by DC Thome
Brigid looked down. “I’m not sure if being assaulted by your tits is comical or disgusting.”
“Say what you want, bitch, because these puppies are real.” I stepped back and shook my funibaggia. “Not like those pitiful Ziplocs full of Jell-O hanging from your ribs.”
Brigid threw her arms into the air, shrieked and produced a bolt of electricity that knocked Hunter and me back onto the couch. Purple smoke encircled Brigid’s neck, and a long, winding indigo snake materialized over her shoulders. It lifted its head and said, “It’s happening again, my masterful mistress. To hapless deer lovers at Sisyphus Rock.”
“Thank you, Prince.” Brigid and the snake rubbed noses. “Did you notice, Skankdenzia, how well he pronounced his S’s? And what a regal animal he is? A true prince.” She turned to show the scales on the snake’s back, curlicued like the symbol the singer used during his unpronounceable-name period. “A familiar to be proud of. Unlike your hideous flea-ridden cat.”
“Abigail doesn’t have fleas,” I said. “And…she’s not a cat. She’s a dog.”
Wait…
“Whatever.” Brigid made a kissy noise at her snake. “We’d better get going, Prince. People need us.” She twitched her nose, and they vanished in a puff of lavender.
I started collecting my clothes from the couch back and floor. Hunter didn’t move. “Come on,” I said. “We’ll have to figure out what to do by the seat of our pants. Once we’re wearing pants.”
“It’s not that,” he said. “What Brigid said about me being a loser…”
I pressed against him and kissed his cheek. “Don’t worry about that. She’s full of shit. The problem with her is that she wears panties that are two sizes too sm—”
“After Mystik Creek, I didn’t think I deserved to assume the throne until I’d proven myself.”
I rubbed his chest. “But your scars prove your courage. I have to go.”
“I want to go with you.”
“I can’t transport you, Abigail and me.”
“I’ll be there.”
I hope so. I kissed his cheek, straightened my slutty minidress, darted into the waiting room to scoop up Abigail, and teleported to the scene of the deer attack.
***
Abigail and I arrived just as Brigid resuscitated a lean, long-legged woman who had big eyes and lashes out to here. She and her husband, Rudy, had been clients of mine. She was tired of “his games.” He was upset about her flirting. I laid into her about how reindeer are known game-players, and ripped him a new rack about what he thought would happen if he married a woman named Vixen.
Lots of shifters stood near the couple, looking worried. No one said a word until a deer named Blitzen—who looked like he’d been doing some serious partying—staggered up to me and said, “Thish is getting outta hand. When’re you gonna do somethin’ ’bout it?”
“I will as soon as I know what.”
“I was down at the Doodie Shampoo Zoo today, and the nobobos on Monkey Island were goin’ wild cuz they hadn’t done any bonobonoodling in two daysh outta fear of this Orgizmasm thing.”
For most animals, not an emergency. “I’m working on it.”
Wobbling, Blitzen squinted and moved close—something I wish he hadn’t done because his breath was caustic. “Hey,” he said, “you’re not Frigid…you’re the incontinent one!”
As if on cue, I was hit by a lavender spotlight. “She’s the one!” Brigid shrieked from a perch atop Sisyphus Rock. “Prudenzia La Strega brought this unholy curse upon our community!”
People looked around in confusion. Someone in the back called out, “Who?”
“The one I’m pointing at,” Brigid yelled. “Prudenzia La Strega!”
The same voice—which I now recognized as that of a fox shifter, Megynn—said, “How do you know she did it?”
So much for “everyone” knowing.
“First of all,” Brigid said, “she’s incompetent.”
“She helped me and my husband, Sly,” Megynn said.
Others whom I recognized as clients murmured and nodded.
“Second,” Brigid continued, “who’s been at the scene for every one of these attacks?”
Megan Fox raised her hand. “You!”
More nodding and murmuring.
Brigid put her hands on her hips. “Of course I have—I’m the competent healer. I have to be on the scene to save the victims’ lives!”
Still more murmurs and nods.
“But, most damning,” Brigid said, “who calls our fair community ‘Douchecanoe’?”
Silence.
“Are you serious?” Brigid huffed. “It’s Prudenzia! Prudenzia calls our fair community ‘Douchecanoe’!”
The murmuring stopped. Megynn Fox stepped to the front of the crowd and said, “So?”
Brigid stamped her foot. “Goddess in a barbed-wire thong! It’s logic! I’m building a case here! Against Prudenzia! She unleased the Orgasmism! No one is safe. Even worse, no one will ever be able to do the put-inski-doo.”
Megynn Fox’s eyes grew wide. “Never?”
“Never, ever, ever, EVER.”
Gasps. As all eyes turned to me, fear turned to anger. The crowd closed in on me, waving arms and shouting invectives. Goddess under glass and served with gravy—everything but torches!
And then Brigid raised her hand and conjured a flaming club. Many of the shifters snatched up sticks from the ground, held them to Brigid’s, then formed a circle around Abigail and me.
“Got any suggestions?” I said.
“Get the hell out of here?”
“Good idea.”
I twitched my nose once, but in mid-twitch, I saw a flash of white appear on an outcropping of rock behind the rabid throng.
Hunter! In lion form.
He let out a roar that echoed through the forest, causing the mob to fall silent. Hunter focused on me and issued a series of pants, grunts and snarls.
“He says you should follow him,” Abigail said.
“We should follow him?” asked a torch-wielding firefly shifter.
“No!” Abigail shouted. “He wants Prudenzia and me to follow him. To everyone else he says, ‘Fuck you!’”
“Really?” I whispered. “He told everyone ‘fuck you’?”
“No,” Abigail said. “That was me. BTW, Hunter says it’s urgent.”
I twitched my nose, and Abigail and I soared over the would-be lynching party. Brigid poised herself to blast us out of the air, but I whirled and shot a laser beam of energy at the outcropping and set the rocks tumbling in her direction. She dove out of the way, giving Abigail and me time to follow Hunter as he leapt and darted through the woods along a disturbingly wide trail of Orgasmism goo…until my office building came into sight.
More specifically, what came into sight was a massive pink glow behind the building, enveloping the dumpster enclosure.
***
The Orgasmism had grown as big as a house and stood as tall as my office complex, including the magical wind chime and gargoyle lawn ornament store, the artisanal potion shop, and the gluten-free, sugar-free, nut-free, extra-expensive bakery. I could hear the Orgasmism grunting and giggling when I was still a hundred yards away. Two elk shifters hung suspended in the middle of the behemoth blob, shaking and gyrating, their eyes rolling back in their heads.
I landed next to Hunter and stood gawking like a village idiot, thinking, what the absolute, Goddess-kneading gnocchi fuck? Or maybe I said it out loud, because Abigail said, “Exactly what I was thinking.”
Hunter panted and mewed a string of lion-y sounds, which Abigail translated as, “I know that couple. Lawrence and Summer Elk. I’m going in to save them.”
I would have told him not to—but one problem with relying on translations is that it takes time. So by the time I knew what Hunter had said, he had penetrated the Orgasmism’s gloopy membrane and was fighting his way toward the elk.
Nevertheless, I shouted, “Hunter—no!” WTG, Prudenzia. That
did a lot of good.
Hunter clamped his teeth onto the baggy flesh of Lawrence’s neck and pulled backward, but deep in the throes of passion, the thirteen-hundred-pound bull shook him off. Undaunted, Hunter swooped around, latched onto Summer’s throat and led her—with her husband firmly inside of her and hugging her flanks with all his might—toward the wall of the Orgasmismic bubble. With a final heave, he popped through and yanked the elk to safety. And then he collapsed.
As I ran toward him, the Orgasmism extended a goo-dripping tentacle and sucked him into its clutches. I grabbed the end of Hunter’s tail, but the Orgasmism started absorbing me along with him. “I’m never letting go, you oversized ball of suds!”
“Never” came to a screeching halt when I got hit with jolt of pain in my butt that felt like dozens of needles penetrating all the way to the pelvic girdle.
I fell onto my side, grabbing at whatever was stabbing my kimacardacciano.
And it turned out to be my fucking cat.
I shook her free and screamed, “Are you out of your fucking mind, you miserable collection of litter-box debris?”
Abigail looked at me. “That wasn’t a good time to help?”
My junkinlatrunca hurt like Dante’s entire Seventh Circle of Hell, but that was no doubt less than the pain Hunter was in. He hung in midair where the elk couple had been moments ago, shivering and writhing. Time for a knee-jerk solution. I directed a blast of destructo-rays at the Orgasmism. The rays promptly ricocheted past my ear and blew off the corner of the gluten-free bakery.
Giggling and moaning and panting, the Orgasmism oozed away from the dumpsters and into the parking lot. Not having any Plan B—it would have been nice to have had a Plan A—I prepared to deliver another bolt of witchy lightning.
But something I saw made me stop. Through the pink mass I could discern a figure.
Of a woman.
Wearing a lavender robe.
Brigid. Always fucking Brigid!
And then, a flood of images and sensations. The full recollection of what happened on Sabbat Hill.
Chapter 10
Everything felt fresh in my mind, almost as though it was happening again. Spur, Hunter and me going up to the hill together as the moon rose. The three of us shedding our clothes. Spur kissing me. Touching me.
No!
Spur, Hunter and I, of course, had gone up the hill. But once we reached the top, Spur had almost nothing to do with anything.
“You’re saying it was all you,” I’d said to Spur the morning after.
“You’re the one who, quote, ‘wasn’t there,’” he’d replied. “Someone had to make it happen.”
And that someone was?
Wavy images from when we were still at the bar started to become clear. Hunter’s calm, penetrating eyes. Hunter’s smile. Me taking hold of his hand and guiding it to my thigh.
And laughing the whole time.
Where was Spur? Right behind Hunter. Talking to a woman. Then turning to Hunter and me and saying, “How ’bout the three of us sneak up to Sabbat Hill.”
Hunter looking as surprised as I felt.
Spur wiggling his eyebrows. “So, you both get my drift.”
Spur whispering into Hunter’s ear loudly enough for me to hear. “Trust me, bro. This is gonna be beyond awesome.”
Hunter looking to me for a cue. Me giving him a lascivious look and shrugging. Him gazing into my eyes and licking his lips and saying, “Let’s do it.”
The laughter and anticipation as we made our way to the summit of Sabbat Hill. Me watching Hunter undo the buttons on his shirt. The wind blowing his shirt back. Me touching the rock-hard muscle and the scratchiness of his chest. The tighty-whiteys dropping to the grass.
Spur trying to get my attention from behind me—but me thinking only Hunter, Hunter, Hunter.
What happened after that differed greatly from what Spur had told me. He had guided me to the ground. And, yes, I’d “sampled” both men. But Hunter moved on top of me, not Spur. The level of arousal was intoxicating. It felt as though bolts of electricity were shooting from my girly whirligig. I couldn’t wait another second, so I levitated Hunter and moved him into position. Our eyes locked—except for a nanosecond when I was distracted by something—or somebody—standing behind him.
It wasn’t Spur; he was off to one side, his mouth agape.
It was a figure in lavender robes.
Brigid. As usual. Her face contorted in an evil, angry grimace, her hands and fingers trained on me.
The Douchecanoe clock tower chimed midnight.
The wind gusted.
Lightning streaked across the sky.
Thunder boomed.
A blast of energy—lavender in color and stinking of strawberries—erupted from Brigid’s fingertips.
Hunter slammed into me like the Roman god Jupiter hammering a giant spike into a funicular railroad tie on Mount Vesuvius.
Hunter and I came at the same time—KABOOM!—in a shower of pink and blue sparks.
Next thing I knew, Hunter was lying next to me, out cold.
Brigid was gone—but it now seemed as though I was seeing the world through pink sunglasses. Spur pulled me up and shouted, “We’ve got to get out of here!”
I glanced at Hunter and said, “But what about—”
“To hell with him,” Spur said. “He’s on his own.”
I tried to go to Hunter, but Spur held on tight and waved his wand, transporting us instantly. The last thing I saw before falling into a deep sleep was a glowing pink orb about the size of a lizard, quivering in the grass where I’d been sitting.
Blood-curdling shrieks scared everyone in the chamber. And I mean everyone, including Inshitsitor No. 7, who had passed out feet-up at some point during the proceedings.
“She’s lying!” Brigid screeched. “She’s a useless, Goddess-defiling bimbo squib whore who’s making fabrications out of whole cloth to cover her disgustingly huge ass!”
“I object, Your Doucheship,” I said. “My ass is quite pleasantly huge, and Brigid the Butthead is jealous of my comely curvaceousness.”
“That’s not even a word!” Brigid shrieked.
His Lord High Dickbiteness slammed his gavel. “Brigid, healer of Deau de Cheneaux, you are out of order. You were allowed to give your testimony without interruption, so I must ask you to extend the same courtesy to Miss La Strega.”
“She deserves no courtesy, Your Honor. The very thought of me having been involved at all in this kinky, tawdry affair is beyond ludicrous.”
Inquisiturd No. 4 raised his hand. “Point of order! What exactly is beyond ludicrous?”
His Fuckeduppedness pounded his gavel. “Irrelevant, No. 4,” he said. “Miss La Strega, are you implying that Brigid, a competent and integral part of our community, was ultimately responsible for the creation of the monster that caused so much fear and loathing?”
“I’m not implying anything,” I said. “Though you might recall that Roger Rabbit and his pseudoscientific calculations suggest that creating the Orgasmism required more power than could be accounted for by the storm, date, location and nature of the relationship between Hunter and myself. Certainly a witch as powerful as Brigid, Competent Healer and Conniving Bitch of Douchecanoe, could easily muster the extra energy without even breaking a sweat.”
The Lord High Bumpus nodded—as did most of his comrades in the Circle of Stupid.
“Plus,” I continued, “that energy was infused with deep emotion. An emotion that has the power to destroy lives, nations, even the entire world.”
“Really?”
“Maybe. I thought I should ramp it up for dramatic effect.”
“What emotion, exactly, would that be?”
“Jealousy.”
He pounded his gavel. “Please continue, Miss La Strega. And stick to the facts. We need education, not thought control.”
I smiled. “Certainly, Your Honorandoffer. I’ll do my best.”
Chapter 11
I
stood a few yards from my office and beheld a horrifying scene. A pink blob held the apparent love of my life suspended in midair, very likely trying to kill him with great sex while the lavender bane of my existence looked on gleefully.
Shit sure has a way of piling up.
It was time to go medieval on Brigid. I extended my arms and yelled, “Your ass is mine, you diabolical hag!”
Brigid bounced forward as though she’d been kicked in the butt—and then her butt swelled so much that it even altered the contours of her stupid violet gown.
Not what I intended.
Brigid felt her hips, then twirled a hand to restore her insufficient curves and screamed, “Screw you, dissipate moll. Not that you need any more encouragement.”
The magical Mexican standoff was interrupted by Abigail’s paws pressing into my knees. “Don’t want to interfere,” she said, “but you might focus a little less on Icked Brigid and a little more on Hunter and orgasm-thing.”
OMGoddess! Hunter was shaking more violently now.
“What should I do?”
“Talk to it.”
“What—impersonate Meg Ryan in a diner?”
“Pick me up,” Abigail said. I took her into my arms, which I had to admit felt comforting. “Use regular twenty-first-century English. I’ll translate.”
My mind raced. What does one say to a giant living, breathing orgasm? I decided to be direct: “You’re a giant living, breathing orgasm. You don’t bring people sorrow and pain. Okay, sometimes you do, but in general, you’re supposed—”
Abigail cleared her throat. “I said talk to it, not lecture it.”
“Right. Um…Orgasmism, please don’t hurt Hunter. ”
The Orgasmism slouched in the middle and said, “Ooh—nice! Want cum on Pru,” followed by something I recognized from our first meeting: “Fuck me, please. Do me, baby. Right here.”
Out of the side of my mouth, I said to Abigail, “Why does it keep saying that?”
Abigail listened to the subsequent moans and pants, then said, “Oh, I get it.” I waited for something profound, but the stupid cat just nodded with a self-satisfied grin.