Little Sally and the Bull Fiddle God

by C.S.E. Cooney




(This is for Jack Hanlon.)

Oh, a god came down, took a look around

For to see what he could see

Saw a busy town, full of busy girls

Well, he liked a busy bee

And the god said, "Child, gonna make you smile

Gonna set your skin aflame

You can search the skies, but it’s in my eyes

You’ll know glory, thrill and fame."
And he talked the talk, and he walked the walk

Like a hunter with his game

And he burnt them up, and he didn’t balk

'Cause a god don’t got no shame
 


So, the god looked left, and the god looked right

Till he tumbled full in thrall

She was such a sight, like a ragged rose

Well, he liked thorns on this doll
And the god said, "Girl, gonna hold you close

Gonna love you swift and sweet

Coulda strolled the world, never met a girl

Made me feel all this heat."

And she stood so still, though her heart did jolt

At the god there on her street

From his diamond grin to his lightning bolt
And his skin as gold as wheat
 

Little Sally said as she shook her head

"I don't like your cunning face

I don’t need your hand, got a three-man band

And the love of a double bass

Sure I fancy men with a music yen

Better still if they can play

But there ain't no boy that can match my joy

When I play that certain way."

Little Sally's smile drove the god right wild

"Girl, I like you fierce and fey

If by guile or art I can win your heart

Then the rest of you I'll sway."
 
With a big blue flash and a thunder crash
Turned himself outside then in
Had a fancy scroll and some f-shaped holes
Six feet tall from head to pin
That bull fiddle god, he shone red as blood
And his strings were thick and long
When he heard her gasp, he began to laugh
And it echoed, deep and wrong
"Oh, my Sal, my sweet, just admit defeat
For you're weak and I am strong."
Little Sally glared, told him, "I ain't scared —
I could tame you with a song."
 
Sally took her stance and began to dance
That bull fiddle forth and back
When he tried to fight she just set him right
Gave his bout a little smack
Sally stroked his bridge till he twitched and itched
And his tailpiece it sighed
Though he bucked about, still the notes poured out
Like an avalanche or tide 

And she slapped and tapped and plucked and pulled

Till he groaned and moaned and cried
She split that fiddle right down the middle
And that broken god he died
 
Little Sally paused, let the pieces fall
Then took up her double bass
And she beamed at it, and it gleamed at her
And her fingers picked up pace
Soon the band joined in, hot and hard as sin
And they played the midnight through
Through the bar's last call and the dawn's slow crawl
Rockabilly, jazz and blues
Right into the day, still that band they played
It's the only thing to do
When you kill a god in a bass facade
Which he wore for love of you.



C.S.E. Cooney lives and writes across the street from a Victorian Strolling Park. She is the author of How To Flirt in Faerieland and Other Wild Rhymes and Jack o' the Hills, both available on Amazon. Her most recent novellas, Martyr's Gem and How the Milkmaid Struck a Bargain with the Crooked One may be found online at GigaNotoSaurus. "Witch, Beast, Saint" the first of her erotic fairytales from The Witch's Garden series has appeared in Strange Horizons; if you like it, check out her novella in the same series, The Witch in the Almond Tree. The first novella in her Dark Breakers series is called The Breaker Queen. With her fellow artists in the Banjo Apocalypse Crinoline Troubadours, Cooney appears at conventions and other venues, dramatizing excerpts from her fiction, singing songs, and performing such story-poems as "The Sea King's Second Bride," for which she won the Rhysling Award in 2011.

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