000png · 1 year ago
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ajlkdfadfsja
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niqhtlord01 · 3 years ago
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Humans are Weird: Soldier without a war. Part I
( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)
 “You sure the speks don’t patrol there?”
“If they did do you really think I’d bring this rust bucket along for a job?”
Melp strapped himself into the copilot’s chair and looked over the console readings one last time. All systems were showing minimal operational capacity which normally would have been setting off alarm bells but with how things had been going for him and his captain lately it was the best they could ask for.
Melp was part of the salvage company “Outlying Star”, co-owner in fact with his partner and current captain Galem. When the war against humanity had started the two had thought it was the best idea to make a fortune with all the wrecks floating between star systems from fleet combat and had went all in on a converted freighter to pick through the bones and sell what they could.
At first Melp and Galem had made a killing, bringing in semi functional sub space drives and salvaged fully automated hard shell loaders from human ships. They made enough to fund a fleet of five ships and live the good life back on Valfha without a care in the world; for a little while at least.
Galem thought it was because of the government’s restrictions on salvageable items that had hampered their business but Melp believed it was because they were just too good at it that and had inspired countless others to take up the salvage game. Soon markets, both legal and black, became flooded with salvaged goods and people willing to undercut each other to make a quick buck. Neutron cannon went from 3.5 billion credits in value to just under 300 million credits in the span of six months. As a side effect of the sudden influx of salvage parts the government began taking notice and cracked down hard. Salvagers were called “Scavies” and deemed criminals by the government and the military would all too happily fire on any scavy ship they spotted. Seems they weren’t too happy about people rummaging through the wrecks of ships that once held their friends and the government would turn a blind eye if a scavy ship was destroyed during “Live Fire Exercises”.
Soon the jobs became even riskier and Outlying Star lost three ships after they were caught and destroyed. Another had to be sold for parts and salvage and now the final ship, the Morning Gale, was the last hope for Galem and Melp to make back some money.
“How do you even know this site hasn’t been picked clean already?” Melp asked over his shoulder as Galem entered the cockpit and locked the door behind him. “We could be wasting our time on a fantasy.” Galem shook his head which did little to ease Melp’s concerns.
“I got it from a reliable source that there was a big fight in the Glipi Cluster that we lost to the humans.” Galem began as he took the controls and slowly pulled back on the engine throttle as the ship ascended. “It was so embarrassing that the navy wiped all records of the battle and said the destroyed ships were lost in a freak transition from sub space into a rogue comet cluster.”
“If the data was wiped how does your source know about it?”  Melp quipped as the ship breached upper atmosphere and exited the travel lanes for the jump point.
Galem smirked as he engaged the sub space drive.
“They were there.”
 As the salvage ship exited sub space Melp let out a gasp. He blinked several times and rubbed his eyes yet when he opened them all he could see was a shroud of purple. Galem saw Melp’s confused expression and chuckled.
“It’s the color of the gas filtering through this entire cluster.” He said calmly as he flicked on several scanners and filter units. “Try looking now.”
Melp looked again as the shades of purple faded away and let out a startled gasp. Upon gazing out of the cockpit window he could see why the navy had wanted to cover up this place so badly.
Floating around them were dozens of lifeless wrecks of Mibari warships ranging from light destroyers to several cruisers. Compared to their tiny ship it was as if Melp and Galem had entered the realm of giants. Melp was transfixed by the wrecks and became utterly enthralled when a massive shadow draped across their vessel.
“Is that what I think it is?” Melp spoke sheepishly as his blue hands trembled and changed to a soft orange color. Galem leaned forward in his seat to look out the window and whistled as his eyes caught sight of what had terrified Melp.
“A galaxy class troop carrier.”
The massive ship spun slowly in place like a top that refused to stop spinning, the metal interior exposed in several places from weapons revealing a dark interior of metal supports and long dead hallways. Melp looked towards the front of the ship as the command deck slowly spun into view and he was surprised to see the name of the ship had survived the damage it had taken.
“The Vault of Ohya…” Melp softly spoke. He reached out with an arm and shook Galem who was smiling like a hatchling on birthing day. “That’s the Vault of Ohya!”
“A piece of her hull to the right collector would be enough to refurbish this little dingy,” Galem said as he playfully smacked the command console, “into one hell of a floating casino.”
The two of them broke down into fits of laughter as if they had just been driven mad by their findings; but it was not of madness that now drove them but the sheer joy of their discovery.
These dozen ships floating lifelessly in the cluster were more than enough to bring the two of them back into the life of luxury they once held and keep them there until their dying days.
Melp was still star gazing at the shattered troop carrier when something else suddenly grabbed his attention.
“What’s that?”
Melp tore his gaze away from the Ohya and saw what Galem was looking at.
A new vessel slowly drifted out of the shadow of the troop carrier and came into view. It was clearly a human vessel of some kind; the lack luster design a clear give away. The body of the ship was missing sections of itself, but rather than appearing as if it had been damaged in the battle it looked more as if the ship had not finished being built. Sections of the body were lacking armor showing a complex network of pipes and corridors. The hull was painted in a soft grey color that stood out sharply among the ever shifting gas cloud surrounding it. Rows of gun ports ran along the sides, their openings revealing nothing of the pitch black interior giving them the appearance of small gaping mouths ready to consume Melp and his ship.  
The more Melp looked at the ship the more he felt something was just wrong with it. Galem must have felt something as well as he pulled up the virtual display and began interacting with it.
“Not sure what that thing is but it’s not listed in the records.” He said as he closed the display and leaned over the controls to get a better view of it. The tingling feeling at the bottom of Melp’s three stomachs was starting to grow stronger as his uneasiness did not subside.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that there’s no record of that ship variant from the entire war with humanity on any recorded file.” He popped open the virtual display again and flicked it over so it was hovering in front of Melp to view while he fiddled with the controls again. “Which means it’s worth a whole lot more than anything here.”
“How do you figure that?” As a response to Melp’s question he waved his arm across the scattered wrecks.
“Out of all the ships here the human ones are all clustered around that one as if they meant to protect it.” Galem said as he began moving the ship closer to the strange human ship.
“They could have bugged out and ran, but instead they all fought and died just to protect that thing; which means something on it must’ve been worth defending.”
Melp knew what Galem had some merit, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was still very wrong; but before he could raise his concerns though a loud shudder ran through the scavenger ship.
“Get your suit on,” Galem said as he exited out of the cockpit, “let’s go find us some treasure.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the exterior of the ship had uneased Melp, the interior down right terrified him.
No sooner had the airlock door opened the two scavengers leaped back in shock. Standing at the entrance was a humanoid looking figure. Galem screamed and grabbed hold of a nearby cutting tool and swung it at the figure before Melp could even say anything.
A shower of sparks eradiated off the figure’s body as the plasma torch cut into it, all the while Galem was continuing to scream, and cut a decent size hole through the beings torso.
“Shut it!” Melp shouted at Galem, forcing the scared halfwit to calm down some while Melp inched closer and retrieved the still burning plasma torch. The figure had not moved and inch even as the torch had melted away his exterior and as Melp moved closer still he noticed why.
“It’s an automated drone you idiot.”
Melp motioned him forward and the two of them inspected the machine.
It was human shaped but it was entirely of metal and wires, a mindless drone used for menial tasks such as inventory handling or maintenance. It wore a human uniform for some reason which clashed with its blank reflective visor face.
“Why’s it standing here?” Galem asked as he nervously tapped the drone. The touch pushed it off the ground and the dead drone slowly lifted off the ground in the zero-g environment and floated back into the ship, bouncing off the back wall before continuing to silently float away.
“Maybe it’s here to greet us?” Melp chuckled as he activated his mag locks and his feet latched on to the metallic floor. Galem followed suit and the two began entering the derelict ship.
“Can’t be,” Galem began as they reached the airlock secondary doors and began slowly opening them, “these tin cans would run out of power in a day and it’s been years since this tussle went down.”
With several loud grunts as the two strained with the manual release the inner airlock to the human ship finally cracked open. The two entered slowly, not knowing what to expect, and took stock of their surroundings.
They entered a long hallway that seemed to stretch out far into the distance passed the reach of their head lamps. Melp could see side corridors scattered every few dozen feet no doubt leading to other sections of the ship, but likewise they too were pitch black.
Something about Melp’s comment made him pull out his data scroll and do a quick scan. The device beeped rapidly as the scan commenced before ending with a loud “DING” and displaying a waterfall of information.
Melp read the data as the two continued to hover by the airlock entrance.
“It says here that somethings still giving off a power signature here.” Melp commented as he ran he scan again to be sure.
“Give it here,” Galem said as he turned to Melp with his hand outstretched, “you must be reading it-“
When Galem didn’t finish his sentence Melp looked up and saw something akin to a mixture of fear and surprise on his face. He was staring at something over his shoulder so Melp slowly turned in place , his magnetic feet latching heavily to the decking with each step like two magnets smashing together.
When he finally turned around he let out a yelp of surprise and tried to jump back, but his magnetic feet kept him firmly locked to the floor leaving him in an almost comical off balance state.
Standing directly behind him was another of the drones, this one dressed in what appeared to be some sort of security uniform even including an empty weapon holster at his side.
Neither of the scavengers knew how the thing got there as it most certainly hadn’t been standing there a moment ago. Before either of them could respond the drone’s visor lit up and displayed a pixelated face.  The visor was damaged with a deep crack running the length of it making the display flicker in and out on half the screen giving it an eerily ghost like visage.
“The captain,” the drone began as it stepped to one side of the hallway and extended a hand into the darkness, “requests your presence on the bridge.”
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hit-me-with-a-ladle · 3 years ago
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Ch. 7 Creepypastas x Fem!Reader
Ch.8 is coming soon.
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The moons illuminating rays peered through the thick glass into the bland bedroom. They hit the girl delicate skin as her fatigued eyes diligently scanned the map that was firmly grasped in her callused hands. Feeling her mind drift off as her eyelids fought to stay open. Her arched back aching as she could barely hold her frame from collapsing. That whole day was unimaginably tiresome. Masky made it a point to make her do random errands and tasks all along the walk. When questioned on why he would nonchalantly shrug it off and blandly answer that he was preparing her for "future responsibilities".
Feeling her mind deteriorate with every passing second, the only sound heard was the gentle ticking of the clock that arrogantly hung on the wall above her head. Until eventually, her whole being gave out, and the front of her face slammed into the mattress, quickly slipping into slumber. The morning she awoke by the blare of her alarm clock. Her head spinning as she sat up on the bed, the suns beams worming up her body as she put her head in her hands
A groan escaped her chapped lips as she finally looked around her. Loose pieces of paper were scattered all around, and a giant crumpled map was in the middle of her bed. Frowning, she got up. Tripping her way to the door, her legs ready to give out on her. Opening it up, her gaze was met with the unpleasant sight of Masky towering over her. He still wore his rugged brown jacket, tho it seemed freshly washed as it had no odour, though it was still heavily stained with crimson. He crossed his bulky arms in disapproval, something he made a habit of doing, and even though she couldn't see his face she could still feel his eyes passing through her like bullets. Still feeling the weight of her eyelids trying to close, she just stood there not making a sound, staring blankly, all until he finally spoke up.
" Good your up, be down in 30 minutes we will start your exam them." He strongly spoke as he turned and walked towards the stairs leading to the living room. The girl's eyes shot up, now no longer dazed and tired.
" Wha-what? 30 minutes-ARE YOU INSANE!" She frantically exclaimed as she tried to follow him.
" I said what I said, now don't waste your time trying to argue with me and get ready." He grumbled as he turned to face her one last time before he descended the staircase.
The girl stood there in shock her mind racing as she debated on what to do first with the minimal time she had. Finally, she ran to the bathroom taking a cold 5-minute shower and quickly getting ready. Running to the kitchen, she only had about 15 minutes to spear. Halfheartedly making herself breakfast, she shoved the food down her throat. Looking at the clock that hung on the kitchen wall, she saw that she had a few minutes to spear. Choosing to use that time and recap all the things she studied the previous night.
Drawoinning in thought she was abruptly startled by the sudden pressure felt on her shoulder. Looking up, she saw Masky squeezing her shoulder with his gloved hand as a means to alert her of his presence.
" Get up, your examination begins now."
He said firmly, as he lifted his hand and made his way out of the kitchen, expecting her to follow. A loud breath escaped the girl shaking lips, as she followed. Only expecting the worst from the man in front of her, being sure that he hated her guts.
Stepping outside, they walked on the same path they took the previous day, and again instead of going to the clearing, they turned in the other direction until they lastly arrived at the tree. Masky abruptly stopped, putting his hand in his pocket looking for something.
" So, what exactly am I going to be doing."
She said standing by his side, he just ignored her still looking for something in his pocket until he finally pulled it out. He was now holding two silver pocket watches and handed her one of them.
Holding it infirmly in her hand and got a closer look at it, the watch itself seemed quite old as there were bits and pieces of the metal, bound with rust. There was also a design of sort unevenly engraved on the top of it, it was a circle that was crossed out. On both sides, there were two small buttons that she proceeded to press making it smoothly opened up, by her disbelief as she thought she would have trouble opening it. The inside was nothing special just a normal clock with roman numerals. But something about it still gave the girl an irregular feeling, like it wasn't just a normal watch.
" Now, well begin so listen carefully." Maskys sharp voice took the girl out of her daze.
" As you can see I just handed you a pocket watch. And I understand you've already opened it, good." He approached her and took the watch out of her hand. She could feel his rough leather gloves graze her bare balm.
" The reason as to why I gave you this is simply that you'll use it as a timer. You have exactly 10 hours to complete the 15 tasks I have assigned you. This should be easy if you studied the map and know where you're supposed to go. Now I also have one so I can track you."
He began to wind up the watches, proceeding to open the girl closed hand and quickly place the watch inside. He then handed her a piece of paper that was crudely written on.
" Oh and, if you don't manage to complete this whole list by the end of those 10-hours you'll be appropriately punished."
The girls face scrunched up in disapproval as her eyebrows arched in the question of what exactly this punishment might ensue, the thought of what he might do made her shutter.
' I guess ill just have to complete this whole thing in less than 10 hours so I won't have to know what that means.' She thought as her eyes scanned through the paper. The tasks themselves weren't all that hard just very time consuming, if she were to do them in a thoughtful manner she could be done in exactly the time necessary.
"You'll start the watch when I step out of the trees fealed of protection, understand?"
" Yes, of course."
Masky then slowly walked his way away from the tree, the girl eagerly waiting for him to reach the end, the moment he did she quickly starting the watch. The first thing she had to retrieve a plant that was located across the forset. ' Ok, I remember this, it was down by the denser part of the forest right across from here. This shouldn't be that har, right?.' With that final thought, she started to sprint.
The piece of paper crumpled in her hand as she got drowned in the sounds of the leaves and sticks crunching under her feet. Branches from the trees grazed and cut her body as she ran, and random rocks showed to be an obstacle all along the way. But she didn't care as the only thing she was focused on was the destination, the memories of where everything was flashed into her head. her surroundings helped her navigate through the forest. Every indentation of the trees and rocks, the blowing wind even the holes that covered the soil.
She was able to get to her destination in about 16 minutes. Slowing down with a loud groan she quickly caught herself on the nearest tree, feeling unimaginably tyred though she still didn't stop and soon found herself double-checking the piece of paper in her hand to make sure she knew what she was looking for. The plant was a Rskovnik. The name rang a bell, she remembered hearing about in passing from jack when they talked one night. He mentioned it is a magic herb that helped with unlocking and uncovering certain things. Though it was very hard to find, as he only gave her a brief description of it being " grass that resembled a four-leaf clover, you'll know when you find it trust me".
Remembering their conversation made a small simper graze the girl's chapped lips. That night they spent talking was the only time she felt normal in the predicament that she was in. Soon she shook her head and proceeded to search the area for the herb, but no matter how hard she did she still couldn't find it. It seemed that she was looking for it for such a long time that she didn't notice the large animal approaching her. The creatures large body grazed one of the many bushes that scattered around them making it softly rustle, startling the girl and alerting her of its presence.
At that moment she broke out into a cold sweat, freezing up and contemplating what to do as she slowly started to turn her head in its direction. Through her peripheral, she saw its large nail-like teeth peering through its growling face. She then quickly spun around when she noticed it was about to leap at her and grabbed the nearest thing she could find lying next to her. The animal opened its largemouth in an attempt to bite her but ended up biting the thick tree branch she discovered.
Now she could get a better look at it. It resembled a dog, a husky she presumed, but this animal wasn't a normal dog, no. Its piercing cristal eyes didn't seem to hold any kind of life to them witch matched its patchy almost synthetic like fur. But what truly made this creature so unsettling was its wide human-like smile, with what seemed like hundreds of sharp white teeth that were smeared in a red liquid.
It soon turned into a battle of strength, as both sides fought as hard as they could to come out on top. This seemed to go on for a while until she was able to manoeuver the branch to push the beast off. Then right after she smacked it across the head and ran straight ahead to hide from the beast, eventually collapsing behind a tree. She took in a large breath and closed her eyes to calm down, letting her arms go to her sides and her body lose all of its tension. As her hand hit the jagged ground she felt a sharp pain shoot up her arm that made her look in its direction, at that moment noticing where she was sitting.
Right on top of the Rskovnik, she was looking for. Filling up one of her many pockets with as much as she needed she vent on her way to do everything else, seeing as she wasted 37 minutes just getting that one thing. Slowly throughout the day, she did task by tasks, each one more difficult than the last. Her time was running short as she was doing her last task only having 5 minutes to spear before she could go to the meeting place with all of the things she accumulated throughout those 10 hours. Starved and surely dehydrated she ran for dear life, scares and bruises littered not only her body but her face too.
She was sure that she was going to be late, having to then face Maskys rath. But strangely enough, she had made it right at the nick of time. Collapsing the moment she arrived near the tree. Clapping was then heard from afar, she didn't bother looking to see what was going on, feeling too exhausted to care.
" I am pleasantly surprised that you managed to do all of this. Right on time too."
He said, a bit of amusement lacing his voice, kneeling in front of her with a water bottle in hand. The girl proceeded to snatch it out of his palm and gulped down the whole bottle at once, feeling a refreshing sensation wash over her.
" We should go now, it's time for your lunch, plus you look very roughed up so you should take care of that."
He stated, waiting for the girl to get on her feet, noticing her struggle for a bit but eventually she got up and proceeded to walk towards the cabin. The walk itself was very slow as she struggled to hold her body up, but with the occasional reluctant assistance of Masky, they made it to their destination.
Immediately sprawling on the couch, the girl let out a small groan, the sudden pressure from sitting down made her wounds feel even worse than before but what could she do. Masky went on his way to get the first aid kit from the bathroom. Placing it on the coffee table in front of her, he watched her struggle to even reach for it as her aching arms sook with every attempt at extending them. Rolling his eyes in irritation, he placed the kit in her lap. But even with that she still struggled with using it as all her wounds were excruciating.
" Jesus, fine. I'll do it myself."
He exclaimed pushing her down on the couch while kneeling in front of her again. Taking the first aid kit off her person he proceeding to slowly open it and pull out all of the necessary items he needed to use.
" Ok, now show me where you got hurt." With that, the girl moved to pull up both of her pant legs revealing all the bruises and cuts on her legs. She did the same with her hands but they seemed to be more severe.
" Any more wounds I should know about before starting."
" Yeah, I have this big cut on my lower back. Here ill just show you."
She weakly replied as she unzipped the zipper she had sown on the side of her jumpsuit. A deep claw wound was present on her hip. Blood oozed out like icing, her face scrunched up in pain as Masky touched the wound.
" How did you manage to hurt yourself that badly?"
He spoke in a soft demanding tone as he grabbed some cotton and dabbed antiseptic on it.
" I got attack by this dog thing when I tried to do the first thing on the list."
Hissed in discomfort as the man began to clean her injury.
" Dog, huh? Describe to me what it looked like. I might know who you're talking about."
" Well, it had this weird grey fur and small doll-like eyes. But what really stood out was its...sm-"
"-Smile, right? Yeah, my suspicion was right you met smile dog, though I'm shocked he was active so early."
" Active so early? Whos this smiling dog and why did he attack me?"
" Well, he's one of the creatures I told you about your first day here. He's not very human-like so the reason he attacked you wasn't that he knew you were a Middle-man. No, most likely because he didn't recognize you. So don't worry ill tell him about you and he won't bother you again. Ok, I'm done with your side now give me your hand."
Extending her arm with a flinch, the man was prepared more cotton to disinfect the wounds. The sensation of his gloved hand on her skin was strange as she felt a stinging with every dap of the antiseptic. The silence was peaceful as Masky worked his way up both her arms, reaching for more antiseptic and taking the bottle in his hand it slipped from his grip and spiled a little on the floor.
" Dammit, my gloves are wet," Masky remarked under his breath as he proceeded to put the bottle back in its place and take off his gloves.
His hands were pale and veiny as his nails were cut to the brim. His palms and fingertips were callused and little cuts and scars littered his fingers while his two front knuckles were a different shade from the rest. A shiver ran up her spine when they contacted her skin, his hands were as cold as ice as he neatly bandaged both her arms. Tho the moment was short-lived as he finally finished.
" Here, all done. Now you only have a few cuts on your leg that don't need tending too so they'll be all right. But right now the best thing for you to do is to use a half-hour of your two-hour break resting. Understand?" He stated flatly.
" Sure." That was the only thing she could muster out of her voice as she proceeded to slowly lay her head down on the couch cushions.
" Good, ill be off to do some work now. Goodbye."
With that the man stood up, putting on his gloves and quickly approaching the front door. The girl watching his every step as he did. Them both not saying another word.
And now she was left in total silence all alone
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curvynerdfan · 4 years ago
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Bookkeeper and the Biker
Thank you @xx—day-dreamer—xx for requesting and being patient! This piece was a lot of fun to write but took forever, sorry about that. I hope you like it! 💕
Also sorry for the overload of samcro gifs lol! I just love when you find gifs that fit the storyline
Jax x Reader
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Y/N felt like her heart was gonna jump out of her chest. She was headed home. Well, her hometown, she hadn’t been “home” in over ten years. Her dad was killed on a run when she was sixteen and her mom used the opportunity to get her out of Charming. Not that Y/N wanted to leave. She always saw the club as her family but her mom despised SAMCRO after her dad passed. Y/N thought her mom blamed the MC for her dad’s death.
Y/N had flourished in her time away from Charming but still felt like something was missing. So she was going back. Over the past ten years, Y/N had grown her skills and felt confident in her decision to come back.
She loved growing up in Charming. She could remember running around the autoshop with Jax and Opie, driving Gemma insane because it wasn’t exactly safe. The clubhouse took hide-n-seek to a whole nother level and family dinners were her favorite club activity.
She called Gemma about a year ago and the mama bear of the club was ecstatic. At that point Y/N had no plans to move back. She just missed the rest of her family. They reminisced and caught up on each other’s lives. Gemma let her know how the club was doing and Y/N kept her second mom up-to-date on her life.
At some point, Y/N mentioned that her dream life consisted of running her own eclectic bookshop and living above it. She never thought her dream would become reality but Gemma had other plans. A two story shop in downtown Charming popped up on the market and momma Gemma called Y/N before a sign was outside the building. Once Gemma sent her all of the pictures and told her the price, Y/N snatched it up. While she had some savings, the purchase price was being covered by money her dad had left her in his will.Plus, her association with the clube convinced the owner to lower the asking price. She was given access to the fund when she turned 25 and she couldn't think of a better way to spend her money than to pursue her dreams. She even had money left over to purchase books and some furniture for her new place without dipping into her own savings.
Gemma told her she could stay in a clubhouse dorm until her apartment was set up. She pulled into the lot of Teller-Morrow and parked her car. Y/N felt the anxiety build and took a few deep breaths to settle her nerves.
“There is no reason to be nervous. It isn’t like you abandoned Jax or Ope. Hell, they may not even remember me, no biggie, no pressure”, she mumbled to herself, “Gemma invited you. No one goes against Gemma, right? And it’ll be nice to see my SAMCRO family. It’ll be great!” Y/N said, but she didn’t feel as confident as she sounded.
She opened the door and quickly stepped out before she could change her mind. Once completely out of the truck, she stretched her arm up high and arched her back. She grabbed her backpack and her duffle bag and locked up her truck before heading to the office to look for Gemma.
“Can I help you lassie?” A dark-haired Scotsman asked.
“Umm, yes please. I’m looking for Gemma.” she said.
“Ah, is she expecting you?” he questioned.
“Yes, you can just tell her Y/N is here.”, she clarified.
The Scotsman disappeared around the corner and Y/N took the time to take in her surroundings. Very little had changed. The Teller-Morrow signage was rusted and worn in some places, there was newer equipment It also looked there were members in SAMCRO than before based on the number of bikes parked in front of the clubhouse.
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“Y/N! There you are baby!”, Gemma shouted as soon as she walked into the office.
Y/N couldn’t help but squeal when she launched herself at Gemma. They had always been close as she was growing up. Gemma taught Y/N how being a nerdy, tomboy didn’t mean that she wasn’t a beautiful badass too.
“Hey, momma.” she said when Gemma squeezed her tight.
Gemma leaned back to look her over and then kissed her cheeks in greeting before pulling Y/N out of the office and across the parking lot, ranting and raving about how great it will be to have a powerful woman back in Charming. Y/N just giggled and let herself be dragged around.
The momma bear had cleaned up a dorm for Y/N to have for however long she needed. While it still looked like a typical clubhouse dorm, there weren’t any posters of naked women or trash scattered around the room. There was also a gift basket of goodies on the bed for her.
Y/N hugged Gemma, “Thank you for going through all this trouble for me. I am happy to be home.”
“Not any trouble at all sweetheart. You’re not the only one happy that you’re back in Charming.I know Jax has been asking about you for a while!” Gemma said, nudging Y/N with an eyebrow raise.
Y/N’s face flushed, “Don’t start with that Gem! Neither one of us should get our hopes up.”, she mumbled.
Y/N has always been close to Jax and Opie but Jackson never fall into the brotherly category. She didn’t want to get excited about the idea of a relationship with Jax and possibly ruin the amazing friendship they have. Plus, she didn’t think she was his type. Gemma said he dated Tara for several years and was really hung up on her when she left. From what Y/N remembered, Tara was always snooty, looked down on the club, and had no desire to live a small town life.
“Baby, you know me, I wouldn’t lie to you. Jax has been head over heels for you from the get go. He kept asking if you remembered him, how you were doing, how he can help you find your place here. Hell, he stocked that top drawer over there with Reaper and SAMCRO shirts so anyone new knows you are important to us. I would wear one of those tonight if I were you!”, Gemma suggested, “Give him a chance before you close yourself off again”
Y/N nodded and decided not to argue when Gemma gave her that all knowing look. Gemma helped her unpack your bags before leaving the dorm. Y/N used the hours before the party to lay on the bed and order more materials for her shop. When she had about an hour before the party’s start time she decided to take a shower and get dolled up before joining the excitement.
After her shower, she rummaged through the drawer that was handpicked by Jax. Y/N ended up grabbing a black “fear the reaper” t-shirt, a pair of her ripped jeans and some old sneakers. Y/N knew better than to wear nice shoes to a SAMCRO party. Y/N decided to tie the t-shirt up so it showed a little bit of her mid-riff and enhanced her natural curves. She dried her hair and applied basic makeup before heading to the party.
Y/N weaved her way in and out of the crowd of club members, their old lady’s, croweaters, and wannabe bikers. She made it to the bar and ordered a double before making her way to Gemma. She was starving and knew the momma bear could direct her to the food.
“Damn babygirl! You are just trying to give these boys a run for their money huh?”, Gemma said approvingly, “Atta girl!”
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Gemma fixed her up with a full plate and got her settled in with Tig and Piney. Y/N caught up with the guys and dug in on the delicious food Gemma cooked. All of the sudden to mammoth arms wrapped around her from behind and lifted her into the air.
“What in the world!”, Y/N squealed.
A hefty laugh was the only response she received before she was dropped back down onto her feet. She spun around quickly and then gasped.
“Opie!” her shout pierced his ears and he flinched.
“Damn, you still have pipes!”Ope exclaimed as he wrapped Y/N up in a hug.
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Y/N and Opie spent the next thirty minutes talking about life and joking around. Opie knew she was moving back so it wasn’t a surprise, but it was finally true now that she was in front of him. He was going to get married soon and wanted her to be there on his special day. Y/N and Opie had always agreed on the simpler things in life. They wanted to find their person, fall in love, get married, have kids, and live in Charming surrounded by friends and family.
Y/N gave Opie a hug and promised to visit more. The noise was getting to her though, after such a long drive the party wasn’t really her scene. She made a quick stop at the ladies room before getting a refill at the bar.
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Jax made his way through the party, greeting members and partygoers as he made his way to Opie. His friend had a massive grin on his face and Jax couldn’t help but laugh. It was rare for the giant man he thought of as a brother to look like a silly puppy.
“What has you smiling so big, brother?” he asked, looking over.
“Y/N” was Opie’s one word response.
“Where?”, Jax couldn’t hold back his excitement.
Opie laughed and reached out to physically turn Jax around. His best friend laughed even harder when Jax’s jaw dropped. She was stunning. Y/N was still the beautiful girl he grew up with but he could tell she was more confident and her curves had developed even more. She was wearing one of the shirts he had picked out for him. That caused an odd sense of satisfaction. Y/N got her drink from the bartender and made her way down the hall and away from the party, more importantly away from him.
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Opie slapped his back, “What are you waiting for man? Go get your girl!”
Jax felt his cheek warm and shook his head before swaggering after her. At some point she drifted out of his sight. Jax wracked his brain for where she could have snuck off too. After checking her dorm and finding it empty, he realized where she was. He climbed the stairs but paused before opening the hatch to the roof. What was he going to say to her? He hadn’t seen her in almost ten years. His mom assured him that she would reciprocate his feelings but how do you tell your childhood friend you want to be more.
Y/N jumped when the hatch creeped behind her. She didn’t think anyone would find her up here, but if anyone could it would be Jax or Opie. To her surprise, it was Jax. ‘Dear lordy, he is even hotter now,ah and that clenched jaw oof’, Y/N shook her head to clear her mind.
“Jax, you found me.” She whispered in awe.
It was real now, she was really in front of him “Y/N… of course I found you.”, he said with a sigh.
“Wow! I mean, you look really good, umm, not that you have ever looked bad. Well i guess you look bad in the baddass biker MC VP kinda way, congrats by the way. You don’t look bad ugly, not that you have ever looked ugly, you still take my breath away. I am not some flustered sixteen year old anymore and,” Y/N paused awkwardly, “ Oh my god, that is not how I wanted this to go. It’s been such a long time.I’ve missed you and your mom said you missed me to but now I’m not sure because all you’ve done is stare at me so far, so maybe your mom was wron-” Y/N paused when lips were on hers.
She could feel Jax’s lips smirking against hers, “I missed you too”, he whispered before kissing her again.
Y/N hummed, pulling away from him, “That is the best way anyone has ever made me shut up”
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She leaned against his chest before looking up at him again, “What does this mean, Jax?”
“Are you really staying this time?”, he asked.
Y/N nodded, smiling at the sheepish look on his face.
“Then, I want to make you my old lady someday. For now, we can just see how things go. I always pictured us ending up together, but I don’t want to force anything. Biker and a bookkeeper, who would’ve thought?” He smiled.
“I did”, Y/N grinned.
She pulled on Jax and had him join her on ‘their ledge’. He chuckled gently in her ear as he wrapped an arm around her. He couldn’t wait to see where this was going to go. The idea of the bookkeeper and the biker felt good.
Taglist: @justahopelessssromantic
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romancemeyamato · 5 years ago
Text
24 Hours with Negan (part 3 of 5)
Negan's right, in this hellish landscape there is no happy ending. But as the two of you begin to see the silhouette of an old house in the distance, you think to yourself 'there can be happy moments.''
The sun has nearly set already, and you grip your axe handle tightly, prepared for whatever comes next. The sides of the house are overgrown with weeds and shrubbery, making it impossible to look through the windows. Negan doesn't say a word to you, but you effortlessly fall in step behind him as you both round the house. With a swift hard kick, Negan knocks the front door open and you both take a moment to listen for walkers. When you're both sure you don't hear the growls of a mass suicide pact, you step in to begin clearing the rooms.
He looks at you and nods towards the upstairs, while you silently agree and begin moving through the lower level. The first room your in- the living room- is obviously clear. So you move on to the kitchen. It's kind of funny, before the fall of humanity, you used to think open concept living was overrated and stupid. 'A gimmick in those stupid house shows my step mother used to watch.' Open concept may look stupid, but at least it makes the walkers easier to find.
You search beneath the kitchen table for crawlers, and then the lower cabinets for any lurkers. You know enough to know that walkers could be literally hiding anywhere. You sigh in relief as the kitchen is cleared, and move on to the guest bathroom. From the guest bathroom you move to the dining room, once again checking beneath the table and behind the thick fancy curtains. You've checked every door, and there doesn't seem to be a basement so you make your way up the stairs to find Negan.
When you reach the top of the steps Negan meets you. "It's all clear up here," he says, but then he points Lucille toward a little rope hanging from the ceiling. "All except there."
'The attic,' you think, following Negan over to it. He taps Lucille against the ceiling and immediately you hear a shuffle.
"Ah, shit." Negan tightens his grip on Lucille and motions for you to pull the attic cord. Dust and debris spill down from the attic, and you gasp in horror as Negan suddenly closes his eyes.
"Fuck!" He shouts, wiping his face. Clearly something isn't right, but you can hear a quickening shuffle making it's way towards the opening. Negan's head's still turned away and it's all happening so fast.
You hear it getting closer, closer, closer- and suddenly a little gray body falls through the hole. You swing your axe handle with all your might, sending it crashing against the hall wall. Without hesitation, you bring the handle down twice in rapid succession, crushing the tiny skull. It's then that you notice that this walker was just a child before it turned- probably no older than three. You feel sick at the thought, but Negan seems absolutely tickled.
"HOLY HELL! You just hit that little son of a bitch like piñata!" He's shaking his head in disbelief, "I've never seen a walker fly across a room like that before, that shit was hilarious! You really are a savage!"
"Which room was the kids room?" You ask, ignoring his chuckles. That seems to sober him up, and he points Lucille towards the room at the end of the hall. "Thank you," you say, scooping up the tiny corpse. As you do so you hear Negan climb the attic ladder, presumably to finish clearing.
You lay the tiny body down on it's bed, and bring the covers up over it's head. You don't mind killing walkers, but the child walkers still give you giant helpings of sadness. You can't help but feel as though children should somehow be immune to it all.
You hear a gentle knock, and Negan steps in. He stays silent for a moment, watching you. But you don't know what to say. You want to tell him that babies are innocent, they don't deserve the cruel things the world has to offer, that your brother didn't deserve any of the cruelty he received. But you don't need to tell him to know what he's going to say. No happy ending. To your surprise however, Negan places one of the stuffed animals on the bed. He lets you mourn, even if it simply consists of sitting in silence. And when the last of the days sunlight finally begins to fade you both leave the room together.
In the kitchen, Negan starts a small fire in a tin pot. It doesn't do much to illuminate, especially since the moon is full and bright. But you watch him work in silence as he opens a can of shredded beef and warms it over the fire. He takes a few bites before handing you the can.
The meat isn't bad, especially if you ignore the dog face on the can. 'At least they fed their dog the good stuff,' you think. It's not like you're above eating it, and you've certainly eaten worst. You're just glad your stomach isn't twisting in hunger anymore.
You take another bite, and suddenly you feel a small chuckle bubble out of you.
"What's got you laughing over there," Negan asks, reaching for the can.
You can't help it, you're full blown laughing now. Clutching your sides, tears streaming down your cheeks- the whole nine. And you hear Negan chuckling in both amusement and confusion.
"You w're right," you manage to say between fits of laughter. "It did look like a fuckin piñata!"
Negan joins you in laughter, nearly choking on his bite of food. "Jesus Christ!" He says, wiping a hand over his face. You don't remember the last time you laughed this hard, and it feels good to just feel the pain of a good laugh. But then you feel something else too. A fluttering in your chest at the sound of Negan's laughter. It rumbles out of him and soon you feel your laugher fading as you watch him instead. Laugh lines crease the corners of his eyes and down along the sides of his brilliant smile. You know you're staring but you can't seem to look away.
"You're my kind of girl," he tells you, talking another bite. He goes to hand you the can but the look you're giving him stops him in his tracks. For a moment he just stares back at you, his tongue peeking out to wet his bottom lip. He quirks an eyebrow. The longer you stare the more it feels like your insides are heating up. You don't really know what you want to do, but the urge to do something is eating you up.
"Negan-" you start to say, but you're instantly distracted by the most beautiful sound.
*DRIP*
You both turn towards to the sink, where a single drop of water has escaped from the faucet.
"Oh shit," Negan watches in awe as he turns on the tap and a stream of water comes gushing out. Its brown murky color soon turns clear.
"Well water," you say in astonishment, "Oh my God, I'm going to shower!" You feel like you could cry from excitement. You turn to run up the stairs to the master bathroom, but stop suddenly. "Do you mind if I go first?"
Negan seems surprised by the question. "Not at all, darlin," he says softly.
You smile joyfully and run up the stairs, already halfway undressed before you get to the bathroom. The master bathroom's got a pedestal tub and a large stand-in shower, but you don't care. You just want the grime of earlier to be washed off of you. You step into the shower and even though the water's cold and smells a bit like rust it's the best feeling in the world right now. An old bottle of shampoo is sitting in a cubby, and you pour it generously into your hair. The bottle says it's supposed to smell like vanilla milk and papaya extracts, and you don't even know what that means nor do you care because you could be in heaven for as good as you feel.
From the filtered moon light coming through the large window, you can see the blood stained water circling the drain. You wash and scrub your entire body, under your nails, behind your neck and back, and- like your dad used to say- the pits and slits. Soon the water's running clear and you're shivering so you step out to search the closet for some clean clothes. There's not much to choose from, it seems whoever lived here before was not your size. But you find a pair of loose jeans and long sleeve tee. Over the shirt you throw on a short sleeve and pull out a jacket. You see a scarf tucked in the back of the closet and decide to pull that out too. You toss the jacket and scarf on a nearby chair, deciding you'll wear them tomorrow.
When you finally go back downstairs Negan is sitting on the couch, illuminated by his small fire in a pot, and writing in a notebook.
He looks up at you and smiles. "Saved you some peach cobbler in a can."
"Thank you," you say happily, taking the can from him. You sit on the sofa beside him, pulling your legs beneath you. As you take the first bite of sticky sweet pie in a can you can help but sigh in happiness. You rock gently back and forth, savoring each bite.
"That good, huh?"
"Oh, yeah," you tell him, scraping the spoon against the inside, trying to get every drop.
Negan just chuckles. "Good. I'm glad." He places his notebook down and reaches into his bag, "c'mere. Let me see your shoulder again."
You turn towards him, but this time when you show him your shoulder he's surprisingly gentle.
"Just some Neosporin," he tells you, pressing the sticky salve into your skin. He lets his thumb ghost over your scratches, carefully looking for any sign of infection. Then he gently presses on the skin around it. The rough pad of his thumb grazes over your collar bone and you can't help but shiver from his touch. He must notice because he shifts closer, letting his hand move up your neck. You lean into his touch, and when he leans closer you're absolutely sure he's gonna kiss you.
Instead he presses his forehead against yours. "I ain't a good man, baby doll," he warns you.
"You could be," you tell him, breathless. You know you should feel shameful saying it, but the words spill out anyways. "I'd follow you."
For some reason Negan pulls away. He seems torn, running his tongue over his bottom lip as he thinks. "(Y/n), I- I want you to find your mother. Don't get hung up on a guy like me."
He places his belongings in his bag and stands. "I'm gonna go clean up, kid. You should get some rest."
You watch him as he walks away, your heart pounding from both excitement of him being so close and the slight embarrassment of being turned down. But still, even though he's walking away, he pauses for a moment and it doesn't feel like he's telling you no. You realize as he disappears into the bathroom that what happens next is up to you.
[If you choose NOT to have sex with Negan, go to chapter 4.
If you DO choose to have sex with him, go to chapter 5.
They will be two completely different stories so if you're feeling really adventurous read both!]
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unsettlingshortstories · 4 years ago
Text
Onion
Caitlin R. Kiernan (2005)
Frank was seven years old when he found the fields of red grass growing behind the basement wall. The building on St. Mark’s where his parents lived after his father took a job in Manhattan and moved them from the New Jersey suburbs across the wide, gray Hudson. And of course he’d been told to stay out of the basement, no place for a child to play because there were rats down there, his mother said, and rats could give you tetanus and rabies. Rats might even be carrying plague, she said, but the sooty blackness at the foot of the stairs was too much temptation for any seven-year old, the long, long hallway past the door to the super’s apartment and sometimes a single naked bulb burned way down at the end of that hall. Dirty, white-yellow stain that only seemed to emphasize the gloom, drawing attention to just how very dark dark could be, and after school Frank would stand at the bottom of the stairs for an hour at a time, peering into the hall that led down to the basement.
     “Does your mama know you’re always hanging around down here?” Mr. Sweeney would ask whenever he came out and found Frank lurking in the shadows. Frank would squint at the flood of light from Mr. Sweeney’s open door, would shrug or mumble the most noncommittal response he could come up with.     “I bet you she don’t,” Mr. Sweeney would say. “I bet she don’t know.”     “Are there really rats down there?” Frank might ask and Mr. Sweeney would nod his head, point towards the long hall and say “You better believe there’s rats. Boy, there’s rats under this dump big as German shepherd puppies. They got eyes like acetylene blow torches and teeth like carving knives. Can chew straight through concrete, these rats we got.”     “They why don’t you get a cat?” Frank asked once and Mr. Sweeney laughed, phlegmy old man laugh, and “Oh, we had some cats, boy,” he said. “We had whole goddamn cat armies, but when these rats get done, ain’t never anything left but some gnawed-up bones and whiskers.”     “I don’t believe that,” Frank said. “Rats don’t get that big. Rats don’t eat cats.”     “You better get your skinny rump back upstairs, or they’re gonna eat you too,” and then Mr. Sweeney laughed again and slammed his door, left Frank alone in the dark, his heart thumping loud and his head filled with visions of the voracious, giant rats that tunneled through masonry and dined on any cat unlucky enough to get in their way.     And that’s the way it went, week after week, month after month, until one snowblind February afternoon, too cold and wet to go outside and his mother didn’t notice when he slipped quietly downstairs with the flashlight she kept in a kitchen drawer. Mr. Sweeney was busy with a busted radiator on the third floor, so nobody around this time to tell him scary stories and chase him home again, and Frank walked right on past the super’s door, stood shivering in the chilly, mildew-stinking air of the hallway. The unsteady beam of his flashlight to show narrow walls that might have been blue or green a long time ago, little black-and-white, six-sided ceramic tiles on the floor, but half of them missing and he could see the rotting boards underneath. There were doors along the length of the hall, some of them boarded up, nailed shut, one door frame without any door at all and he stepped very fast past that one.     Indiana Jones wouldn’t be afraid, he thought, counting his footsteps in case that might be important later on, listening to the winter wind yowling raw along the street as it swept past the building on its way to Tompkins Square Park and the East River. Twenty steps, twenty-five, thirty-three and then he was standing below the dangling bulb and for the first time Frank stopped and looked back the way he’d come. And maybe he’d counted wrong, because it seemed a lot farther than only thirty-three steps back to the dim and postage-stamp-sized splotch of day at the other end of the hall.     Only ten steps more down to the basement door, heavy, gray steel door with a rusted hasp and a Yale padlock, but standing wide open like it was waiting for him and maybe Mr. Sweeney only forgot to lock it the last time he came down to check the furnace or wrap the pipes. And later, Frank wouldn’t remember much about crossing the threshold into the deeper night of the basement, the soup-thick stench and taste of dust and rot and mushrooms, picking his way through the maze of sagging shelves and wooden crates, decaying heaps of rags and newspapers, past the ancient furnace crouched in one corner like a cast-iron octopus. Angry, orange-red glow from the furnace grate like the eyes of the super’s cat-eating rats—he would remember that—and then Frank heard the dry, rustling sound coming from one corner of the basement.     Years later, through high school and college and the slow purgatory of this twenties, this is where the bad dreams would always begin, the moment that he lifted the flashlight and saw the wide and jagged crack in the concrete wall. A faint draft from that corner that smelled of cinnamon and ammonia, and he knew better than to look, knew he should turn and run all the way back because it wasn’t ever really rats that he was supposed to be afraid of. The rats just a silly grown-up lie to keep him safe, smaller, kinder nightmare for his own good, and Run, boy, Mr. Sweeney whispered inside his head. Run fast while you still can, while you still don’t know.     But Frank didn’t run away, and when he pressed his face to the crack in the wall, he could see that the fields stretched away for miles and miles, crimson meadows beneath a sky the yellow-green of an old bruise. The white trees that writhed and rustled in the choking, spicy breeze, and far, far way, the black thing striding slowly through the grass on bandy, stilt-long legs.
Frank and Willa share the tiny apartment on Mott Street, roachy Chinatown hovel one floor above an apothecary so the place always stinks of ginseng and jasmine and the powdered husks of dried sea creatures. Four walls, a gas range, an ancient Frigidaire that only works when it feels like it, but together they can afford the rent, most of the time, and the month or two they’ve come up short Mrs. Wu has let them slide. His job at a copy shop and hers waiting tables and sometimes they talk about moving out of the city, packing up their raggedy-ass belongings and riding a Greyhound all the way to Florida, all the way to the Keys, and then it’ll be summer all year long. But not this sticky, sweltering new York summer, no, it would be clean ocean air and rum drinks, sun-warm sand and the lullaby roll and crash of waves at night.     Frank is still in bed when Willa comes out of the closet that passes as their bathroom, naked and dripping from the shower, her hair wrapped up in a towel that used to be white and he stops staring at the tattered Cézanne print thumbtacked over the television and stares at her instead. Willa is tall and her skin so pale he thought she might be sick the first time they met, so skinny that he can see intimations of her skeleton beneath that skin like milk and pearls. Can trace the blue-green network of veins and capillaries in her throat, between her small breasts, winding like hesitant, watercolor brush strokes down her arms. He’s pretty sure that one day Willa will finally figure out she can do a hell of a lot better than him and move on, but he tries not to let that ruin whatever it is they have now.     “It’s all yours,” she says, his turn even though the water won’t be hot again for at least half an hour, and Willa sits down in a chair near the foot of the bed. She leans forward and rubs vigorously at her hair trapped inside the dingy towel.     “We could both play hooky,” Frank says hopefully, watching her, imagining how much better sex would be than the chugging, headache drone of Xerox machines, the endless dissatisfaction of clients. “You could come back to bed and we could lie here all day. We could just lie here and sweat and watch television.”     “Jesus, Frank, how am I supposed to resist an offer like that?”     “Okay, so we could screw and sweat and watch television.”   She stops drying her hair and glares at him, shakes her head and frowns, but the sort of frown that says I wish I could more than it says anything else.     “That new girl isn’t working out,” she says.     “The fat chick from Kazakhstan?” Frank asks and he rolls over onto his back, easier to forget the fantasies of a lazy day alone with Willa if he isn’t looking at her sitting there naked.     “Fucking Kazakhstan. I mean, what the hell were Ted and Daniel thinking? She can’t even speak enough English to tell someone where the toilet is, much less take an order.”     “Maybe they felt sorry for her,” Frank says unhelpfully and now he’s staring up at his favorite crack on the water-stained ceiling, the one that always makes him think of a Viking orbiter photo of the Valles Marineris from one of his old astronomy books. “I’ve heard that people do that sometimes, feel sorry for people.”     “Well, they’d probably lose less money if they just sent the bitch to college, the way she’s been pissing off customers.”     ”Maybe you should suggest that today,” and a moment later Willa’s wet towel smacks him in the face, steamy-damp terry cloth that smells like her black hair dye and the cheap baby shampoo she uses. It covers his eyes, obscuring his view of the Martian rift valley overhead, but Frank doesn’t move the towel immediately, better to lie there a moment longer, breathing her in.     “Is it supposed to rain today?” Willa asks and he mumbles through the wet towel that he doesn’t know.     “They keep promising it’s going to rain and it keeps not raining.”    Frank sits up and the towel slides off his face and into his lap, lies there as the dampness begins to soak through his boxers.     ”I don’t know,” he says again; Willa has her back turned to him and she doesn’t reply or make any sign to show that she’s heard. She’s pulling a bright yellow T-shirt on over her head, the Curious George shirt he gave her for Christmas, has put on a pair of yellow panties, too.     “I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s the heat. The heat’s driving me crazy.”     Frank glances toward the window, the sash up but the chintzy curtains hanging limp and lifeless in the stagnant July air; he’d have to get out of bed, walk all the way across the room, lean over the sill and peer up past the walls and rooftops to see if there are any clouds. “It might rain today,” he says, instead.     “I don’t think it’s ever going to rain again as long as I live,” Willa says and steps into her jeans. “I think we’ve broken this goddamn planet and it’s never going to rain anywhere ever again.”     Frank rubs his fingers through his stiff, dirty hair and looks back at the Cézanne still life above the television—a tabletop, the absinthe bottle and a carafe of water, an empty glass, the fruit that might be peaches.     “You’ll be at the meeting tonight?” he asks and Frank keeps his eyes on the print because he doesn’t like the sullen, secretive expression Willa gets whenever they have to talk about the meetings.     “Yeah,” she says, sighs, and then there’s the cloth-metal sound of her zipper. “Of course I’ll be at the meeting. Where the hell else would I be?”     And then she goes back into the bedroom and shuts the door behind her, leaves Frank alone with the Cézanne and the exotic reek of the apothecary downstairs, Valles Marineris and the bright day spilling uninvited through the window above Mott Street.
Half past two and Frank sits on a plastic milk crate in the stockroom of Gotham Kwick Kopy, trying to decide whether or not to eat the peanut butter and honey sandwich he brought for lunch. The air conditioning’s on the blink again and he thinks it might actually be hotter inside the shop than out on the street; a few merciful degrees cooler in the stockroom, though, shadowy refuge stacked high with cardboard boxes of copy paper in a dozen shades of white and all the colors of the rainbow. He peels back the top of his sandwich, the doughy Millbrook bread that Willa likes, and frowns at the mess underneath. So hot out front that the peanut butter has melted, oily mess to leak straight through wax paper and the brown bag and he’s trying to remember if peanut butter and honey can spoil.     Both the stockroom doors swing open and Frank looks up, blinks and squints at the sun-framed silhouette, Joe Manske letting in the heat and “Hey, don’t do that,” Frank says as Joe switches on the lights. The fluorescents buzz and flicker uncertainly, chasing away the shadows, drenching the stockroom in their bland, indifferent glare.     “Dude, why are you sitting back here in the dark?” Joe asks and for a moment Frank considers throwing the sandwich at him.     “Why aren’t you working on that Mac?” Frank asks right back and “It’s fixed, good as new,” Joe says, grins his big, stupid grin, and sits down on a box of laser print paper near the door.     “That fucker won’t ever be good as new again.”     “Well, at least it’s stopped making that sound. That’s good enough for me,” and Joe takes out a pack of Camels, offers one to Frank and Frank shakes his head no. A month now since his last cigarette, quitting because Willa’s step-mother is dying of lung cancer, quitting because cigarettes cost too goddamn much, anyhow, and “Thanks, though,” he says.     “Whatever,” Joe Manske mumbles around the filter of his Camel, thumb on the strike wheel of his silver lighter and in a moment the air is filled with the pungent aroma of burning tobacco. Frank gives up on the dubious sandwich, drops it back into the brown bag and crumples the bag into a greasy ball.     “I fuckin’ hate this fuckin’ job,” Joe says, disgusted, smoky cloud of words about his head, and he points at the stockroom door with his cigarette. “You just missed a real peace of work, man.”     “Yeah?” and Frank tosses the sandwich ball towards the big plastic garbage can sitting a few feet away, misses and it rolls behind the busted Canon 2400 color copier that’s been sitting in the same spot since he started this job a year ago.     “Yeah,” Joe says. “I was trying to finish that pet store job and this dude comes in, little bitty old man looks like he just got off the boat from Poland or Armenia or some shit—“     “My grandmother was Polish,“ Frank says and Joe sighs loudly, long impatient sigh and he flicks ash onto the cement floor. “You know what I mean.”     “So what’d he want anyway?” Frank asks, not because he cares but the shortest way through any conversation with Joe Manske is usually right down the middle, just be quiet and listen and sooner or later he’ll probably come to the end and shut up.     “He had this old book with him. The damned thing must have been even older than him and was falling apart. I don’t think you could so much as look at it without the pages crumbling. Had it tied together with some string and he kept askin’ me all these questions, real technical shit about the machines, you know.”     “Yeah? Like what?”     “Dude, I don’t know. I can’t remember half of it, techie shit, like I was friggin’ Mr. Wizard or somethin’. I finally just told him we couldn’t be responsible if the copiers messed up his old book, but he still kept on askin’ these questions. Lucky for me, one of the self-service machines jammed and I told him I had to go fix it. By the time I was finished, he was gone.”     “You live to serve,” Frank says, wondering if Willa would be able to tell if he had just one cigarette. “The customer is always right.”     “Fuck that shit,” Joe Manske says. “I don’t get paid enough to have to listen to some senile old fart jabberin’ at me all day.”     “Yes sir, helpful is your middle name.”     “Fuck you.”     Frank laughs and gets up, pushes the milk crate towards the wall with the toe of one shoe so no one’s going to come along later and trip over it, break their neck and have him to blame. “I better get back to work,” he says and “You do that,” Joe grumbles and puffs his Camel.     Through the stockroom doors and back out into the stifling, noisy clutter of the shop, and it must be at least ten degrees warmer out here, he thinks. There’s a line at the register and the phone’s ringing, no one out front but Maggie and she glowers at him across the chaos. “I’m on it,” Frank says; she shakes her head doubtfully and turns to help a woman wearing a dark purple dress and matching beret. Frank’s reaching across the counter for the telephone receiver when he notices the business card lying near a display of Liquid Paper. Black sans serif print on an expensive, white cotton card stock and what appears to be an infinity symbol in the lower left-hand corner. FOUND: LOST WORLDS centered at the top, TERRAE NOVUM ET TERRA INDETERMINATA on the next line down in smaller letters. Then a name and an address—Dr. Solomon Monalisa, Ph.D., 43 W. 61st St., Manhattan—but no number or email, and Frank picks up the card, holds it so Maggie can see.     “Where’d this come from?” he asks but she only shrugs, annoyed but still smiling her strained and weary smile for the woman in the purple beret. “Beats me. Ask Joe, if he ever comes back. Now will you please answer the phone?”     He apologizes, lifts the receiver, “Gotham Kwick Kopy, Frank speaking. How may I help you?” and slips the white card into his back pocket.
The group meets in the basement of a synagogue on Eldridge Street. Once a month, eight o’clock until everyone who wants to talk has taken his or her turn, coffee and stale doughnuts before and afterwards. Metal folding chairs and a lectern down front, a microphone and crackly PA system even though the room isn’t really large enough to need one. Never more than fourteen or fifteen people, occasionally as few as six or seven, and Frank and Willa always sit at the very back, near the door. Sometimes Willa doesn’t make it all the way through a meeting and she says she hates the way they all watch her if she gets up to leave early, like she’s done something wrong, she says, like this is all her fault, somehow. So they sit by the door, which is fine with Frank; he’d rather not have everyone staring at the back of his head, anyway.     He’s sipping at a styrofoam cup of the bitter, black coffee, three sugars and it’s still bitter, watching the others, all their familiar, telltale quirks and peculiarities, their equivocal glances, when Willa comes in. First the sound of her clunky motorcycle boots on the concrete steps and then she stands in the doorway a moment, that expression like it’s always the first time for her and it can never be any other way.     “Hey,” Frank says quietly. “I made it,” she replies and sits down beside him. There’s a stain on the front of her Curious George T-shirt that looks like chocolate sauce.     “How was your day?” he asks her, talking so she doesn’t lock up before things even get started.       “Same as ever. It sucked. They didn’t fire Miss Kazakhstan.”     “That’s good, dear. Would you like a martini?” and he jabs a thumb toward the free-coffee-and-stale-doughnut table. “I think I’ll pass,” Willa says humorlessly, rubs her hands together and stares at the floor between her feet. “I think my stomach hurts enough already.”     “Would you rather just go home? We can miss one night. I sure as hell don’t care—“     “No,” she says, answering too fast, too emphatic, so he knows she means yes. “That would be silly. I’ll be fine when things get started.”     And then Mr. Zaroba stands, stocky man with skin like tea-stained muslin, salt-and-pepper hair and beard and his bushy, gray eyebrows. Kindly blue grandfather eyes and he raises one hand to get everyone’s attention, as if they aren’t all looking at him already, as if they haven’t all been waiting for him to open his mouth and break the tense, uncertain silence.     “Good evening, everyone,” he says, and Willa sits up a little straighter in her chair, expectant arch of her back as though she’s getting ready to run.     “Before we begin,” Mr. Zaroba continues, “there’s something I wanted to share. I came across this last week,” and he takes a piece of paper from his shirt pocket, unfolds it, and begins to read. An item from the New York Tribune, February 17th, 1901; reports by an Indian tribe in Alaska of a city in the sky that was seen sometimes, and a prospector named Willoughby who claimed to have witnessed the thing himself in 1897, claimed to have tried to photograph it on several occasions and succeeded, finally.     “And now this,” Zaroba says and he pulls a second folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket, presto, bottomless bag of tricks, that pocket, and this time he reads from a book, Alaska by Miner Bruce, page 107, he says. Someone else who saw the city suspended in the arctic sky, a Mr. C.W. Thornton of Seattle, and “’It required no effort of the imagination to liken it to a city,’” Mr. Zaroba reads, “’but was so distinct that it required, instead, faith to believe that it was not in reality a city.’”     People shift nervously in their seats, scuff their feet, and someone whispers too loudly.     “I have the prospector’s photograph,” Zaroba says. “It’s only a Xerox from the book, of course. It isn’t very clear, but I thought some of you might like to see it.” And he hands one of the sheets of paper to the person sitting nearest him.     “Damn, I need a cigarette,” Willa whispers and “You and me both, Frank whispers back. It takes almost five minutes for the sheet of paper to make its way to the rear of the room, passed along from hand to hand while Zaroba stands patiently at the front, his head bowed solemn as if leading a prayer. Some hold onto it as long as they dare and others hardly seem to want to touch it. A man three rows in front of them gets up and brings it back to Willa.       ”I don’t see nothing but clouds,” he says, sounding disappointed.     And neither does Frank, fuzzy photograph of a mirage, deceit of sunlight in the collision of warm and freezing air high above a glacier, but Willa must see more. She holds the paper tight and chews at her lower lip, traces the distorted peaks and cumulonimbus towers with the tip of an index finger.     “My god,” she whispers.     In a moment Zaroba comes up the aisle and takes the picture away, leaves Willa staring at her empty hands, her eyes wet like she might start crying. Frank puts an arm around her bony shoulders, but she immediately wiggles free and scoots her chair a few inches farther away.     “So, who wants to get us started tonight?” Mr. Zaroba asks when he gets back to the lectern. At first no one moves or speaks or raises a hand, each looking at the others or trying hard to look nowhere at all. And then a young woman stands up, younger than Willa, filthy clothes and bruise-dark circles under her eyes, hair that hasn’t been combed or washed in ages. Her name is Janice and Frank thinks that she’s a junky, probably a heroin addict because she always wears long sleeves.     “Janice? Very good, then,” and Mr. Zaroba returns to his seat in the first row. Everyone watches Janice as she walks slowly to the front of the room, or they pretend not to watch her. There’s a small hole in the seat of her dirty, threadbare jeans and Frank can see that she isn’t wearing underwear. She stands behind the lectern, coughs once, twice, and brushes her shaggy bangs out of her face. She looks anxiously at Mr. Zaroba and “It’s all right, Janice,” he says. “Take all the time you need. No one’s going to rush you.”     “Bullshit,” Willa mutters, loud enough that the man sitting three rows in front of them turns and scowls. “What the hell are you staring at,” she growls and he turns back towards the lectern.     “It’s okay, baby,” Frank says and takes her hand, squeezes hard enough that she can’t shake him loose this time. “We can leave anytime you want.”     Janice coughs again and there’s a faint feedback whine from the mike. She wipes her nose with the back of her hand and “I was only fourteen years old,” she begins. “I still lived with my foster parents in Trenton and there was this old cemetery near our house, Riverview Cemetery. Me and my sister, my foster sister, we used to go there to smoke and talk, you know, just to get away from the house.”     Janice looks at the basement ceiling while she speaks, or down at the lectern, but never at the others. She pauses and wipes her nose again.     “We went there all the time. Wasn’t anything out there to be afraid of, not like at home. Just dead people, and me and Nadine weren’t afraid of dead people. Dead people don’t hurt anyone, right? We could sit there under the trees in the summer and it was almost like things weren’t so bad. Nadine was a year older than me.”     Willa tries to pull her hand free, digs her nails into Frank’s palm but he doesn’t let go. They both know where this is going, have both heard Janice’s story so many times that they could recite it backwards, same tired old horror story, and “It’s okay,” he says out loud, to Willa or to himself.     “Mostly it was just regular headstones, but there were a few bigger crypts set way back near the water. I didn’t like being around them. I told her that, over and over, but Nadine said they were like little castles, like something out of fairy tales.     “One day one of them was open, like maybe someone had busted into it, and Nadine had to see if there were still bones inside. I begged her not to, said whoever broke it open might still be hanging around somewhere and we ought to go home and come back later. But she wouldn’t listen to me.     “I didn’t want to look inside. I swear to God, I didn’t.”     “Liar.” Willa whispers, so low now that the man three rows in front of them doesn’t hear, but Frank does. Her nails are digging deeper into his palm, and his eyes are beginning to water from the pain. “You wanted to see,” she says. “Just like the rest of us, you wanted to see.”     “I said, ‘What if someone’s still in there?’ but she wouldn’t listen. She wasn’t ever afraid of anything. She used to lay down on train tracks just to piss me off.”     “What did you see in the crypt, Janice, when you and Nadine looked inside?” Mr. Zaroba asks, but no hint of impatience in his voice, not hurrying her or prompting, only helping her find a path across the words as though they were slippery rocks in a cold stream. “Can you tell us?”     Janice takes a very deep breath, swallows, and “Stairs,” she says. “Stairs going down into the ground. There was a light way down at the bottom, a blue light, like a cop car light. Only it wasn’t flashing. And we could hear something moving around down there, and something else that sounded like a dog panting. I tried to get Nadine to come back to the house with me then, but she wouldn’t. She said ‘Those stairs might go anywhere, Jan. Don’t you want to see? Don’t you want to know?”      Another pause and “I couldn’t stop her,” Janice says.     Willa mutters something Frank doesn’t understand, then, something vicious, and he lets go of her hand, rubs at the four crescent-shaped wounds her nails leave behind. Blood drawn, crimson tattoos to mark the wild and irreparable tear in her soul by marking him, and he presses his palm to his black work pants, no matter if it stains, no one will ever notice.     “I waited at the top of the stairs until dark,” Janice says. “I kept on calling her. I called her until my throat hurt.” When the sun started going down, the blue light at the bottom got brighter and brighter and once or twice I thought I could see someone moving around down there, someone standing between me and the light. Finally, yelled I was going to get the goddamn cops if she didn’t come back…” and Janice trails off, hugs herself like she’s cold and gazes straight ahead, but Frank knows she doesn’t see any of them sitting there, watching her, waiting for the next word, waiting for their turns at the lectern.     “You don’t have to say any more tonight,” Zaroba says. “You know we’ll all understand if you can’t.”     “No,” Janice says. “I can…I really need to,” and she squeezes her eyes shut tight. Mr. Zaroba stands, takes one reassuring step towards the lectern.     “We’re all right here,” he says, and “We’re listening,” Willa mumbles mockingly. “We’re listening,” Zaroba says a second later.     “I didn’t go to the police. I didn’t tell anyone anything until the next day. My foster parents, they just thought she’d run away again. No one would believe me when I told them about the crypt, when I told them where Nadine had really gone. Finally, they made me show them, though, the cops did, so I took them out to Riverview.”     “Why do we always have to fucking start with her?” Willa whispers. “I can’t remember a single time she didn’t go first.”     Someone sneezes and “It was sealed up again,” Janice says, her small and brittle voice made big and brittle by the PA speakers. “But they opened it.” The cemetery people didn’t want them to, but they did anyway. I swore I’d kill myself if they didn’t open it and get Nadine out of there.”     “Can you remember a time she didn’t go first?” Willa asks and Frank looks at her, but he doesn’t answer.     “All they found inside was a coffin. The cops even pulled up part of the marble floor, but there wasn’t anything under it, just dirt.”     A few more minutes, a few more details, and Janice is done. Mr. Zaroba hugs her and she goes back to her seat. “Who wants to be next?” he asks them and it’s the man who calls himself Charlie Jones, though they all know that’s not his real name. Every month he apologizes because he can’t use his real name at the meetings, too afraid someone at work might find out, and then he tells them about the time he opened a bedroom door in his house in Hartford and there was nothing on the other side but stars. When he’s done, Zaroba shakes his hand, pats him on the back, and now it’s time for the woman who got lost once on the subway, two hours to get from South Ferry to the Houston Street Station, alone in an empty train that rushed along through a darkness filled with the sound of children crying. Then a timid Colombian woman named Juanita Lazarte, the night she watched two moons cross the sky above Peekskill, the morning the sun rose in the south.     And all the others, each in his or her turn, as the big wall clock behind the lectern ticks and the night fills up with the weight and absurdity of their stories, glimpses of impossible geographies, entire worlds hidden in plain view if you’re unlucky enough to see them. “If you’re damned,” Juanita Lazarte once said and quickly crossed herself. Mr. Zaroba who was once an atmospheric scientist and pilot for the Navy. He’s seen something too, of course, the summer of 1969, flying supplies in a Hercules C-130 from Christchurch, New Zealand to McMurdo Station. A freak storm, whiteout conditions and instrument malfunction, and when they finally found a break in the clouds somewhere over the Transantarctic Mountains the entire crew saw the ruins of a vast city, glittering obsidian towers and shattered, crystal spires, crumbling walls carved from the mountains themselves. At least that’s what Zaroba says. He also says the Navy pressured the other men into signing papers agreeing never to talk about the flight and when he refused, he was pronounced mentally unsound by a military psychiatrist and discharged.     When Willa’s turn comes, she glances at Frank, not a word but all the terrible things right there in her eyes for him to see, unspoken resignation, surrender, and then she goes down the aisle and stands behind the lectern.
Frank wakes up from a dream of rain and thunder and Willa’s sitting cross-legged at the foot of their bed, nothing on but her pajama bottoms, watching television with the sound off and smoking a cigarette. “Where the hell’d you get that?” he asks, blinks sleepily and points at the cigarette.     “I bought a pack on my break today,” she replies, not taking her eyes off the screen. She takes a long drag and the smoke leaks slowly from her nostrils.     “I thought we had an agreement.”     ”I’m sorry,” but she doesn’t sound sorry at all, and Frank sits up and blinks at the TV screen, rubs his eyes, and now he can see it’s Jimmy Stewart and Katharine Hepburn, The Philadelphia Story.     ”You can turn the sound up, if you want to,” he says. “It won’t bother me.”     ”No, that’s okay. I know it by heart anyway.”     And then neither of them says anything else for a few minutes, sit watching the televisions, and when Willa has smoked the cigarette down to the filter she stubs it out in a saucer.     ”I don’t think I want to go to the meetings anymore,” she says. “I think they’re only making it worse for me.”     Frank waits a moment before he replies, waiting to be sure that she’s finished, and then, “That’s your decision, Willa. If that’s what you want.”     ”Of course it’s my decision.”     ”You know what I meant.”     ”I can’t keep reciting it over and over like the rest of you. There’s no fucking point. I could talk about it from now till doomsday and it still wouldn’t make sense and I’d still be afraid. Nothing Zaroba and that bunch of freaks has to say is going to change that, Frank.”     Willa picks up the pack of Camels off the bed, lights another cigarette with a disposable lighter that looks pink by the flickering, grainy light from the TV screen.     ”I’m sorry,” Frank says.     ”Does it help you?” she asks and now there’s an angry-sharp edge in her voice, Willa’s switchblade mood swings, sullen to pissed in the space between heartbeats. “Has it ever helped you at all?”     Frank doesn’t want to fight with her tonight, wants to close his eyes and slip back down to sleep, back to his raincool dreams. Too hot for an argument, and “I don’t know,” he says, and that’s almost not a lie.     ”Yeah, well, whatever,” Willa mumbles and takes another drag off her cigarette.     ”We’ll talk about it in the morning if you want,” Frank says and he lies back down, turns to face the open window and the noise of Mott Street at two A.M., the blinking orange neon from a noodle shop across the street.     ”I’m not going to change my mind, if that’s what you mean,” Willa says.     ”You can turn the sound up,” Frank tells her again and concentrates on the soothing rhythm of the noodle shop sign, orange pulse like campfire light, much, much better than counting imaginary sheep. In a moment he’s almost asleep again, scant inches from sleep and “Did you ever see Return to Oz?” Willa asks him.     ”What?”     ”Return to Oz, the one where Fairuza Balk plays Dorothy and Laurie Piper plays Auntie Em.”     ”No,” Frank replies. “I never did,” and he rolls over onto his back and stares at the ceiling instead of the neon sign. In the dark and the gray light from the television, his favorite crack looks even more like the Valles Marineris.     ”It wasn’t anything like The Wizard of Oz. I was just a little kid, but I remember it. It scared the hell out of me.”     ”Your mother let you see scary movies when you were a little kid?”     Willa ignores the question, her eyes still fixed on The Philadelphia Story if they’re fixed anywhere, and she exhales a cloud of smoke that swirls and drifts about above the bed.     ”When the film begins, Auntie Em and Uncle Henry think Dorothy’s sick,” she says. “They think she’s crazy, because she talks about Oz all the time, because she won’t believe it was only a nightmare. They finally send her off to a sanitarium for electric shock treatment—“     ”Jesus,” Frank says, not entirely sure that Willa isn’t making all this up. “That’s horrible.”     ”Yeah, but it’s true, isn’t it? It’s what really happens to little girls who see places that aren’t supposed to be there. People aren’t ever so glad you didn’t die in a twister that they want to listen to crazy shit about talking scarecrows and emerald cities.”     And Frank doesn’t answer because he knows he isn’t supposed to, knows that she would rather he didn’t even try, so he sweats and stares at his surrogate, plaster Mars instead, at the shadow play from the television screen; she doesn’t say anything else, and in a little while more, he’s asleep.
In this dream there is still thunder, no rain from the other sky but the crack and rumble of thunder so loud that the air shimmers and could splinter like ice. The tall red grass almost as high as his waist, rippling gently in the wind, and Frank wishes that Willa wouldn’t get so close to the fleshy, white trees. She thinks they might have fruit, peaches and she’s never eaten a white peach before, she said. Giants fighting in the sky and Willa picking up windfall fruit from the rocky ground beneath the trees; Frank looks over his shoulder, back towards the fissure in the basement wall, back the way they came, but it’s vanished.     I should be sacred, he thinks. No, I should be scared.     And now Willa is coming back towards him through the crimson waves of grass, her skirt for a linen basket to hold all the pale fruit she’s gathered. She’s smiling and he tries to remember the last time he saw her smile, really smile, not just a smirk or sneer. She smiles and steps through the murmuring grass that seems to part to let her pass, her bare arms and legs safe from the blades grown sharp as straight razors.     ”They are peaches,” she beams.     But the fruit is the color of school-room chalk, it’s skin smooth and slick and glistening with tiny, pinhead beads of nectar seeping out through minute pores. “Take one,” she says, but his stomach lurches and rolls at the thought, loath to even touch one of the things and then she sighs and dumps them all into the grass at his feet.     ”I used to know a story about peaches,” Willa says. “It was a Japanese story, I think. Or maybe it was Chinese.”     ”I’m pretty sure those aren’t peaches,” Frank says, and he takes a step backwards, away from the pile of sweating, albino fruit.     ”I heard the pits are poisonous,” she says. “Arsenic, or maybe it’s cyanide.”     A brilliant flash of chartreuse lightning then and the sky sizzles and smells like charred meat. Willa bends and retrieves a piece of the fruit, takes a bite before he can stop her; the sound of her teeth sinking through its skin, tearing through the colorless pulp inside, is louder than the thunder, and milky juice rolls down her chin and stains her Curious George T-shirt. Something wriggles from between her lips, falls to the grass, and when Willa opens her jaws wide to take another bite Frank can see that her mouth is filled with wriggling things.     ”They have to be careful you don’t swallow your tongue,” she says, mumbling around the white peach. “If you swallow your tongue you’ll choke to death.”     Frank snatches the fruit away from her, grabs it quick before she puts any more of it in her belly, and she frowns and wipes the juice staining her hands off onto her skirt. The half-eaten thing feels warm and he tosses it away.     ”Jesus, that was fucking silly, Frank. The harm’s already done, you know that. The harm was done the day you looked through that hole in the wall.”     And then the sky booms its symphony of gangrene and sepsis and lightning stabs down with electric claws, thunder then lightning but that’s only the wrong way round if he pretends Willa isn’t right, if he pretends that he’s seven again and this time he doesn’t take the flashlight from the kitchen drawer. This time he does what his mother says and doesn’t go sneaking off the minute she turns her back.     Frank stands alone beneath the restless trees, his aching, dizzy head too full of all the time that can’t be redeemed, now or then or ever, and he watches as Willa walks alone across the red fields towards the endless deserts of scrap iron and bone, towards the bloated, scarlet-purple sun. The black things have noticed her, and creep along close behind, stalking silent on ebony, mantis legs.     This time he wakes up before they catch her.
The long weekend, then, hotter and drier, the sky more white than blue and the air on Mott Street and everywhere else that Frank has any reason to go has grown so ripe, so redolent, that sometimes he pulls the collars of his T-shirts up over his mouth and nose, breathes through the cotton like a surgeon or a wild west bandit, but the smell always gets through anyway. On the news there are people dying of heat stroke and dehydration, people dying in the streets and ERs, but fresh-faced weathermen still promise that it will rain very soon. He’s stopped believing them and maybe that means Willa’s right and it never will rain again.     Frank hasn’t shown the white card—FOUND: LOST WORLDS—to Willa, keeps it hidden in his wallet, only taking it out when he’s alone and no one will see, no one to ask where or what or who. He’s read it over and over again, has each line committed to memory, and Monday morning he almost calls Mr. Zaroba about it. The half hour between Willa leaving for the café and the time that he has to leave for the copy shop if he isn’t going to be late, and he holds the telephone receiver and stares at Dr. Solomon Monalisa’s card lying there on the table in front of him. The sound of his heart, the dial-tone drone, and the traffic down on Mott Street, the spice-and-dried-fish odor of the apothecary leaking up through the floorboards, and a fat drop of sweat slides down his forehead and spreads itself painfully across his left eyeball. By the time he’s finished rubbing at his eye, calling Zaroba no longer seems like such a good idea after all, and Frank puts the white card back into his wallet, slips it in safe between his driver’s license and a dog-eared, expired MetroCard.     Instead he calls in sick, gets Maggie and she doesn’t believe for one moment that there’s anything wrong with him.     ”I fucking swear, I can’t even get up off the toilet long enough to make a phone call. I’m calling you from the head,” only half an effort at sounding sincere because they both know this is only going through the motions.     ”As we speak—“ he starts, but Maggie cuts him off.     ”That’s enough, Frank. But I’m telling you, man if you wanna keep this job, you better get your slacker ass down here tomorrow morning.”     ”Right,” Frank says. “I hear you,” and she hangs up first     And then Frank stares at the open window, the sun beating down like the Voice of God out there, and it takes him almost five minutes to remember where to find the next number he has to call.
Sidney McAvoy stopped coming to the meetings at the synagogue on Eldridge Street almost a year ago, not long after Frank’s first time. Small, hawk-nosed man with nervous, ferrety eyes, and he’s always reminded Frank a little of Dustin Hoffman in Papillon. Some sort of tension or wound between Sidney and Mr. Zaroba that Frank never fully understood, but he saw it from the start, the way their eyes never met and Sidney never took his turn at the lectern, sat silent, brooding, chewing at the stem of a cheap, unlit pipe. And then an argument after one of the meetings, the same night that Zaroba told Janice that she shouldn’t ever go back to the cemetery in Trenton, that she should never try to find the staircase and the blue light again. Both men speaking in urgent, angry whispers, Zaroba looking up occasionally to smile a sheepish, embarrassed, apologetic smile. Everyone pretending not to see or hear, talking among themselves, occupied with their stale doughnuts and tiny packets of non-dairy creamer, and then Sidney McAvoy left and never came back.     Frank would’ve forgotten all about him, almost had forgotten, and then one night he and Willa were coming home late from a bar where they drink sometimes, whenever they’re feeling irresponsible enough to spend money on booze. Cheap vodka or cheaper beer, a few hours wasted just trying to feel like everyone else, the way they imagined other, normal people might feel, and they ran into Sidney McAvoy a few blocks from their apartment. He was wearing a ratty green raincoat, even though it wasn’t raining, and chewing on one of his pipes, carrying a large box wrapped in white butcher’s paper, tied up tight and neat with twine.     ”Shit,” Willa whispered. “Make like you don’t see him,” but Sidney had already noticed them and he was busy clumsily trying to hide the big package behind his back.     ”I know you two,” he declared, talking loudly, a suspicious, accusatory glint to his quavering voice. “You’re both with Zaroba, aren’t you? You still go to his meetings.” That last word a sneer and he pointed a short, grubby finger at the center of Frank’s chest.     ”That’s really none of your goddamn business, is it?” Willa growled and Frank stepped quickly between them; she mumbled and spit curses behind his back and Sindey McAvoy glared up at Frank with his beady-dark eyes. A whole lifetime’s worth of bitterness and distrust trapped inside those eyes, eyes that have seen far too much or far too little, and “How have you been, Mr. McAvoy,” Frank said, straining to sound friendly, and he managed the sickly ghost of a smile.     Sidney grunted and almost dropped his carefully-wrapped package.     ”If you care about that girl there,” he said, speaking around the stem of the pipe clenched between his yellowed teeth, “you’ll keep her away from Zaroba. And you’ll both stop telling him things, if you know what’s good for you. There are more useful answers in a road atlas than you’re ever going to get out of that old phony.”     ”What makes you say that?” Frank asked. “What were you guys fighting about?” but Sidney was already scuttling away down Canal Street, his white package hugged close to his chest. He turned a corner without looking back and was gone.     ”Fucking nut job,” Willa mumbled. “What the hell’s his problem anyway?”       ”Maybe the less we know about him the better,” Frank said and he put an arm around Willa’s small waist, holding her close to him, trying hard not to think about what could have been in the box but unable to think of anything else.     And two weeks later, dim and snowy last day before Thanksgiving, Frank found Sidney McAvoy’s number in the phone book and called him.
A wet comb through his hair, cleaner shirt and socks, and Frank goes out into the sizzling day; across Columbus Park to the Canal Street Station and he takes the M to Grand Street, rides the B line all the way to the subway stop beneath the Museum of Natural History. Rumbling long through the honeycombed earth, the diesel and dust and garbage scented darkness and him swaddled inside steel and unsteady fluorescent light. Time to think that he’d rather not have, unwelcome luxury of second thoughts, and when the train finally reaches the museum he’s almost ready to turn right around and head back downtown. Almost, but Dr. Solomon Monalisa’s card is in his wallet to keep him moving, get him off the train and up the concrete steps to the museum entrance. Ten dollars he can’t spare to get inside, but Sidney McAvoy will never agree to meet him anywhere outside, too paranoid for a walk in Central Park or a quiet booth in a deli or a coffee shop somewhere.     ”People are always listening,” he says, whenever Frank has suggested or asked that they meet somewhere without an entrance fee. “You never know what they might overhear.”     So sometimes it’s the long marble bench in front of the Apatosaurus, or the abyssal, blue-black gloom of the Hall of Fishes, seats beneath a planetarium constellation sky, whichever spot happens to strike Sidney’s fancy that particular day. His fancy or his cabalistic fantasies, if there’s any difference, and today Frank finds him in the Hall of Asiatic Mammals, short and rumpled man in a threadbare tweed jacket and red tennis shoes standing alone before the Indian leopard diorama, gazing intently in at the pocket of counterfeit jungle and the taxidermied cats. Frank waits behind him for a minute or two, waiting to be noticed, and when Sidney looks up and speaks, he speaks to Frank’s reflection.     ”I’m very busy today,” he says, brusque, impatient. “I hope this isn’t going to take long.”     And no, Frank says, it won’t take long at all, I promise, but Sidney’s doubtful expression to show just how much he believes that. He sighs and looks back to the stuffed leopards, papier-mâché trees and wax leaves, a painted flock of peafowl rising to hang forever beneath a painted forest canopy. Snapshot moment of another world and the walls of the dimly-lit hall lined with a dozen or more such scenes.     ”You want to know about Monalisa,” Sidney says. “That’s why you came here, because you think I can tell you who he is.”     ”Yeah,” and Frank reaches into this pocket for his wallet. “He came into the place where I work last week and left this.” He takes out the card and Sidney turns around only long enough to get it from him.     ”So, you talked to him?”     ”No, I didn’t. I was eating my lunch in the stockroom. I didn’t actually see him for myself.”     Sidney stares at the card, seems to read it carefully three or four times and then he hands it back to Frank, goes back to staring at the leopards.     ”Why didn’t you show this to Zaroba?” he asks sarcastically, taunting, but Frank answers him anyway, not in the mood today for Sidney’s grudges and intrigues.     ”Because I didn’t think he’d tell me anything. You know he’s more interested in the mysteries than ever finding answers.” And Frank pauses, silent for a moment and Sidney’s silent, too, both men watching the big cats now—glass eyes, freeze-frame talons, and taut, spectacled haunches—as though the leopards might suddenly spring towards them, all this stillness just a clever ruse for the tourists and the kiddies; maybe dead leopards know the nervous, wary faces of men who have seen things that they never should have seen.     ”He knows the truth would swallow him whole,” Sidney says. The leopards don’t pounce and he adds, “He knows he’s a coward.”     ”So who is Dr. Monalisa?”     ”A bit of something the truth already swallowed and spat back up,” and Sidney chuckles sourly to himself and produces one of his pipes from a jacket pocket. “He’s a navigator, a pilot, a cartographer…”     Frank notices that one of the two leopards has captured a stuffed peacock, holds it fast between velvet, razored paws, and he can’t remember if it was that way only a moment before.     ”He draws maps,” Sidney says. “He catalogs doors and windows and culverts.”     ”That’s bullshit,” Frank whispers, his voice low now so the old woman staring in at the giant panda exhibit won’t hear him. “You’re trying to tell me he can find places?”     ”He isn’t a sane man, Frank,” Sidney says and now he holds up his left hand and presses his palm firmly against the glass, as if he’s testing the invisible barrier, gauging its integrity. “He has answers, but he has prices, too. You think this is Hell, you see how it feels to be in debt to Dr. Solomon Monalisa.”     ”It isn’t me. It’s Willa. I think she’s starting to lose it.”     ”We all lost ‘it’ a long time ago, Frank.”     ”I’m afraid she’s going to do something. I’m afraid she’ll hurt herself.”     And Sidney turns his back on the leopards then, takes the pipe from his mouth, and glares up at Frank.     But some of the anger, some of the bitterness, has gone from his eyes, and “He might keep her alive,” he says, “but you wouldn’t want her back when he was done. If she’d even come back. No, Frank. You two stay away from Monalisa. Look for your own answers. You don’t think you found that card by accident, do you? You don’t really think there are such things as coincidences? That’s not even his real address—“     ”She can’t sleep anymore,” Frank says, but now Sidney McAvoy isn’t listening, glances back over his shoulder at the Indian rain forest, incandescent daylight, illusory distances, and “I have to go now,” he says. “I’m very busy today.”     ”I think she’s fucking dying, man,” Frank says as Sidney straightens his tie and puts the pipe back into his pocket; the old woman looks up from the panda in its unreal bamboo thicket and frowns at them both.     ”I’m very busy today, Frank. Call me next week. I think I can meet you at the Guggenheim next week.”     And he walks quickly away towards the Roosevelt Rotunda, past the Siberian tiger and the Sumatran rhinoceros, leaving Frank alone with the frowning woman. When Sidney has vanished into the shadows behind a small herd of Indian elephants, Frank turns back to the leopards and the smudgy hand print Sidney McAvoy has left on their glass.
Hours and hours later, past sunset to the other side of the wasted day, the night that seems even hotter than the scorching afternoon, and Frank is dreaming that the crack in the basement wall on St. Mark’s place is much too narrow for him to squeeze through. Maybe the way it really happened after all, and then he hears a small, anguished sound from somewhere close behind him, something hurting or lost, and when he turns to see, Frank opens his eyes and there’s only the tangerine glow of the noodle shop sign outside the apartment window. He blinks once, twice, but this stubborn world doesn’t go away, doesn’t break apart into random kaleidoscopic shards to become some other place entirely. So he sits up, head full of the familiar disappointment, this incontestable solidity, and it takes him a moment to realize that Willa isn’t in bed. Faint outline of her body left in the wrinkled sheets and the bathroom light is burning, the door open, so she’s probably just taking a piss.     ”You okay in there?” he asks, but no reply. The soft drip, drip, drip of the kitchenette faucet, tick of the wind-up alarm clock on the table next to Willa’s side of the bed, street noise, but no answer. “Did you fall in or something?” he shouts. “Did you drown?”     And still no response, but his senses waking up, picking out more than the ordinary, every-night sounds, a trilling whine pitched so high he feels it more than hears it, and now he notices the way that the air in the apartment smells.     Go back to sleep, he thinks, but both legs already over the edge of the bed, both feet already on the dusty floor. When you wake up again it’ll be over.     The trill worming its way beneath his skin, soaking in, pricking gently at the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck, and all the silver fillings in his teeth have begun to hum along sympathetically. Where he’s standing, Frank can see into the bathroom, just barely, a narrow slice of linoleum, slice of porcelain toilet tank, a mildew and polyurethane fold of shower curtain. And he thinks that the air has started to shimmer, an almost imperceptible warping of the light escaping from the open door, but that might only be his imagination. He takes one small step towards the foot of the bed and there’s Willa, standing naked before the tiny mirror above the bathroom sink. The jut of her shoulder blades and hip bones, the anorexic swell of her rib cage, all the minute details of her painful thinness seem even more pronounced in the harsh and curving light.     ”Hey. Is something wrong? Are you sick?” and she turns her head slowly to look at him, or maybe only looking towards him because there’s nothing much like recognition on her face. Her wide, unblinking eyes, blind woman’s stare, and “Can’t you hear me, Willa?” he asks as she turns slowly back to the mirror. Her lips move, shaping rough, inaudible words.     The trilling grows infinitesimally louder, climbs another half-octave, and there’s a warm, wet trickle across Frank’s lips and he realizes that his nose is bleeding.     Behind Willa the bathroom wall, the shower, the low ceiling—everything—ripples and dissolves and there’s a sudden, staccato pop as the bulb above the sink blows. And after an instant of perfect darkness, perfect nothing, dull and yellow-green shafts of light from somewhere far, far above, flickering light from an alien sun shining down through the waters of an alien sea; dim, translucent shapes dart and flash through those depths, bodies more insubstantial than jellyfish, more sinuous than eels, and Willa rises to meet them, arms outstretched, her hair drifting about her face like a halo of seaweed and algae. In the ocean-filtered light, Willa’s pale skin seems sleek and smooth as dolphin-flesh. Air rushes from her lips, her nostrils, and flows eagerly away in a glassy swirl of bubbles.     The trilling has filled Frank’s head so full, and his aching skull, his brain, seem only an instant from merciful explosion, fragile, eggshell bone collapsed by the terrible, lonely sound and the weight of all that water stacked above him. He staggers, takes a step backwards, and now Willa’s face is turned up to meet the sunlight streaming down, and she’s more beautiful than anyone or anything he’s ever seen or dreamt.     Down on Mott Street, the screech of tires, the angry blat of a car horn and someone begins shouting very loudly in Chinese.     And now the bathroom is only a bathroom again, and Willa lies in a limp, strangling heap on the floor, her wet hair and skin glistening in the light from the bulb above the sink. The water rolls off her back, her thighs, spreads across the floor in a widening puddle, and Frank realizes that the trilling has finally stopped, only the memory of it left in his ringing ears and bleeding nose. When the dizziness has passed, he goes to her, sits down on the wet floor and holds her while she coughs and pukes up gouts of salt water and snotty strands of something the color of verdigris. Her skin so cold it hurts to touch, cold coming off her like a fever, and something small and chitinous slips from her hair and scuttles behind the toilet on long, jointed legs.     ”Did you see?” she asks him, desperate, rheumy words gurgling out with all the water that she’s swallowed. “Did you, Frank? Did you see it?”     ”Yes,” he tells her, just like every time before. “Yes, baby. I did. I saw it all,” and Willa smiles, closes her eyes, and in a little while she’s asleep. He carries her, dripping, back to their bed and holds her until the sun rises and she’s warm again.
The next day neither of them goes to work, and some small, niggling part of Frank manages to worry about what will happen to them if he loses the shit job at Gotham Kwick Kopy, if Willa gets fired from the café, obstinate shred of himself still capable of caring about such things. How the rent will be paid, how they’ll eat, everything that hasn’t really seemed to matter in more years than he wants to count. Half the morning in bed and his nosebleed keeps coming back, a roll of toilet paper and then one of their towels stained all the shades of dried and drying blood; Willa wearing her winter coat despite the heat, and she keeps trying to get him to go to a doctor, but no, he says. That might lead to questions, and besides, it’ll stop sooner or later. It’s always stopped before.     By twelve o’clock, Willa’s traded the coat for her pink cardigan, feels good enough that she makes them peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches, black coffee and stale potato chips, and after he eats Frank begins to feel better, too. But going to the park is Willa’s idea, because the apartment still smells faintly of silt and dead fish, muddy, low-tide stink that’ll take hours more to disappear completely. He knows the odor makes her nervous, so he agrees, even though he’d rather spend the afternoon sleeping off his headache. Maybe a cold shower, another cup of Willa’s bitter-strong coffee, and if he’s lucky he could doze for hours without dreaming     They take the subway up to Fifth, follow the eastern edge of the park north, past the zoo and East Green all the way to Pilgrim Hill and the Conservatory Pond. It’s not so very hot that there aren’t a few model sailing ships on the pond, just enough breeze to keep their miniature Bermuda sails standing tall and taut as shark fins. Frank and Willa sit in the shade near the Alice in Wonderland statue, her favorite spot in all of Central Park, rocky place near the tea party, granite and rustling leaves, the clean laughter of children climbing about on the huge, bronze mushrooms. A little girl with frizzy black hair and red and white peppermint-striped tights is petting the kitten in Alice’s lap, stroking its metal fur and meowling loudly, and “I can’t ever remember her name,” Willa says.     ”What?” Frank asks. “Whose name?” not sure if she means the little girl or the kitten or something else entirely.     ”Alice’s kitten. I know it had a name, but I never can remember it.”     Frank watches the little girl for a moment, and “Dinah,” he says. “I think the kitten’s name was Dinah.”     ”Oh, yeah, Dinah. That’s it,” and he knows that she’s just thinking out loud, whatever comes to mind so that she won’t have to talk about last night, so the conversation won’t accidentally find its own way back to those few drowning moments of chartreuse light and eel shadows. Trying so hard to pretend and he almost decides they’re both better off if he plays along and doesn’t show her Dr. Solomon Monalisa’s white calling card.     ”That’s a good name for a cat,” she says. “If we ever get a kitten, I think I’ll name it Dinah.”     ”Mrs. Wu doesn’t like cats.”     ”Well, we’re not going to spend the rest of our lives in that dump. Next time, we’ll get an apartment that allows cats.”     Frank takes the card out and lays his wallet on the grass, but Willa hasn’t even noticed, too busy watching the children clambering about on Alice, too busy dreaming about kittens. The card is creased and smudged from a week riding around in his back pocket and all the handling it’s suffered, the edges beginning to fray, and he gives it to her without any explanation.     ”What’s this?” she asks and he tells her to read it first, just read it, so she does. Reads it two or three times and then Willa returns the card, goes back to watching the children. But her expression has changed, the labored, make-believe smile gone now and she just looks like herself again, plain old Willa, the distance in her eyes, the hard angles at the corners of her mouth that aren’t quite a frown.     ”Sidney says he’s for real,” half the truth, at best, and Frank glances down at the card, reading it again for the hundredth or two-hundredth time     ”Sidney McAvoy’s a fucking lunatic.”     ”He says this guy has maps—“     ”Christ, Frank. What do you want me to say? You want me to give you permission to go talk to some crackpot? You don’t need my permission.”     ”I was hoping you’d come with me,” he says so softly that he’s almost whispering, and he puts the card back into his wallet where neither of them will have to look at it, stuffs the wallet back into his jeans pocket.     ”Well, I won’t. I go to your goddamn meetings. I already have to listen to that asshole Zaroba. That’s enough for me, thank you very much. That’s more than enough.”     The little girl petting Dinah slips, loses her footing and almost slides backwards off the edge of the sculpture, but her mother catches her and sets her safely on the ground.     ””I see what it’s doing to you,” Frank says. “I have to watch. How much longer do you think you can go on like this?”     She doesn’t answer him, opens her purse and takes out a pack of cigarettes, only one left and she crumbles the empty package and tosses it over her shoulder into the bushes.     ”What if this guy really can help you? What if he can make it stop?”     Willa is digging noisily around in her purse, trying to find her lighter or a book of matches, and she turns and stares at Frank, the cigarette hanging unlit from her lips. Her eyes shining bright as broken gemstones, shattered crystal eyes, furious, resentful, and he knows that she could hate him, that she could leave him here and never look back. She takes the cigarette from her mouth, licks her upper lip, and for a long moment Willa holds the tip of her tongue trapped tight between her teeth.     ”What the hell makes you think I want it to stop?”     And silence as what she’s said sinks in and he begins to understand that he’s never understood her at all. “It’s killing you,” he says, finally, the only thing he can think to say, and Willa’s eyes seem to flash and grow brighter, more broken, more eager to slice.     ”No, Frank, it’s the only thing keeping me alive. Knowing that it’s out there, that I’ll see it again, and someday maybe it won’t make me come back here.”     And then she gets up and walks quickly away towards the pond, brisk, determined steps to put more distance between them. She stops long enough to bum a light from an old black man with a dachshund, then ducks around one corner of the boathouse and he can’t see her anymore. Frank doesn’t follow, sits watching the tiny sailboats and yachts gliding gracefully across the moss-dark surface of the water, their silent choreography of wakes and ripples. He decides maybe it’s better not to worry about Willa for now, plenty of time for that later and he wonders what he’ll say to Monalisa when he finds him.
We shall be less apt to admire what this World calls great, shall nobly despise those Trifles the generality of Men set their Affections on, when we know that there are a multitude of such Earths inhabited and adorn’d as well as our own.                                                                       CHRISTIAAN HUYGENS (c. 1690)
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trickstercheebs · 8 years ago
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The Devil in the fine lines
since you guys loved my first dip into the bendy fandom here’s something a bit more..darker. i got no idea what the game has in store so this is something of a musing drabble where Henry gets a idea of what made all those blobs...
If he ever found where in this godforsaken building Joey was hiding away in, Henry would ask a few dozen questions before socking him in the jaw for dragging him into this mess. The first and foremost being what made any of this a remotely good idea?? This was supposed to be a animating studio not some satanic ritualistic cult for pete’s sake! The second question would be where did Joey get the means to make so much ink? Half the studio was soaked in it, and most of the ceilings were line with massive pipes pumping it from who knows where..He heard a few of them burst now and again, one occasion right above him and getting him soaked through.
If he didn’t regret coming here by now and finding out his old stomping grounds had devolved into such outrageous nonsense, he sure did now after being covered five times over with ink. His entire being was now a mucky black, Henry wishing more than anything to find a working bathroom with water to try and scrub himself clean of it all...But sadly the only thing freely flowing down here was ink.
Nothing in this place made any bit of sense anymore..Henry didn’t recognize any of the twisting hallways he trudged through, only a few scant traces of the old studio life lay hidden away for him to stumble upon. Henry wished there was something to tell him where he even was anymore..how deep did the studio even go now? It felt like he had been working his way down steadily for hours now while trying to find something of a exit. But every doorway he had passed lately led to a dead end, leaving him trudging along down the dim hallway he now found himself in towards who knows where.
His brief train of thought was interrupted by soft noise coming from the doorway up ahead. He couldn’t quite place it but..it sounded like a slow churning? Like the sea on a particularly choppy day, the dull light emanating from the same location only made the noise sound all the more foreboding. A sane man would turn around and steer clear of whatever laid beyond that doorway....But Henry already knew what sort of man he was, he was here after all wasn’t he? Axe raised protectively he trudged onward to see what awaited him...
The dim atmosphere that seemed prevalent through most of his journey had nothing on what he was greeted with..The new area was massive certainly, dauntingly so compared to the tight confining hallways he had grown used to by now. It was as if Joey, or whoever was in charge of remodeling had ripped apart two whole floors to make one singular gigantic space. And only a few dingy lights gave any idea to what was in here, the brightest being a dull red light on the far end of the room opposite where Henry stood. But that wasn’t what made Henry take pause..
The majority of the room held what Henry could only see as a outright massive holding tank of ink. Lining the tank were several man sized pipes, leading possibly to and from the other parts of the studio he figured. Well that answered one burning question he had on just where it all came from..But now the question of how to get across came to mind. Swimming was a outright no, something about the red lit ink sent warning signals off in Henry’s mind. A few minutes of scouring the area, he spotted a rather rickety looking catwalk that lead to the other side of the room. Upon reaching the catwalk, Henry let out a worried huff when he saw the state it was in. Rusting to hell and back and almost laughably thin, it was a miracle he thought that anyone used this when it was brand new..But there were no other alternatives that he could see, he’d just have to go slow and pray it didn’t break under him.
It was agonizingly slow going as Henry inched himself carefully across the catwalk. Every groan and protest that sounded out from the weary metal made him freeze, fearing the next few seconds would send him falling into the sea of ink only a few scant feet below. Henry kept his focus solely on the catwalk and nothing else, the way the ink burbled and shone in the ruddy light made it feel like something was watching him just beneath the surface..And for all he knew in this hellish place there probably was. He could only hope the far off doorway would lead to a exit and finally get him out of this mess once and for all..
By the time Henry had made it to the supposed halfway mark he decided to take a brief break, being this tense was doing a number on him both mentally and physically honestly. The red light above the far door looked all the more promising to him the closer he got..It looked like a emergency exit, something Henry could definitely use after his adventures here in the studio. He hadn’t seen Joey at all so far, and after nearly dying to cultists and ink demons he couldn’t care less by now. The only thing Henry wanted was a hot shower and a stiff drink to hopefully forget this entire debacle ever happening. Unfortunately Henry would be getting neither any time soon.
As Henry shifted his weight to continue his slow going for the door, something gave at last. Henry didn’t consider himself out of shape per say, but feeling his so called sturdy footing buckle and cave in, he honestly wished he were light enough to float on air..Letting out a strangled cry of alarm, hands shot out desperately to grab something, anything at all to keep himself from plunging headlong into the inky abyss below. But no such luck was to be found, the one bar he managed to get a firm grip on came off with him with a loud snap. The ceiling being the last thing he saw before taking the plunge into the unknown depths below.
It was warm, oh gods above why was it all so warm? Henry screwed his eyes shut the moment he hit, feeling himself sink deeply into all, it felt wrong, it felt thick and warm...nothing like ink should feel like at all. What made it worse was that he only felt himself sink deeper with each passing second. No amount of flailing seemed to propel him towards the surface, it was almost like he was being dragged down...He needed to think of something and fast, his lungs were beginning to burn, and frankly getting a lung full of ink was the last thing he wanted. Fighting desperately he managed to breach the surface long enough to get a glorious deep lungful of air, before something dragged him back under.
Struggling all the more to get free, Henry was becoming alarmingly aware of what might be in this soupy mess with him..A steady, massive pressure was being exerted on one of his legs, holding him steady and preventing him from going back towards the surface. It didn’t feel like those ink blobs he had run into countless times before now..no, whatever was in here was much bigger and was now toying with him. Henry’s heartbeat thundered in his ears as panic slowly threatened to set in the longer he was down here..Whatever the thing was...it had a sick sense of humor, letting Henry surface just when he thought he’d black out and get a breath of fresh air..only to drag him back under again once more. Was he hallucinating from this hellish treatment..or was he hearing whispers in the ink depths the more he was held under?
Nonsensical murmurs whispered softly into his head with every pull of the thing lurking under the surface..Henry didn’t dare open his eyes, afraid if he’d see anything..or simply blind himself like a idiot and make himself more open to attack by whatever was holding him. It scared poor Henry to think the sensations on his leg felt like a hand..a hand that massive would only mean something in the tank was the size of a giant and currently batting him about like some lazy cat with a new toy. Feeling the grip slacken enough once more to let him get a breath of fresh air, Henry swung a arm up blindly to grasp at anything. His fingers connected with something cold and metal, making him latch on weakly. it had to be the catwalk, if he could pull himself out he could possibly run the last few dozen feet for that damned door.
Feeling the thing beneath try and tug him back down he thrashed and pulled himself up, blind determination mixed with fear being the sole helpers that got Henry finally on dry land. Coughing and sputtering he fought the urge to simply lay there and catch his breath, hands wiping madly at his face to let him see at last. Yanking himself forwards he crawled onto the catwalk proper and staggered to get himself moving quickly..
Whatever had hid itself beneath the inky surface was less than pleased at the loss of its plaything, voicing it’s displeasure a deep rumble bubbled up from the depths as Henry spied a massive hand breach and try to make a grab for him. A startled cry was all he could manage before scrambling to dodge the oncoming hand reaching for him and the flimsy catwalk. The ink below had now began surging into angry frothing mess, Henry felt like he was running over a turbulent sea wanting to claim its newest victim once and for all. The door was so close now, he just had to run the last dozen feet or so and he’d be safe.
The ink had other ideas as another hand rose up to block Henry’s path to freedom, the way back only led down into the choppy sludge..Frozen to the spot he could only hope things would work out in his favor. Both arms trapping Henry tensed for a moment, before the ink below gave a slow and steady shudder as something..rose. Henry felt his heart skip a beat as the gigantic figure hoisted itself out of the ink to stare down at him. The shape was...vaguely humanoid at best..no facial features could be seen but he could tell without a doubt he was being watched carefully nonetheless..There was no way he could fight it, something that size could easily just turn him into a red and black smear on the wall..He was rooted to the spot hoping whatever this thing was wouldn’t simply just kill him. The more he stared the more he felt himself grow unnerved..
It took him roughly ten seconds to see why he felt like bolting. The massive form before him was..writhing. Countless forms twisted and turned over and over again, catching the faint light against their slick inky skin. Henry didn’t want to consider how they were keeping this form, or god forbid something stronger was behind the wheel here. Somehow both ideas made his stomach bottom out, he needed to leave and now but would he be able to was the most pressing question. It had him pinned between two massive hands, whatever this was now had control of the situation and his life at the same time.
And apparently it decided it wanted Henry something fierce, he expected the hands to make a grab for him..not for the entire thing to come rushing at him like some runaway truck and knock him clear off the catwalk. He let out a strangled scream as it swept him off his feet, the brunt force of it tearing the air from his lungs seconds before he was dragged under with the thing. Knocked for a loop he couldn’t close his mouth as the ink consumed him, and in turn he the ink. A horrible taste flooded his senses, making him spasm in the need to heave the longer he was exposed to it. A sickly metal taste coated his mouth, old acrid ink didn’t smell or taste this bad..Being a animator he had accidentally tasted the stuff more than once during those countless night crunches to meet deadlines..He weakly recognized the taste of blood as his back slammed into something hard.
Several things were happening all at once for the poor man, he had been dragged under a veritable sea of ink by some hellish sentient mass to probably drown. He had unfortunately learned just what might be mixed with this ink to make it so animated, the knowledge that his mouth and skin were soaked throught with a hellish cocktail of blood and ink made him sick to his core. Was this what Joey was doing for all those years? He didn’t want to picture who’s blood was used, thankfully his thoughts were interrupted by the harsh squeeze to his torso. He could definitely feel a hand now as it slowly tried to crush him, making Henry thrash weaking in its grip to get free. How he kept a grip on the axe this entire time was a mystery. The need for air was roaring in his lungs by now, he didn’t want to die down here as nothing more than some demons tiny plaything..But it seemed his luck was already out in that regard, he could only hope he blacked out before the end came.
The roaring in his ears had steadily began to quiet down as he gave in, or was it thanks to hearing something whisper in his ears? Was it the thing holding him captive or god forbid the entire vat of ink was playing with his mind. He couldn’t make sense of it, not that he was in the best state anymore, it sounded high pitched and warped..Was he finally losing it in his last moments of life? Henry would never find out as the world faded away at last, giving him some sort of peace before his eventual demise.
------
Henry came to some time later with a agonized wheeze, chest rattling painfully as it took in air once more. How was he alive? Why was he alive still even? By all damned accounts he should be dead at the bottom of that ink tank..Everything hurt and ached as he became more aware of himself and his surroundings. He was sticky with half dried ink, and on solid ground..He still had his axe locked in a death grip, letting it go for now he felt a hard cramp set into his arm..
With some effort he raised his head to look around...he was still in the ink room, but beside the damn door he had nearly gotten killed to reach. Why was he here? By all rights that massive thing should of killed him, he had to force himself not to look a gifted horse in the mouth. He still had his life and safety..that was all that mattered for right now, right? He didn’t want to look back at the ink behind him..in case that giant thing decided it wasn’t done with him and wanted to finish the job.
Weakly raising a arm to try and turn the knob and escape he paused to stare at his hand...He had to be seeing things, right? It could be swollen from gripping the axe so tightly for too long..it certainly didn’t look like a glove..It was just his imagination and nothing more. Heaving himself up he staggered onwards into the next hallway, he was just tired..At least that was the lie he was telling himself for now. How he’d deal with what was surely happening he had no idea..But he’d cross that bridge when he got to it.
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kltiago · 8 years ago
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Talent: Diary of an Heiress - Yeah I Love Your Hustle Baby
My eyes flew open the next day at 8:56am.  I normally didn’t wake up before nine, but all the excitement of meeting with Larissa messed with my internal clock.
I couldn’t wait!  It was a little overwhelming to think that today was the day my life was going to change.  So there I was, lying in bed staring up at my ceiling while I considered what to do.
Should I call Larissa and make an appointment to come by, or should I just go over?  She did write her address on her card…  I tossed my covers away and decided to get dressed.  I was going to go see Larissa right away.  Why wait getting my life on track?  I had been waiting so long already.  And by the time I finished getting ready her office would probably have been open for a while.
I hummed to myself happily while I showered.  I could feel it in my bones: today something great was going to happen.  After all of those failed auditions my career wasfinally starting to go somewhere.  Today: a new manager.  Tomorrow: an Oscar.
Okay, maybe I was getting a little ahead of myself: by this point I would have to wait for next Oscar season, but how could I not feel so excited about this?  If you weren’t thinking positively when you were constantly hearing ‘no’, which you interpreted as ‘you’re ugly, fat and untalented’, eventually a girl might turn suicidal.  I had been waiting to get famous since I was three years old, hadn’t it been long enough?
But perhaps caution should be taken?  A girl randomly offering to be your manager did seem a little too good to be true, but… I really wanted it to be true.  So I ignored the voice in my head named ‘Harsh Truths’ and pushed forward.
I slipped into some dark, skinny 7 For All Mankind jeans and a white Hanes tank top.  According to Tyra Banks, simple is the route models should go regarding castings.  Or ‘go-sees’ as they’re called in the business, which I learned through watching at least seventeen seasons of America’s Next Top Model.
I figured I would dress similarly, that way I could show Larissa and whomever she worked with that I could fit into any mold they wanted.  That’s what makes a good actress: versatility.  I didn’t want to be too overpowering walking in wearing Prada.  I wasn’t Meryl Streep.  …Yet.
When I finished putting my makeup on, enough to make my skin flawless, but not too much that you could tell I was wearing makeup, it was only 9:23 am.  Well, that was fast.
I had never gotten ready so quickly before.  More effects of my bursting excitement, which was nuts and very telling of how serious I was about getting famous.  I wondered if I should do something to pass some more time before I drove over… but I actually had nothing to do other than go see Larissa, so I was drawing a blank on possible activities.
After flipping through the last two months of Vogue, re-straightening my hair and eating an apple for sustenance, I checked the clock once again: 9:38am.
I leaned against the refrigerator with my name on it and sighed from my gut, letting the stainless steel cool my nerves.  How come time moves so slowly when you don’t want it to?  Whenever I was at Hot Yoga on Thursdays, it was over before I could master the vasisthasana advanced left pose.  I decided not to wait and headed out: I would drive really slowly.
I went out to my garage and got into my black BMW.  My Range Rover wasn’t right for this sort of meeting.  I wanted to seem like a professional, not a rap artist.  I input the address into my navigation system and checked myself in the rearview mirror as I waited for the automatic garage door to open.
The whole drive I was singing at the top of my lungs to Lady GaGa’s The Fame album, chosen since I was currently on my way to super stardom.  The computerized voice of my navigation system would randomly notify me of turns amid GaGa’s smooth vocals.
I was so lost in the music I didn’t even notice that the longer I drove, the sketchier the neighborhood became.  I swerved to avoid a homeless man pushing a cart full of discarded objects down the middle of the road and he flipped me off, calling me a ‘Scaliwag’.  I decided to turn down my stereo and take a look around.
To my immediate right was a broken down shack covered in random graffiti that I would have assumed was very abandoned, but the new car in the driveway told me that it probably wasn’t.  To my left was a house with three pit bulls chained in the front yard and a sign that read, ‘Polise: I DARE You!’
How did they misspell police when it was written on the side of their cars…?  Where was I?  Did I put the address in wrong?  I took out Larissa’s card and compared it to the navigation display to make sure.  Nope, this was the right street…
Finally I pulled up to the apartment complex my navigation told me was Larissa’s: definitely not what I was expecting.  I thought she would work in a fancy office made of glass with minimalist architecture and a fountain of constantly running water that made a lot of noise but I didn’t know where the fountain was.  This appeared to be some kind of subsidized housing.  Not very ‘Hollywood’.
Maybe Larissa gave me the wrong address?  Maybe she had been joking about being my manager and this was some cruel prank she decided to play on an out-of-work actress?  But why would she do that?  She had said I was pretty…
I parked my car along the curb between an old Volkswagen with a large crack spanning the entire length of the windshield and a rusted navy Honda with a silver passenger door. As I walked up to the front of the building I glanced from side to side, taking in my surroundings.  There was nobody in the streets, which only made me uneasier.  It was like everyone was hiding from something… or someone…
I inspected the names on the buzzers and came across an A. Healy.  Larissa’s last name was Healy so I assumed that would be her or someone she lived with, maybe her sister?  I hit the buzzer and waited for a reply.
“Hello?” came Larissa’s groggy voice.
“Hi, um, this is Divinity, we met last night?”
“Oh,” said Larissa, sounding a bit surprised.  “Okay… one second.  …I’ll be right out.”
I probably should have called first.  This was dumb: I was coming off like such an eager idiot.  Oh well, too late now.
A few moments later, Larissa came down the stairs in the lobby.  Her dark hair was up in a top knot and she had on a pair of gray baggy sweatpants, a tight-fitting Pink Floyd t-shirt and a beat up pair of Uggs.  Not exactly what I had pictured her to be wearing at work.
“Hey,” I smiled widely as she opened the door for me.
“Hello.  I wish you’d called first I would have mentioned… all this,” Larissa coughed.  “Is that your car?” she motioned to my BMW.
“Uh, yeah it is.  …Why?”
“You can’t leave it like that, we’ll cover it with the tarp.”
“The… tarp?” what was she talking about?
“Yeah, someone will definitely steal a car that nice around here.”
“Oh, well I have an alarm system.”
Larissa scoffed.  “In this neighborhood, if your alarm is going off, it’s already too late.”  She walked past me and headed around to the back of the building, motioning for me to stay put.  Moments later she returned holding an old torn up tent under her arm.
“We’re covering my car with that?” I asked nervously.  What if it hurt my car?  Or got it dirty?  What was happening?
“Relax, the inside is totally clean.  Unless you want to just risk it and let Maurice have a go,” Larissa warned.  I didn’t know who Maurice was, but I understood by her tone he was someone to be avoided.
After helping Larissa cover my car with the tarp, I watched as she armed an intricately designed defense system involving strings and a bell that attached to a second floor apartment window.
“Is that… your apartment?” I asked as she finished up.  I had no idea what else to say in the moment.  What did one say after watching a girl camouflage their car like you were behind enemy lines in Afghanistan?
“Yeah, let’s get inside, I don’t like hanging around out here for too long.”
“Why not?” I asked.  Larissa shrugged in response.  There was a loud popping sound that caused me to hop into the air like a nervous cat and bump into Larissa, who remained perfectly still.  “Did a car backfire?”
“Probably not,” she held the door for me to go inside.
Judging from the lobby I made the assumption there was no building superintendent or if there was, that he rarely paid attention to his duties.  There were more cracked floor tiles spread out along the ground than there were intact.  The tacky floral wallpaper was yellowed with age and had begun to peel and tear at random places.  Fluorescent light bulbs either flickered weakly, didn’t light up at all or were missing from their sockets altogether.
It was becoming more and more obvious to me that Larissa was hiding something.  Actually it was obvious when I had pulled up to this Hellhole, but now it was like a neon sign was flashing the words: ‘Crack Den’.
“Larissa, what’s going on?” I finally worked up the nerve to ask.
“Let’s talk inside, people in this building are fucked.”  She led me up to apartment 203 and we paused in the hallway as she unlocked the door.
I noticed while waiting there was a dark stain on the carpet in front of the apartment across the hall.  It disappeared under the door and resembled dried blood.  And judging by the size of it, whoever was bleeding probably did not survive.
I swallowed the thoughts of any murder that may or may not have taken place there and followed Larissa inside.  She armed the seven different locks protecting the front door from potential intruders.
As I stood in her small one-person apartment all I could think about was the homeless shelter my mother brought me to one Christmas when I didn’t get what I had asked for and she wanted to teach me a lesson.
I had asked for a pony, which I already had back on the ranch in Texas, but I wanted one in New York too.  In the city, like, inside of our penthouse.  True, it was a little unreasonable, but this girl at my school got a giant Tibetan Mastiff dog for $2500 and I wanted to one-up the bitch.  I complained to my mother and she quickly gave me a lesson in humility, which was why I always tipped so much.
“I thought you were some big-wig manager with tons of connections,” I said noticing a Hello Kitty poster hung up on the wall next to a calendar of shirtless firemen.
“Those belong to my roommate,” Larissa explained following my eyes.  “And I’m not technically a big manager, but I will be.  And I do have a lot of connections, so let’s agree to disagree?”
“You have a roommate?”
“Hello,” a man poked his head out from around the corner and startled me slightly, but only because of the drama I had been through getting up there.  His shaggy black hair hung in his dark brown eyes.  “I’m Roger.  Doing some dishes; I’ll see you in a second.”  I gave a small wave and he disappeared back behind the wall.
“So last night when I met you in the club and you were all dressed up, you were… pretending?” I gave Larissa a worried glance.
“Well, I mean, this is Hollywood!” Larissa exclaimed.  “If you aren’t somebody, you’re nobody, and nobody works with nobody.  You’ve got to fake it ‘til you make it, don’t you know how this place works?  Hilary Swank lived in her car when she first got here: now look at her.  This is the land where one day you’re homeless and the next you’re on everybody’s television: isn’t that what brought you here?”
She was kind of right.  True she didn’t have an office with an invisible fountain or any real qualifications, but neither did I, so who was I to be picky?  Despite her current scrub-attire, I knew she was capable of pulling it together, and she did sound like she knew what she was doing.
“I suppose you’re right,” I said with a slight shrug.  “…So you’ve worked with actresses before?”  Larissa’s roommate Roger emerged from the kitchen and gave an amused scoff.
“Oh, Larissa has worked with some very interesting characters.”  Larissa narrowed her eyes at him, shooting out icy blue daggers, and motioned for me to sit in one of her two loveseats.  She and Roger sat down across from me on the couch, both crossing one leg over the other.
“The people I’ve worked with in the past have often turned out to be… disappointing,” Larissa replied.
“How so?”
“Well there was Maggie,” said Roger, “who went nuts and is now checked into a mental hospital in Silver Lake.”
“She did too much acid one night and had a breakdown,” Larissa explained.  “Don’t worry, that won’t happen to you.  You don’t do drugs do you, Divinity?”
“No, not at all,” I said quickly.  “Like, I’ve been to parties, but I don’t do drugs, I’m not into drugs.”
“Okay well you don’t need to be a nun, just avoid the hard shit, you don’t seem like your body-mass could handle it.”
“Thanks?”
“Then there was Lucille, I loved Lucille, she was definitely my favorite,” said Roger.
“What happened to Lucille?” I asked.
“Lucille wanted to be a singer.  She could dance but she only had an okay voice and face, and she didn’t even know how to write songs, so… it didn’t really work out for her,” said Larissa.
“She was such a good time though, probably a bit too much.  One time she called Larissa to come pick her up from a rave somewhere and when we arrived, she was only wearing her bra and some heels,” Roger grinned ear to ear as he retold this tale.  “She was hilarious.  I would never suggest for anybody to act like that, but if you’re going to, at least own it.  And she owned it.  Owned it.”
“Where’s Lucille now?” I wondered.
“The Diamond Kitten by the airport.  You'll find her using the stage name ‘Galore’,” said Larissa.
Well that was disheartening.  So far, Larissa’s past clients were now a stripper and a mental patient.  “Have you had any successful clients?”
“There was that Garth guy, and, um, Marni?” offered Roger.
“Garth is hardly what I would call successful,” Larissa rolled her eyes.  “He came here to be an actor but now he’s regional manager at Best Buy.”
“Key words being: ‘regional manager’.  Don’t sell yourself short,” Roger nudged her.
“And what about Marni?” I asked, hopeful that maybe she was now somehow involved in the entertainment industry.
“She wanted to be a model but got fat.  But not, like, real-people-fat, Hollywood-fat.  So she opened her own bakery in Venice.  Beach, not Italy.  She’s definitely my most successful past client, at least monetarily,” said Larissa.  “I get free cupcakes if you’re interested?”
“Maybe later,” I replied unenthusiastically.  I could feel my face morphing into it’s obviously disappointed state, but I couldn’t do anything to fix it.  I had hoped Larissa would be able to help make me a famous celebrity, not a chunky dessert-chef.  All of the energizing excitement from this morning seemed totally wasted.
I should have realized earlier that a girl offering to be your manager at a club was probably not the most legit of business interactions.  I should have listened to that Harsh Truths bitch.
I could tell Larissa was noticing my disappointment and I tried to think back to one of Madame Andronotta’s etiquette classes on faking enthusiasm, but I was too depressed to follow through.
I would be a horrible stripper.  What would my name even be?  Starlet?  That would be too depressing.  And I couldn’t bake, so that wasn’t even an option.  Maybe I could start selling microwaves with Daddy?  …Kill me.
“Listen,” Larissa uncrossed her legs and leaned forward: this must have been her serious tone.  “I get this probably seems a little less-than-ideal, but I’m going to be honest with you Divinity: I’m confident you will be different.”  A ginger-colored cat hopped up onto the arm of my chair and smelled my face.  I could tell Larissa was annoyed by the timing of this sudden development but she did her best to ignore it.
“How?  You don’t even really know anything about me,” I said, ignoring the cat that dropped silently to the ground and disappeared behind the couch.
“Fair enough,” she replied, “but I have a hunch.  So how about we get to know you and we can see if that hunch is correct?  So tell us about yourself.”
“Okay.  Well, I’m from Texas, but I grew up mostly in New York.  My dad owns a company, so he moved us out there so he could be close to the head office.  I didn’t go to college, but not because I’m stupid or something: I knew I wanted to be an actress and it’s not like you need to go to school for this.  I’ve done acting classes, though.”
“What company does your dad own?” Roger asked curiously.
“Sanders International.”
“Wait… like… the refrigerators?” Roger clarified, his jaw dropping with Larissa’s.
“We make, like, stoves and blenders and other stuff also,” I replied.
“Holy fuck, you’re an heiress,” Larissa sat back in awe.  The way both her and Roger watched me you’d think I’d grown another head.
“Yeah, but you knew I was well-off when you saw my watch at the club, remember?”
“I knew you had money, not that you’re fucking Paris Hilton,” Larissa gave Roger wide-eyes and he immediately returned them.  “Okay, listen up Divinity, you are officially my client, I don’t care, you don’t have a choice.  I am 100% confident I can make you famous, and at the same time, make myself a serious force to be reckoned with in this industry: I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like I’m some charitable saint.”
“You sound very sure of yourself,” I said.  To be honest, it felt amazing to have Larissa be so excited about me.  Not like all of the casting people I had met who saw me as another blonde girl.  This was how I wished everyone would react to my presence: awe and excitement.
“You’re basically halfway famous already, now you need the right person–me–to help really get your name out there.  I know exactly how to sell you to studios.”
“How to ‘sell’ me?  I’m not a prostitute,” I joked.
“You’d be surprised.  In this city, it’s kind of similar,” said Larissa.  “But first things first: you said last night you had a manager but you were thinking of changing.  Did you sign a contract with him or something?  Because that is a problem I would need to start dealing with right away.”
“No, no contract,” I replied.  “I met him on Craigslist, we communicate through email.”
“Stop right there, has he been inside of your house?  Does he know where you live?” Larissa demanded, a rush of nerves running through me.
“No, we only contact each other through email, it’s actually sort of weird,” I replied.
“Sort of weird?” Larissa repeated, “Okay, cut contact with him immediately: we obviously need to teach you about Internet predators.”  She smacked Roger across the shoulder, scoffed and pointed at me.  “This bitch.  She asked me earlier why I was putting the tarp over her BMW because it has an alarm.”  The two laughed with each other for a moment and Larissa let out a happy sigh.
“I also have a Range Rover with automatic engine stop when you drive a certain distance away from the keys, so would that need the tarp?” I countered.  Larissa waved a hand dismissively.
“Girl, you don’t need all that fancy security shit for a Range Rover in these parts.  People will assume that it’s a drug dealer’s car and keep their distance.”
“Or a pimp’s,” Roger added.
“Oh yeah, do not under any circumstances touch a pimp’s car.  Especially that Eddie guy who lives down the block,” said Larissa. “Do you have rims?”
“Rims?” I asked, “like the silver things on your wheels?  They came with the car…”
“Well every pimp starts somewhere, maybe they’ll think you’re new.”
“I thought it made me look like a rapper or like a rapper’s girlfriend,” I suggested.
“Everyone on this block is a rapper or a rapper’s girlfriend and not a single one of them can afford a Range Rover,” Larissa replied.
“I thought that pimp’s name was Teddy?  The one down the block?” Roger asked.
“Maybe.  I only know that you should not go near him; I’ve heard some stories.  I’m not going to go into detail, which, as Roger will attest to, means they are gruesomebecause I do not have boundaries, but suffice it to say: he will cut you.”
“It’s true, she doesn’t have any boundaries… at all.  Like, meth would be considered a boundary for Larissa,” said Roger.
“For example, if there is an earthquake,” Larissa continued, “and you feel yourself falling towards Eddie/Teddy’s car; you jump the other direction, because he will kill you.”
“But there was an earthquake, that’s not your fault.  That’s so illogical,” I said, a little irritated by the ridiculous laws of the ‘streets’, or lack thereof.
“Pimps don’t know logic,” said Roger.
“No, hookers don’t know logic, pimps don’t know compassion,” Larissa corrected.
“Oh, yeah you’re right, I switched it, and drug dealers don’t know their own potential.”
“Yes, that’s correct,” she nodded.
“Their own potential?” I asked.
“Listen, drug dealers are entrepreneurs, they just happen to also be criminals.  But you show me a great businessman that isn’t.  …Obviously not your father, I’m sure,” said Larissa.  “I’m generalizing.”
“Of course…” I replied.  “So, off topic from pimps: what’s next?  Career-wise, I mean.  If you’re my new manager you should know what I should do to, you know… get famous?”
“Well there’s not really anything more we can do today,” said Larissa.  “I need to start getting your name out into the public domain: I’ll contact some people and set up some social media things for you but other than that, you should sit tight until I call you.  Do you have headshots?  I need to show people what they’re paying for.”
“Wow this really is like prostitution,” I said.
“You have no idea,” Larissa said suggestively.  “So, yeah, let’s uncover your car from the tarp and you can get back to your… whatever it is extremely rich girls do during the day.  And email me those headshots.”
I gave my phone number to my two new friends and followed Larissa back out to my car.  We disarmed her security measures and I sat in the driver’s seat while I watched her walk back into her complex.  I wanted to make sure that nobody killed her between now and me getting famous, which might actually be more of an issue than I realized considering the area she was living.
I drove back home, without putting on any music; too lost in my own thoughts.  Images of Larissa succeeding and my face on the front page of papers, or watching myself on television filled up every corner of my brain.  And mostly I was thinking about my phone, and when it would start ringing with news about my future fame.  Because, despite the fact I was an ‘extremely rich girl’ who could technically do whatever she wanted: this was the only thing that I really cared about.
This was the change my life needed.
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