Wine.

Tarka:
 
The camras rolled around the studio as the men and beasts all took up their 
stations behind them waiting for the host to come out. The small studio 
audiance settled down... many of them with breathers over their faces. Dimmly 
Doms show was very popular on the galactic circuit.
 
"Places everyone! We go on the air in 5 minutes! Get the filters into place 
for Siggen and trans. Shift all the colores into the ultraviolet for them. 
Check the guests cloths and make sure they still look good under that light." 
The director was getting tired of saying that for every single show. Only he 
couldn't stop cuase it always came out bad when he didn't. He worked at his 
paw to work out a cramp.
 
The crowd of men, beasts and kin all quieted down as the time do the show 
started to get closer. Dimmly could be seen prancing around to the side now. 
Reading over the sheets for the day. Guests, jokes, and interesting tidbits 
of galactic news. He was an earth form like the director. Human though and 
not engineered.
 
Vassily:
 
The crowd bouced, thrashed, vibrated oor thrummed in their seats as was their 
wont when the lights came up on the stage.  Siggen burst out from behind the 
curtains bearing its trademark coprophilic grin.  The grin that won the pump 
unit of circulatory systems all throughout the lesser Magellanic cluster.
 
"We've got a fabulous show for you. Lumpen Phlox will be talking about her 
latest film, "A Vole for All Seasons" and we'll have a response from Glalatic 
Special Forces about last weeks show and the terrible tragedy that followed."
 
Dimmly twirled and danced towards the couch. Silk flickering and sparkiling 
in the extended spectrum of the lights. "But my first guest is here to shed 
some light on a problem that too often goes unmentioned." Dimmly sat and 
untangled its lower limbs as the camera panned back over to the curtains slow 
parting.
 
Tarka:
 
From behind the curtain came a lovely Seggen, humpping her way over the 
floor. Leaving a faint but sticky trail behind. Dimmly never lost his smile 
but behind the camras Karnipis the director shook his head. They went through 
more carpets in a week.... "Make sure the shot seems to move faster... and 
get Dimmly's couch closer. Slowly..."
 
Oh the stage the sofa Dimmy was sprawled on shifted closer to the slower 
moving Seggen. She got there in no time flat and settled into the far end. 
"Why Doms. It is truely a pleasure to meet such a well known person. My 
entire brood watches your show." Her slime slowly dribbled over the edge. 
 
"Oh the pleasure is all mine!" Dimmly moved into pure flattery mode. "It is 
wonderful to have such a personage on my show. I'm sure the audiance would 
like to know why you have traveled so far to be on my show."
 
Vassily:
 
"It's just so hard to come out and say." The seggen sobbed. The lights 
glistened on its skin as it throbbed and pulsed on the sofa. Dimmly smiled 
slowly. "You'll feel so much better if you just come out and say it."
 
"You're right of course, quite right." The seggen rose up on the couch. "I'm 
a mammal lover and it burns."
 
Dimmly Doms shot a quick look at the prompter and recovered the aforementioned-
 trademark smile. "Burns?"
 
"Yes, the sweat." the seggen sniffled "The salt, it burns me. But I can't 
stop."
 
Tarka:
 
Dimmly grined... this was going better then he thought it would go. She was 
far more open then some of his guests. Now for the part the audiance was 
really waiting for. "Ah... but isn't the mammal you have a crush on now a 
tech at the earth concelet on Seggen?"
 
"Well yes... but like all other mammals... I can't hug them." She started to 
Sob... weeping slippery slime.
 
Dimmly waved. "Well, we took the oportunity to ask Kanus Knine up here on the 
stage." He signaled the backstage crew to send out the beast. He came troting 
out onto the stage waving to the cameras. Always attention hogs were 
earthform dogs.
 
"Kanus!" She turned away and could only cry more. "This is so embarassing! 
How could you tell I'm I was in love? How! Mammals aways burn!"
 
Vassily:
 
Kanus started towards the couch and then stopped short, tormented by racial 
memory.  He looked at the host with big sad eyes. "Yes, you're allowed on the 
couch, it's OK."
 
The shaggy dog sat down on the couch and nervously fidgeted with his tail. 
"There are so many people here Dimmly. I don't know..." The seggen rippled 
with sobs. "How could you?"
 
"Come now Kanus, she isn't the only one with secrets, is she?" Kanus gulped 
and tried to look away from Dom, only to catch the gaze of his gastropod 
love. "Yes.  I do have a secret. I've been hiding something."
The audience leaned forward in their seats, straining to hear.
 
"I've been living a lie. An elaborate hoax.  Dogs don't sweat. And I.." Kanus 
stood and grasped at his collar, tugging down at a concealed zipper. "I am 
not a dog." The zipper opened revealing the glistening tank hidden within and 
within it, a salmon connected by wires and tubes to the mechanisms that drove 
the dog suit. "I'm tired of swimming upstream"
 
Tarka:
 
"Lier! Lier! How could you use me like that!" The slug was screaming and 
trying to hump herself out of the sofa to get to the Salmon in a dog suit. 
The audiance gasped... loving every minutes of it.
 
Two big bearforms came out onto the stage and put themselves between the two. 
Dimmly took it all into stride... though he was a little surprized at the 
Salmon himself. "Now now folks! Calm down! We don't want anyone to hurt each 
other."
 
The audiance growned in disapointement. Karnipis the director was holding on 
tight to one of the camera men... the otterform had tired to dash onto the 
stage the momment he has seen a fish. "Carper! Help me! I can't hold him!"
 
Meanwhile the salmon turned its dog suit around. "I love you! I love you! I 
only dressed up like this because I knew you couldn't love me any other way!"
 
Vassily:
 
"But you betrayed me. How did you get those burns?  I'm a freshwater fish." 
The seggen shuddered, sinking back down on the couch. "I never..." Dimmly 
rose from the couch and glid over to the curtains. "That's right. We have 
another mystery guest."
 
Every eyestalk turned to the opening in the curtain, which was really too bad 
as the mystery guest burst up through the floorboards of the stage. A huge 
muscled biped, clad in skintight rubber where it was clad at all. The pale 
hairless skin glistening with sweat. The muscles twisted like steel cables as 
it broke apart the boards.  It roared in anger and turned its masked face 
towards the audience.
"Caja de Carton" They roared as one.
 
"I've come to defend my honor and the honor of the one I love." Carton 
gesticulated with sweeping arm motions to the audience and then turned to the 
motorized salmon. 
 
Tarka:
 
"You slimy little fish! Taking advantage of my one ture love! I shell make 
you pay. I shell grind you into dust. You will not live to see the day where 
I.. I.. am rejected by the magnificent Slug Lady!"
 
The slug lady swooned. "Oh Caja de Carton! You are so muscle bound! Defend my 
honor! Defend me from the terrible lier! The evil fish creature.!
 
Just that the camraotter got away from the director and made it onto the 
stage... the audiance leaned forward again... cheering in delight as the 
drooling otter headed for the salmon.
 
Vassily:
 
The otter and the mechanically suited ex-dog circled each other dodging and 
feinting.
 
The otter pounced, yipping fiercly and landed on the flopping dog head.  Its 
teeth sank in and it held tight as the salmon tried to fling him off. They 
fought their way back and forth across the stage
 
Suddenly the back of the set began to collapse. The windows shattering in a 
cascade of broken glass as flamboyantly dressed creatures burst through, 
swinging on ropes.  "Avast ye swabs. Surrender your booty."
 
"Never fear, my love. I'll deal with these scum." Caja de Carton flung 
himself headlong at the space pirates, past the otter scrabbling at the glass 
of the salmons suit.
 
Tarka:
 
Dimmly was rather unhappy, he was no longer the center of the show. "Alright. 
Who invited those damn space pirates onto my show!" The audiance laughed 
happily. Clapping in time to the arrss of the pirates. 
 
Karnipis got up onto the stage and made a futile attempt to kick the 
stageotter off the salmon controled dog waldo. "It wasn't me Dimmly! It 
wasn't me! I think they just came in!" Everything was going to pot... nothing 
was going right... and the damn camra men just kept rolling the film.
 
Far accross the world Mindy was glued to her TV... munching on Bon Bons and 
ice cream. "Well this is the best show on TV. Yeall like it hubby." A grunt 
was all she got in return.
 
Vassily:
 
Dimmly cradled the microphone in a long fingered hand and eased over to the 
edge of the stage.  In the background, the studio ninjas began to boil out of 
the hole in the stage. Caja de Carton was using a pirate as a makeshift club 
against one of the other pirates. The camera Otter bounced up and down on the 
salmon tank, doing his best to crack it open and free its delicious cargo.  
The Seggen gazed lovingly on her masked paramour and Dimmly began to speak.
 
"That's about all the time we have for today, but I'd like to leave you with 
a final thought.  A great poet once said that love was a burning thing. We've 
seen that today.  Love burns and it isn't what it seems. But sometimes the 
symptoms persist."
 
Dimmly suddenly jumped to the left as a ninja flew past chased by a cutlass 
weilding pirate.  The camera otter was by now trying to crack the glass with 
a discarded cudgel and enjoying some success. "But as another poet said, 'The 
great prince founds states, vests families with fiefs, inferior people should 
not be chosen.' And aren't we all just trying to chose the right person?"
 
Dimmly Dom signaled for the blue spot and the close up. "Until next time be 
good to each other and remember that ninjas are the natural enemies of 
pirates."