Merchant’s Tale

It’s the story of a rich old man, January
He’s still a bachelor at sixty, but now he plans to marry
And he’s looking for a beautiful young wife
Which is an option for rich old geezers sometimes
See, January was one of those “secularists”
Which means he had no control over his sexual urges
He couldn’t say which was better, gettin’ laid or gettin’ paid
He just knew when he was gettin’ one, the other would get away
But then he changed, whether from religious sensibility
Or whether he just got thick-headed from senility
I can’t say, but suddenly he wanted it
January became a dedicated monogamist
Instead of a misogynist, treating women like objects
It’s funny how our attitudes change with our prospects
Yeah, marriage is a beautiful thing
Especially for those who are too old to swing
That’s when it’s nice to just stay home with your wife
Instead of chasing waterfalls, ‘cause it’s cold outside
Take my advice, all you bachelor men
If you want love and happiness and companionship
You need a wife, a woman who will never be impatient
No more rejection and constant humiliation
Or anyway, that’s what January would say
Once he decided he was ready for his wedding day
So he asked his friends to help him find somebody
And said “Guys, just try to make sure she’s under twenty
I want sex appeal, not a tough old cow
I want some tender veal, instead of know-how
I want a woman I can mold right now with my own hands
Not a pre-fab thirty-year-old, I want some warm wax
Well, soon a young girl caught his fancy
And he said he had to have her if he wanted to be happy
And I’ll skip the details of how they got engaged
Except just to say: rich men get the females
The girl that he chose was named May
A pretty eighteen-year-old with a baby face
And when the wedding day came, the pairing was gorgeous
They looked like Calista Flockhart and Harrison Ford
If Calista was more like Miley Cyrus’ age
Yeah, everyone agreed that the bride was a babe
And January just watched her with lust in his eyes
And all he really wanted was to bust in her thighs
But first he had to get through the vows and feast
And the speeches, while suppressing his eagerness
But when the last guest in the villa went home
He took his bride to bed – she lay as still as a stone
As he caressed her, and said “Sorry I have to hurt you
But the church say sex within marriage is a virtue
And now that we’re husband and wife
I can make tonight last as long as I like”
And in spite of his age, January stayed solid
And several long hours of unpleasantness followed
And in the morning, instead of passing out
He sat up in bed singing and laughing out loud
And she just watched him, like “Ew, he’s crazy old!
The wrinkles on his neck look like the skin of a baby mole!”
And so on, and January singin’ his verses
With his wife lying next to him, thinkin’ he’s worthless
So we’ll just leave May in bed with her disappointment
And I’ll talk about the fly in the ointment
January had an assistant named Damian
He was at the wedding, yeah, he was one of his favorites
But Damian couldn’t even enjoy the day
Because Damian had eyes only for May
But he knew he couldn’t tell her ‘cause his boss was jealous
And January had sway like the Rockafellers
So he thought to himself that the sure way to get her
Was to write the girl a note, oh yes, a love letter
When he finished the note, like a sneaky sneak
Damian hid it somewhere she would find it secretly
And he signed his name to it, he was takin’ his chances
‘Cause a young man’s likelihood of mating advances
By takin’ risks – that’s how human nature is
‘Cause the girls love a guy if he’s dangerous
And when May found the note, she read it and smiled
‘Cause he was kinda sweet, plus it was written with style
And it said: “PS – I’m dead if you tell your husband”
So she ripped it into fifty little pieces and flushed it
Well after that things changed
Damian and May played the winking game
But they couldn’t follow through ‘cause there was a jealous guy
In the mix – January kept a watchful eye
On his chick, and the months passed by
But January was old – he was slowly going blind
Which was increasing Damian’s chance of penetration
Thank goodness for advanced macular degeneration
And if January was jealous before
Well, his blindness amplified it just a little bit more
He was so afraid to find his wife in a tryst
That he kept one hand at all times on her wrist
With no exceptions, not even for toilet breaks
While she peed he would hover beside her like a coiled snake
Guarding its eggs, but his problem wasn’t solved
Cause her lack of freedom just increased her resolve
And pretty soon, opportunity knocked
‘Cause January liked to take afternoon walks
In the garden, holding May by the elbow
He didn’t trust her for a second on her own, hell no!
The garden was surrounded by a wall with a locked gate
He wanted privacy to exercise his prostate
With May when he pleased in a grove of trees
And a chain around his neck held the only key
But January slept like a corpse after strolls
So May copied the key in a warm wax mold
When he was passed out, and passed it out the window
To Damian, along with a note containing info
On what he should do, how long he should take
When he should enter the garden gate, and where he should wait
And he obeyed, Damian did what he was told
A guy’s gotta roll with it when a woman’s in control
Of his fate, and the very next day
January awoke with the sun on his face
He couldn’t see it but he knew it was a beautiful day
So he said: “Let’s take a walk in the garden May”
She said “Okay” and dutifully walked beside him
And when they passed through the gate, he locked it behind them
And said “Now there’s no one here but you and me woman”
But Damian was there, she could see him but he couldn’t
He was sitting in a tree according to plan
And as she walked with her husband she was holding his hand
And saying “Babe, I don’t get it, why don’t you trust me more?
The way you treat me you must think I’m nothing but a whore
Always holding my arm, it’s like you expect me
To fuck somebody different every second if you let me
We made a solemn vow to be faithful to each other
Through the good and the bad, and always stay together
But for real, if you’re with me every second it’s no party
And January said “Aw, May baby, I’m so sorry
I wish I didn’t have to watch you every second
Like a chicken hawk – it’s just these jealous thoughts!
Ever since I lost my ability to see
All I think about is other men humiliating me
So I have to keep my property under lock and key
And that includes you, my love, obviously
I wanna set you free, but I’m afraid of human nature
By keeping you with me I’m saving you from temptation
And May said, “Oh well, I guess that’s fair
Ooh, look up in that tree, such delicious pears!
Oh please let me climb up and pick some for us to eat
You can guard the base of the tree if you don’t trust me”
And he was kinda hungry, so he held the tree’s base
And said “Okay, but don’t tell me you never get free space”
And for the sensitive folk, please forgive my bluntness
But Damian just lifted up her skirts and thrust in
May and Damian, sitting in a tree
F-U-C-K-I-N-G
Like a couple of animals, with May’s jealous husband
Obliviously guarding the trunk of it down below
Now it’s time for a sublime suspension
Of disbelief, ‘cause here comes divine intervention
The ancient Roman gods, Pluto and Persephone
Happened to be watching from above, and commenced a heated
Argument about who was in the right
The jealous old husband or the adulterous wife
She said “Pluto, why you gotta be so hard on us
Why you swear all women are so scandalous?
Just look at how he treats her; she’s practically on a leash
This guy deserves to get cheated on, honestly”
And for his reply, Pluto quoted the poet Ovid
And said “Bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks
No wonder he’s jealous, just look at this little slut
She’d climb in a tree just like a monkey to get some nuts
In fact, fuck that, I’ll give him his sight back
And she’ll get caught in the act, yeah, we’ll see how she likes that
And I’ll give every man the gift of suspicion
Like a weapon to keep an eye on their scandalous woman”
And Persephone said “Fine, if you give him his sight back
And make men suspicious, then I’ll give women a gift to fight back
If your gift to men is to make them jealous twits
Then my gift to women is the gift of deceptiveness
The gift of sweet words and deflection and flattery
Everything they need to keep their men from reality”
Isn’t it strange that the gifts the gods gave
Sound like the product of an evolutionary arms race
So that if anyone was randomly born with an advantage
In the battle of the sexes then they’d leave more descendents
On average… Ah forget it, call it a divine gift
And we’ll go back to the story of January’s blindness
Which evaporated miraculously
And he looked at his hands like “God damn! I can see!
I can see… My wife up in a tree?!?
With a man… Fucking in the canopy!?!”
And May instantly climbed down
While Damian crouched behind some branches to hide himself
She said “Oh, thank god it worked!
When I first heard about it, I thought it was the oddest cure!”
“Cure?!?” he said “But you were bent over a branch
With a man…” She said “No, that was an interpretive dance”
“There was a man, but he’s gone now, see?
No man in the tree; it’s just you and me
And you can see, so you shouldn’t be angry
I just gave you back your vision, you should thank me
It’s a new form of alternative therapy
You do an interpretive dance with a man up in a pear tree
And it acts as a homeopathic cure for blindness
It’s based on the latest in quantum science!”
“But I saw your dress pulled up to your chest”
He said, “and there was thrusting and exposed flesh”
And she said “Look, you know how you can’t trust your sight
First thing in the morning until you adjust to the light, right?
Well, come on, you’ve been utterly blind
For months; darling, you probably just have rusty eyes
And besides, didn’t you just say that
You had visions in your head of being humiliated
So how do you know that it wasn’t one of those
I mean, there’s nothing we see that the mind doesn’t control
So it isn’t shameful if you hallucinate
But you have your vision back! Aw baby, that’s super great!”
And January didn’t really wanna fight
With his wife, and he was pretty happy for his sight
So he said “Okay, baby, maybe I was wrong”
And he believed it too; he wasn’t just playing along
And they headed home together, walking hand in hand
The model relationship between woman and man