prompt: club, title: someone's knocking in "city mouse and country mouse, in the suburbs" flash fiction

“It’s about vampires, you know.” She looked up from an endless pile of biology finals in front of her. She’d been in a grading fugue state and couldn’t tell if she’d been at it for ten minutes or ten years. “What, babes?” she asked her wife, “Vampires, what now?” “That yacht-rock song you’re listening to,” her wife muttered from the depth of her own burden, sorting through set schematics for The Babysitter’s Club musical she was producing as a favor for friends downstate, “it sounds like it’s about some guy’s house party, but really it’s about actual-factual goddamned vampires.”

She blinked, shaking her focus from the thankless toils of a college professor. “I was so out of it, with these tests, I wasn’t really listening. I don’t know what they’re teaching kids in high school these days, they don’t even know that ‘mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell’, for Christ’s sake.” Her wife smiled. “If I ever end up in jail, that’s what I’ll want my prison nickname to be.”

“What prison nickname?” “Mitochondria,” she smiled and flexed her slender but not particularly well-muscled left bicep, “as I would be the powerhouse of the cell.” “You’ve been watching too much Orange is the New Black again, I see.” “There is. No. Such. Thing, Kitten Boo.”

“What song are you even talking about?” “You know, uhm, Someone’s Knocking at The…” she stopped herself, “that’s not the title, I mean, it’s Let ‘Em In by Paul McCartney, after he gave up making anything interesting and started Wings instead.” Her science professor wife stared at her blankly. “How is,” she paused, “and you’re such a snob, by the by, Wings was just fine for what it was,” she paused again, “how exactly is the song supposed to be about vampires or whatnot?”

“Vampires,” she set aside the schematics for the treehouse set momentarily, “can’t enter a home without permission, they’re magically compelled not to, that is just known blood-sucking lore.” “Uh-huh,” her wife rolled her eyes, “I have heard.” “The whole song is Paul demanding you let ‘em in. Rattling off a list of common names to fool you into thinking you know them. Oh, sister Suzy, uncle Arthur, whatever, trying to trick you into giving them permission to enter. Who did you think they are?” “Vampires?” she replied dryly. “VAMPIRES!” was the enthusiastic reply.

“You’re lucky you’re cute as beans.” “God, yeah, I’d be dead ten years ago if I wasn’t so hot.” “Not to change the subject but absolutely to change the subject, how is that new thing going?”

“I can’t really say. I mean, the first rule of Babysitter’s Club is…” “Don’t talk about Babysitter’s Club?” “You’re damn right, gorgeous.” “What’s the second rule?” “Pretty sure the second rule of Babysitter’s Club is that if the kids won’t go to sleep, just club them on the head. That’ll put ‘em right out.” “Don’t put that in the play.” “C’mon, babe,” she smiled as a flourish, “now I have to.”

Last updated July 22, 2024