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Paint the Toon Red

Page 21

by A. J. Mayall


  However, it did ache when I had to pop out of Scratch’s phone, considering I didn’t fit through it properly. When I came out, I was only about four inches tall. I needed to practice maintaining size when doing the gag.

  He laughed as he looked down at me, bumping his nose against mine and then kissed me, puffing air into me and inflating me like a balloon until I was normal-sized again.

  I swooned as he kissed me, rubbing him and adding a bit of tongue.

  I handed him the money, which he stuck behind him into the hammerspace I still lacked.

  We left the alley and rounded the corner. The police were already questioning the fellow I had tossed the gun at, and gotten his prints on.

  He pointed at me, screaming, “That’s him! That’s the toon who shot him!”

  When the ambulance arrived, the jock saw me and screamed bloody murder. However, the cops tried to calm him down by reminding him toons don’t hurt people. They can’t do more than pinch, let alone shoot someone.

  I grinned, looked at the cops, and shrugged. “Hey, we’re used to getting blamed for a lot of the weird, wacky stuff that happens. I bet you dollars to donuts they probably got some drugs upstairs. But I gotta tell you, I’m happy I found you. One of these guys just tossed this out a window and bonked me in the head with it.” I said, acting nervous and holding the gun to the officers, who bagged it. I winked and gave a jaunty whistle to the jocks.

  The cop nodded and called into his radio to do a drug search, just in case. Turns out it wasn’t just weed they had. That was my lucky break.

  When the cops’ backs were turned, I gave the frat boys the finger.

  Heading back home would take a good, long bus ride, but me and Scratch made an afternoon of walking back. I didn’t have a physical limitation on my endurance, and it was good to actually get to know him.

  Also, considering we had to go through the more downtown areas of San Jose, where there were a lot of homeless people, I’d made a point of asking Scratch to give a few bucks to any homeless person we happened across. It’s always good to do a good deed.

  We held hands and, after a few hours, made it to the end of the downtown area.

  “So…”

  “So?” he said.

  “Do you want to come upstairs? I mean, I’m not gonna be working for Snappy that much longer. You’re welcome to stay with him. I mean, you were kind of working with—”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to be there. I don’t really know where I’m going to stay.”

  I rubbed his cheek and looked into his eyes. “Stay with us.”

  “But I’d just be getting in the way, and it’s weird seeing you with him, and it might be weird for him to see me with you.”

  “Who knows? Maybe the three of us can be—”

  He blushed. “I am G-rated, through and through. Sorry.”

  I shrugged. “I know and I’m not trying to push you into something that you’re not comfortable with. I’m just saying I’m exploring a lot of new things about myself and how to handle it. At the end of the day, you were spawned for me, so if this is a part of me, it might be a part of you, too. I need to accept the toon parts of myself, and maybe you need to see what parts of me reside in your heart.”

  Scratch smiled. “I’m not really into humans.”

  “Maybe you can show me how toons love each other.”

  He held me and squeezed me. “I can’t believe you just gave away one of your guns like that.”

  I shrugged. “I can get another one. There are probably like five of the same type back at the warehouse. If this whole thing has taught me anything, it’s not to get too attached to things; you never know when it’ll go away for good.”

  “Where do we go from here?”

  Scratch smiled, held my hand, and kissed me. We entered the apartment building and took the elevator to my floor.

  When we got there, Barry and Betty were standing outside talking with Kyle. They waved me over and smiled when they saw me holding hands with Scratch.

  “Hey, Fairfax! How are things going?” Barry asked

  Betty dashed into their apartment and came back with pie.

  “I don’t want that in my face,” I said, holding up my free hand.

  “Of course not! Kyle was telling us how you did a gag to save his life, but the cost of it was human food not tasting good anymore. You have a taste for toon food now, so I made one of my favorite recipes.”

  I smiled and took it happily. The smell was of luscious lemon meringue. I realized I’d stepped into a trap when Scratch pushed my hand holding the pie into my face.

  It was delicious.

  The tin fell to the floor and we all laughed.

  Scratch kissed me and smacked his lips. “Dang, Betty, that is good!”

  I looked up at Kyle. “I talked to Scratch and told him about the offer of having him move in.”

  Scratch nodded. “I think I’ll try it out for a while.”

  Barry and Betty giggled at the three of us and headed back in, wishing us a good night.

  The three of us walked into the apartment and closed the door. I sat on the couch, dripping with lemon meringue pie, as my boyfriends cleaned me up.

  This would be a really weird life and it was just getting started. I didn’t know what I would do. There was so much joy I wanted to delve into with my new cartoon existence, but I also knew that laughter is sometimes what’s needed to beat the monsters.

  That and a really big gun.

  What would I know, though? Cartoons can’t hurt people. But then again, cartoons can probably hurt monsters really bad. There were a lot of them in the world, and I was just getting started.

  Fairfax Fawkes

  will return in

  GAG

  REFLEXES

  ABOUT

  THE AUTHOR

  By day, A.J. Mayall is a vetter for the e-book publisher, Smashwords. He lives in California with his husband, Glen, and his best friend, Aaron. The rumors that he is a menagerie of hive-minded sentient spiders wearing a human suit are a sheer fallacy and should be ignored.

 

 

 


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