First 200 Words (part 8)
This story was found in Philip José Farmer’s computer, a late 1980s IBM PS/2. While the story was complete, there were no notes indicating what or who it was written for. As for the story, sometimes you shake your head and think, “Only Phil Farmer could have thought of this…”
“My Summer Husband”
by Philip José Farmer
Being married to a human male is tough enough. It’s triply hard if that man is also a bear and a god. I wish that life on no one. However, I do enjoy many compensations.
His jealousy is not one of these. Although he tells me I should take a lover while he’s in his long uneasy winter sleep, he doesn’t really mean it. Maybe he does in the fall when he tells me that. But, when spring arrives, he’ll come snorting and roaring out of the burrow in our backyard. He’ll be full of hormones, lusting for a mate, me, bursting with a rage to fight any male trying to take me from him.
He’d sniff out, track down, and cripple, maybe kill, any man I’d slept with while he was dozing. His nose isn’t quite as keen as the nose of a one hundred percent bear. But it’s good enough to determine if a man has been in the house a few times or quite often.
I should stress, however, that it’s not the bear in him that would drive him to such extreme action. Male bears are content to chase rival mates for the females from their …
(Copyright © 2010 by the Philip J Farmer Family Trust)
The rest of “My Summer Husband” can be found in The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 1: Protean Dimensions. Keep watching this space for more 200 word excerpts.
