Names Have Power: Tim's Magic Voice Makes A Harem

by MC, Doctor

  Uh-oh, I thought.

  “…God has richly blessed me, so that I can afford a sunken sprinkler system around my house. But I also water my flowers the old-fashioned way, with a soaker hose. Monday at sunset, I was in my front yard when I noticed that my wife’s car was parked in front of Tim Hanson’s house….”

  Uh-oh, I thought again.

  “…Two hours later, I walked down my street with a flashlight, and I found that Ashley Sue’s car was still parked in front of Tim Hanson’s house….”

  She and I are so fucked, I thought.

  “…Fifteen minutes later, both my women returned to the house—within a minute of each other. Both immediately took showers. Which then made me suspicious about my daughter, as well as my wife….”

  I don’t like where this is going, I thought.

  “…Wednesday morning, I called the house of Ashley Lynn’s supposed study partner, and talked to that girl’s mother. Ashley Lynn hadn’t set foot in that house, I was told.”

  Poor Ashley Lynn, I thought.

  Then Brother Simon’s voice got cheerful. “But, there is good news in all this….”

  I suspected that Brother Simon’s “good news” would not be good news for me.

  “…Last night, my sobbing wife made a full confession, begging forgiveness. I gave that forgiveness, with my own face tear-streaked. My daughter also confessed, though with brazen pride.”

  What he means is: “Hey boys, my daughter is a cock-crazy slut now. Enjoy!” Ashley Lynn must have really given shit to her father.

  “Talk to them, Ashley Sue,” Brother Simon commanded. “Tell the people what you told me.”

  I glanced at the TV, and saw flickers of Ashley Sue, her head hung low, bringing the microphone to her lips. Her voice boomed from the big room’s speakers: “It’s true, Timothy Hansen seduced my daughter and myself. But I was weak, and let him use us.”

  Then a man’s voice yelled from the back of the sanctuary, “ASHLEY SUE EFFIB, IF YOU’RE GOING TO SPEAK BADLY ABOUT A MAN, YOU SHOULD STAND AND FACE HIM, DON’T YOU THINK?”

  Where have I heard that voice before? I wondered.

  ****

  Ashley Sue slowly stood up and, with slumped shoulders, turned to face the congregation. The big television suddenly cleared up, showing Ashley Sue’s defeated expression. She said, “I have sinned greatly against my husband…”

  Then Ashley Sue’s eyes found mine. Her spoken words ground to a halt.

  Ashley Sue stood straighter, as her expression changed from misery to anger. “Folks, I can’t lie anymore. Yes, on Monday night I had sex with Timothy Hanson. Yes, Ashley Lynn did too. But Timothy didn’t smooth-talk us, he didn’t trick us, he didn’t force us, and oh god, the sex was great!”

  Throughout the room, women gasped. Brother Simon made a throat-cut gesture, and the big television screen went black.

  I pointed at the television. Ashley Sue turned around only long enough to note the dead screen, then turned back to the crowd. Her shrug meant I’m not surprised.

  Ashley Sue continued, “My husband—Did you know `Simon’ isn’t his real name?—My husband has given me only seven orgasms in twenty-two years of marriage. And five of those seven climaxes were during the first year.”

  “You serpent!” Brother Simon roared. “Be quiet with your lies!” He started to rush toward her with his hand outstretched, ready to grab the hand mike.

  Then the television screen came back on, as that same mysterious male voice yelled, “BALFOUR EBENEZER EFFIB, STAY WHERE YOU ARE!”

  And Brother Simon did exactly that. Oh, he put his fists on his hips and glared at his wife, but he stood fifteen feet from Ashley Sue, and now he acted uninterested in coming closer.

  I noticed Ashley Sue’s wide-eyed expression and the audience’s murmurs only in passing. I had turned around to look behind me.

  Twenty feet behind me was a television camera. Talking to that camera’s cameraman was a man in his forties with a receded hairline, a white shirt, and a blue tie with white polka dots. The SUV Driver caught my look, gave me a quick thumbs-up, and turned back to talking to the cameraman.

  I turned around forward, made eye contact with Ashley Sue, and said, “You were saying?”

  Ashley Sue gave me (and the TV camera) a bedroom smile. “Simon over there—I mean, Balfour—has given me only seven orgasms in twenty-two years. But Timothy? You gave me more than that, in only forty-five minutes!”

  By now, Ashley Lynn was standing as well. She leaned toward the hand mike and said, “Well, I think I had more orgasms than Mom did! Tim, you should work as a professional Virginity Taker.”

  ****

  That Sunday’s broadcast from the Divine Blessing Cathedral eventually went viral on YouTube. Because Ashley Sue spilled her guts over the airwaves, then Ashley Lynn came clean as well, and so did Mary Linda Bell (thanks to encouragement from the Golden God). Mary Bell agreed with Ashley Sue that, so far as sex went, the woman did all the work, and Brother Simon got all the glory.

  Oddly, it turned out that while Brother Simon’s nasty words about me were clearly heard within the Cathedral, the broadcast audio was completely silent while he was trash-talking me. Combine that with all the problems with the video picture, and not even lip-readers knew what Brother Simon had said. Whereas 99 percent of what his wife said, went out over the air as clear as a bell.

  Brother Simon had warned his wife that if she went off his Contriteness script, there would be a divorce, and then there would be starvation. Brother Simon’s prediction came true, but not the way he’d predicted—

  For some reason, Mary Bell got the idea that she had to show a local newspaper photographer the shredder where Brother Simon shredded prayer-requests without reading them. Divine Blessings Cathedral got zero contributions after that, till the elders fired Brother Simon.

  Eventually Brother Simon got a job as a gardener in a retirement home in Boise, Idaho.

  Meanwhile, I had discovered that I couldn’t go anywhere in town without teenage girls—and their mothers!—looking at me with interest.

  Two girls from Ewert Grant High School’s chess club invited me to speak at their school for Career Day. They both lost their virginity to me fifth period, on the teacher’s desk in Biology Class.

  Chapter 19

  The Last Puzzle Piece

  My adventure at Divine Blessing Cathedral had happened on a Sunday. (Duh.) Just under a week later—actually, sometime between midnight and dawn of the following Sunday—my bedside phone rang.

  Sarah was terrified. “Duke is outside the club and he’s acting crazy! He’s got a baseball bat, and he says he’ll bash my brains out when I step outside!”

  I looked at the bedside clock. It was 2:13.

  I said into the phone, “So call the cops, honey.”

  “George did. The cops told him, it could take forty-five minutes or an hour before they get here. Cops get busy when the bars close on Saturday night.”

  “Then lock the doors and stay inside, Sarah.”

  “We are, George and I. But I’m so scared, Tim honey.”

  I did the math. As far as I could tell, Duke and his baseball bat couldn’t get into the Nimfo Club building. Meaning, Sarah was in no danger—if she stayed put. But if the cops showed up and Duke didn’t put down his bat, the cops would have to shoot him like a rabid dog.

  What the math also told me was that if Duke died, it was because of something I’d done: becoming Sarah’s boyfriend through my Power. Admittedly, I’d done that without meaning to. Still, it meant I had a responsibility to defuse tonight’s crisis and keep Duke alive, if I could.

  “I’m leaving for Nimfo,” I said, and hung up. I stopped only long enough to scribble a note for Slave Deborah, and to get dressed. Then I was zooming.

  As I was yawning and driving through the blackness, it occurred to me: Duke likely wouldn’t see me as the man who was going to save him from death by cop-bullet—nope, he’d see me as the man who stole his girlfrie
nd. What I was doing was noble, but it sure wasn’t smart.

  Still, I kept driving toward the Nimfo Club.

  ****

  It was easy to figure out that I was seeing Duke. Tall with a gymnasium build and a blond crew cut, I would have known him even without his MLB equipment. As I cut the engine, Duke was using his bat to beat on a reinforced-steel door. When I cut my headlights, Duke glanced in my car’s direction. Once he figured out that he wasn’t looking at a cop car, his attention returned to the door.

  “SARAH, YOU GET YOUR WHORE ASS OUT HERE RIGHT NOW! THE MORE YOU MAKE ME WAIT, THE WORSE YOU’RE GONNA HURT LATER!”

  There was a pause of several seconds, then—

  “DON’T GIVE ME THAT SHIT! YOU’RE MY GIRL, GOT IT?”

  I hope my Power is up to the challenge! I thought. Then I stepped out of my car and walked toward the man who was swinging his bat like a fire ax.

  When I got close to him, I said, “You don’t need to do that. There are billions of other women in this world.”

  He whirled around, surprised. Then he said, “Buddy, this isn’t your pr—”

  Then he looked at me, and said, “Ain’t I lucky, just the man I want to see. You bullshitted my girlfriend, and your dad sold my grandpa a piece-of-shit Pinto. Now it’s payback time.”

  Duke started walking toward me.

  As soon as he was moving my way, I said, “Duke, stop. Calm down.” I tried to keep my own voice calm.

  Duke kept coming, and his furious expression didn’t change. Clearly my on-again, off-again Power hadn’t worked.

  “Let’s talk about this, Duke,” I said. It sounded lame, even to me.

  “You’re good at talk. I’m good at muscles. I’m done talking,” Duke replied.

  I stood my ground, even knowing this was perhaps a fatally stupid choice. But before things could get nasty—the steel-reinforced door opened. And quickly shut again.

  Duke turned his back on me and ran toward the door, his bat held high. Then he stopped.

  “Please don’t hit me, I’m not her!” an alto voice said.

  The red-haired stripper Sunset was staring at Duke and his bat, utterly terrified.

  ****

  “Come with me,” Duke said.

  “Please, it’s late, I need to go home,” Sunset said.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you,” Duke said. “I just want you to see something.”

  “Please let me leave, I won’t tell anyone—”

  “Sweetie, you’re beginning to piss me off.”

  Her shoulders sagging, Sunset walked with Duke over to me. I had not moved, except to pick up a two-foot-long two-by-four that had been laying on the pavement.

  Duke said, “Aw look, the boy’s got a board. Sweetie, I want you to tell Sarah what you see and what you hear. In a minute, he’s gonna start begging.”

  Then Duke turned to me and stepped forward. I retreated. While stepping back, I planted my foot on a beer bottle. The bottle rolled, my foot rolled with it, and I lost my balance—just as Duke swung for my head. I got hit, and it was no picnic, but it wasn’t the concussion (or worse) that Duke had intended. But when I fell down, the two-by-four went flying.

  Duke moved up to my body that was flat on the ground; he brandished the bat. But he didn’t swing it down—I guess he wanted to savor the moment. Maybe he really was hoping that I’d beg for my life.

  No way. I called out, “Sunset, pick up the board, and throw it to me!”

  She looked panicked at my words. And when Duke turned around, looked into her eyes, and shook his head, she looked ready to wet herself.

  “Tsk,” he said to me, “asking a cunt for help. Not manly at all.”

  My next words slipped out: “Robert, hit him with the board! ROBERT!”

  Duke didn’t even bother to look around. “The bouncer’s name is George. There’s no `Robert’ out here, just a couple of pussies.”

  That’s when Sunset smacked him upside the head. Hard. He instantly went to sleep.

  She dropped the board, looking panicky again. “Oh my god, why did I hit him? And how did you know that I was, that I was—Who told you?”

  I didn’t tell Sunset why she’d hit him. But at last, I myself knew why she’d done it, because at last I figured out what my gift was.

  `Susan’, `Sarah’, `Ashley’, and `Robert’—those were the real names of people. `Susie’, `Platinuma’, `Gothika’, and `Sunset’—those were false names. When I spoke to someone by a false name, nothing special happened. But when I spoke to someone—including myself—by their real name, they believed my statements, answered my questions, and obeyed my commands.

  `Duke’ was also a false name. Which meant—

  I knelt down next to unconscious Duke and began fishing for his wallet. Sunset, meanwhile, was still looking at me, needing answers to her questions.

  I said, “Robert, be calm. Sarah told me about your surgery, and that you can’t yet afford to go to name-change court. But believe me, Robert, nobody who looks at you can tell that you used to be a guy. Trust me with your secrets, Robert.”

  Sunset actually smiled at that. Meanwhile, I had just opened Duke’s wallet.

  “Francois Duquesne”? Duke’s real name is “Francois Duquesne”? No wonder he uses an alias!

  “So what happens now?” Sunset asked calmly. “The police supposedly will be here soon.”

  “That’s a good question,” I said. Then I looked into Duke’s face and said, “Francois Duquesne, wake up.”

  Duke’s eyes opened. “What happened?”

  “Tell me the last things you remember, Francois.”

  “I was gonna hit you with my bat, then you told the cunt to throw you the board, but I set her straight. Then you told `Robert’ to hit me, and wham! So who’s Robert?”

  “Oh, shit!” Sunset said.

  I said, “Francois, forget all about Robert, forget any mention of Robert. Francois Duquesne, here’s what happened: I was lying on the ground after you hit me. I’d dropped the two-by-four. She”—I gestured at Sunset—“said that she was going back inside and give the police another call. You turned around and walked after her, intending to hit her. Doing that, you turned you back on me and the two-by-four, and then you got hit.”

  “Damn, that was stupid of me.” He started to get up. “This time, I’ll be smarter.”

  A police car drove up.

  To Duke I said, “There won’t be a `this time.’” To Sunset I said, “Go tell the cops that Duke and I had a fight. Then go tell George and Sarah to come outside.” Then I said to Sunset very quietly, “Robert, do not mention that it was you who hit Duke. Trust me to handle this.”

  Sunset in her purple stilettos walked over to the police car.

  ****

  Thirty minutes later, Duke was handcuffed and in the back seat of that police car, which was driving away.

  The two arresting officers had a firm belief that Sunset was involved only as a witness. (I know they had an undoubting belief in Sunset’s innocence, because I put that belief into their heads.)

  Meanwhile, George the bouncer was pumping my hand, and had just given me a hard slap on the back. Sarah was crying, and was waiting for George to let go of me, so that she could throw her arms around me.

  And Sunset? She was looking at me in wonder: How did you keep me out of jail?

  I was feeling wonder myself. I’ve been given Power to control minds, and now I know how the Power works.

  Something caught my eye. Standing in a corner of Nimfo Club’s parking lot was a bald-headed man wearing a white shirt and blue tie. He was too far away, and that part of the parking lot was so dark, that I couldn’t tell if his blue tie had white polka dots.

  When he saw me looking at him, the man smiled, gave me two thumbs up, then vanished.

  THE END

  Read the first few chapters of Doctor MC’s previous novels, and read previews of upcoming novels, at:

  http://doctormcmadscientist.wordpress.com

  IF YOU L
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  3MW Chapter 1

  A Boy Called “Shorty”

  Hank Miller was slamming me into a locker, ten minutes before the start of First Period. Another typical day at Plato Smith High School.

  “You stay away from my girlfriend, Shorty, got it?” Hank said. As if there was the slightest chance that I hadn’t already gotten the message clearly, months ago. Hank lifted me so that my face was even with his (and my feet were off the floor). “Anna Kay deserves better than to be seen with a runt like you,” he said.

  Which was certainly true, at least from Hank’s point of view. Not only was Anna Kay Henderson a cheerleader, she was stacked. As for me, Marvin Harper, I’m the shortest guy in the senior class, at 5′2″. Shortest by several inches. While Hank was the starting quarterback. Yeah, there was a definite status-difference here.

  “Um, Hank?” Anna Kay said, in a small voice.

  “Later, cupcake,” Hank said. “I got to explain some facts of life to shrimp-guy here.”

  Anna Kay said, “Hank, I asked Marvin to help me, tutor me in Trigonometry.”

  “Yeah? That right?” Hank asked me. I nodded. Hank smiled evilly. “Well then, maybe I can persuade Tiny Tim here to do your trig homework, not just help you with it. That way, Anna Kay, you and I can spend more time together.”

  “Vat are you doink to Marvin?” a female voice demanded.

  “Go away, `Princess Anastasia,’” Hank said, without turning his face away from mine.

  Hank didn’t turn his head to look at Natasha Ludmenkov, but I did. Mainly because Natasha was definitely worth looking at. Right now, she had her arms crossed, she was tapping a foot, and she was glaring at Hank.

  Hank still was looking straight at me. “So, you tutoring Anna Kay because you expect to get into her panties?”

  “What, do I look as stupid as you are?” I said.

  “So, you doing it for money? How much are you paying him, Anna Kay?”

  Anna Kay looked unhappy to be part of all this. “Hank, Marvin offered to help me without charging me a cent.”