Lioness Extraordinaire
s this a game to you? Are you earnest when you ask me if I bought these chairs at Bob’s Discount Furniture Store? No, I did not acquire these genuine Eames Lounge Chairs at any store you would know of.
When I saw the leather upholstered chairs and ottoman set in that man’s dusty little bazaar stand, I knew I had found my next meal. I slowly made my way towards him, ready to envelop him like an anaconda, maintaining eye contact so he knew I was there and that he was nothing more than a necessary obstacle to adding treasures to my boudoir. In his naivety, he stared back as though he were the predator, unaware of my concealed fangs and many insolent proposals I had to offer.
Do you know what the thrill of the hunt tastes like? It tastes like pennies. It tastes like licking a zipper. It tastes like blood. It was a bloodbath in that stand.
He wanted a fair and just price, that simpleton. He didn’t know that I am the definition of injustice, of cruelty, and that I would make sure he would lose the little game of bartering he thought we were playing. Confused onlookers only heard numbers hurled at one another, but we spoke a language only we understood. Over the course of seven hours I could see him wearing thin, getting slow to respond “no” to my idiotic offers. Like a lioness chasing her prey down to the point of exhaustion, I was going to feast. A few more hours and he was beyond frustration or fatigue. He wanted out of our negotiations by any means necessary. He didn’t know it yet, but I just had to bite down.
He begged and pleaded as though there was mercy in my eyes. There wasn’t; there never has been. In that moment, we were the only two people that existed, and my hegemony had been solidified. I am the alpha and the omega; the beginning and the end. He “sold” them to me for $200. They could have easily gone for over ten times that amount, if sold by anyone with half a spine.
When I die, they will burn alongside me in my funeral pyre, so no inferior being can lay claim to what is mine on earth and in heaven. But until then, I will sit on my thrones built upon the poor man’s tears (he cried), and relax after a hard-fought battle. And if you ever insult me again by asking if I bought them at a second-rate big-box store, not only will you be exiled from my mid-century modern kingdom, but you’ll face my silent yet unending wrath.
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