be a spoof of The Maltese Falcon called The Girl with the Malachite Pussy!
(BTW: this was before The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo; sorry, but I think my title is better. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo wasn’t originally called that anyway, if that makes any difference?)
So what was The Girl with the Malachite Pussy about? Besides being a spoof, I had no idea. But the idea stuck in my head for… years. And I finally came up with a kind blurb or prologue… or something. And I made some fake covers (one of which I posted).
But it seem to me that The Girl with the Malachite Pussy couldn’t be the first “book”; there had to be some context or the blurb/prologue thing wouldn’t make sense. And I was stumped. I was stumped for a long time.
Then the other part of the joke happened. I ran across this book on Amazon (probably recommended to me?); Amazon alone knoweth why because it was the kind book that really gets my blood pressure up—some inept douche-canoe gets transported a “magic” realm where he gets superpowers and slaughters whatever there is handy to be slaughtered while throngs of naked “cute chicks” throw themselves at him and he ends up a harem of said naked cute chicks and yada, yada…
Yeah… the book was super-popular at the time. (Maybe why it got recommended to me?) Color me surprised.
Anyway (again), the blurb (and the book’s popularity) were appalling enough to me that I read the first page of the sample, wherein said transported douche-canoe faces off against a horde of convenient slaughteries (with a cute chick on his arm? I forget) and sneeringly delivers some “manly” quip the author felt was uber-kewl and clever and the perfect way to start a book!
And I burst out laughing. Seriously! 🤣
And nearly immediately, I thought: if this is popular, why can’t I write something this cheesy?
So I did; just a few paragraphs. Of course, the “sneering” slaughterer had to be a woman and her love-interest had to be a woman and…
That’s when I clicked! This could be the hard-boiled PI and her partner/lover from The Girl with the Malachite Pussy! This could be the context I was looking for!
It took a long time after that to turn those few paragraphs into a short-short story, figure out who Xel was and what was going down (so to speak). But eventually I did.
That’s where things have stayed. I still don’t know anything about The Girl with the Malachite Pussy beyond what I’m posting below. This isn’t my typical story or style or anything like that. I do think it would be a pretty cool fun story in the right hands. I’m just sure my hands are the right ones. And I have this weird habit of thinking up blurbs I really like for stories I have no idea how to write.
Oh well…
Anyway, that’s the story and the joke behind it: a silly long-forgotten fantasy novel about a Girl with the Malachite Pussy, and some book on Amazon that I’ve also (mercifully) forgotten.
Oh, and the author’s name. I was told this once, long ago, and maybe I have it partly wrong? Some famous author I’ve never read invented a character-author in one of his books named Kilgore Trout. And part of the book (or maybe book he then wrote?) was supposedly by this Kilgore Trout. I think it was a satire and Trout was supposed to be this terrible author who thought he was great or something? I forget.
But that inspired the name Kelly Armantrout as the author of a spoof.
So a spoof of a satire that’s a parody of the hardboiled PI genre, inspired (partly) by really annoying adolescent T&A splatter fantasy.
Does that make any sense? I’m not sure either.
My blurb/prologue is below, but before you get that, please consider supporting Riley Rose. Riley wrote The Adventures of Elena and Ned, Gargoyle P.I., which a real story, a really awesome on a level I can’t even dream of achieving! It’s totally different than this and, frankly, way better! Go see! You can also check out Elena and Ned—and Zana on here on her Substack!
Now, here’s my subscribe button!
Now here’s the blurb/prologue. And again, sorry if you were expecting more! I won’t do that again! (Or I’ll try not to!)
And Thank You, more than I can say!
The Girl with the Malachite Pu$$y
She was a dame. A babe. A brunette bombshell. Eyes as blue as an arctic lake. Hair as black as a reporter’s heart. Lips like twin pillows of paradise. Curves like a dangerous highway. Legs for days—weeks even. Chest like two scoops of the richest French vanilla ice cream you ever tasted topped by the two sweetest strawberries the Good Lord (actually, he’s just okay but the Okay Lord doesn’t have much of a ring to it) ever saw fit to put on this Earth. (Or should have. Bit of an oversight there, if you ask me.)
Yeah, she was a stone fox. And she had a malachite pussy.
I mean a cat. A cat made of malachite. Seriously, did your brain really go there? It totally did. Don’t even lie.
This cat—a statue of a cat, got it?—had been carved in malachite long, long ago, in a… wait, shit, wrong story. Anyway, carved by unknown hands, for unknown reasons. That’s kind of a problem, cuz the cat is cursed. Legend has it the cat can only change hands by foul play, preferably with murder involved. Otherwise, the owner will suffer a run of shit luck and die a horrible death within three years.
This dame says she can’t remember how she got the cat—she just woke up one day with it in her bed. She says sinister people are following her. (Like, duh—when’s the last time anyone was followed by nice, sweet, well-meaning people?) She thinks they want the cat. That’s cool with her and all—given the whole curse thing—it’s the murder part she’s not thrilled about. She’s also thinking if we can find out who made the cat and why, we can break the curse. Then she can keep it. Assuming we deal with the sinister dudes.
I’m thinking: What’s this we shit?
But she has a lot of money. Like major metric shit-tons of money. And let’s not forget the French vanilla thing. I’m a sucker for French vanilla, when it’s available. Love me them strawberries too!
And then there’s this: a different legend says the malachite pussy (gotta love the name) holds the key to a talisman that will make the owner the Dark Overlord, the guy who runs the Underground, along with his sidekick, the Dark Avenger (they kinda have this theme going).
And the guy who runs the Underground, runs pretty much everything else. I know, you might’a thought that was the Good Lord. (Nope. He’s more of a dude who just meddles a bit.) So yep, there’s interest.
Y’know, being the Dark Overlord could be kind of a cushy gig. Xel would make a kick-ass Dark Avenger. Not totally sure if she’d be down with it—it’s probably a full-time thing and she likes her current hours—but I am pretty sure she’d be open to discussing it.
And we could smash the Glass Ceiling of Evil!
Hmmm… I think I’m getting excited here.
But back to this babe. She says her name is Layla Cairo. But I’m not a complete noob, and I have my sources. (No, not just Google—gimme a break.) She also calls herself Shaughnessy O’Hara, Mila Archer, Elsa Lundquist, Kat Safire (yeah, right!) and—you’re gonna love this one!—Indigo Jones.
Obviously, she’s a woman of many parts.
And Ohhh, what parts…
Okay… ya got me. I’m down. Let’s do this…