by Gary Jonas
“Don’t go there,” I said.
“You’re right. I have no idea what kind of kink he’s into. He’s been around for millennia. I’ll bet he’s into some really weird stuff. I wonder if he has centaurs in his dungeon.”
“Stop,” I said.
A tapping on my window made me jump. It was Helen.
“Wait here, Kevin,” I said and got out of the car. I closed the door and faced Helen.
“You moron,” she said. “I warned you to take a dive.”
“He’d have gotten a different guitarist.”
“He can play any instrument, Brett. He doesn’t need you.”
“Then why does he want me in his band?”
“Because you made fun of his lyre. Because he thinks you have a pretty mouth. Because I was stupid enough to think you wouldn’t insult a god.”
“I couldn’t go through life without my manhood.”
“Even if that was permanent, you’d have been better off. Now you’re a slave to a god. Your friend Michael is a slave now too.”
“And you?”
“I’m bound by the contract, but I’m not going to remain his slave. I still have some power of my own and he’ll have all the men and women he wants.”
“Good. There are plenty of people way hotter than me.”
She rolled her eyes. “He knows you don’t swing that way, Brett.”
“Even better.”
“Not really. It means he won’t get tired of you that quickly.”
“Okay, I’d like to wake up now.”
“You’re not dreaming.”
“Don’t say that. Tell me to slip on some silver shoes, click my heels three times and wish myself home or something.”
“Sorry.”
“So I’m an eternal slave?”
She nodded.
“What about Lakesha?”
“Apollo has no problem with Lakesha. She didn’t insult him. She can go run her store and if she ever wants to come to a show, she’ll have free tickets. You’re the one he wants to torment.”
“But she was…” I stopped myself. I took a deep breath. “No. I’m glad she’s safe.”
“Wow, maybe you’re growing as a person.”
“Or maybe I’m just glad it means her damn cat won’t be under foot all the time.”
“I’m going to take that as a joke.”
“It was a joke,” I said. “But I still won’t miss the cat.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The next day, I met with Apollo and Helen at a rented house in Jamaica Beach, a fancy village of beach houses on Galveston Island. The house was just off Buccaneer Road right on the beach. Kevin wasn’t allowed in the house, so he had to wait in the car, which was just as well.
A maid answered the door. She was in her early forties, and had a bit of meat on her bones. She looked healthy and strong. Gray highlights streaked through her hair, and she had a kind smile.
“Mr. Apollo is expecting you, sir. He’s on the deck out back. Please follow me.”
I followed her through the nice house. The floor was imported onyx, and the rooms were filled with antique furniture, all dark woods polished to shine. The kitchen was immaculate without a speck of dust in sight. The house looked like a show home instead of a place people lived.
The deck had an amazing view of the Gulf of Mexico, and the backyard didn’t have any grass at all. It was just sand leading right out to the waves rolling in on the shore. A few herons waded through the water, and a seagull soared overhead looking for fish.
Apollo wore only a pair of blue shorts, and Helen wore a white bikini.
“There’s the man of the hour,” Apollo said. He didn’t get up. He reclined in a banana lounge chair.
Helen sat in a regular plastic chair, and motioned to one just like it beside her. “Have a seat, Brett.”
“Cool.” I had swim trunks on under my shorts, and I wore my favorite Iron Maiden T-shirt from the Number of the Beast tour in the early 80s. It was a gift from my uncle Paul, who claimed to have been at the concert, but I suspect he stole the shirt because stealing is his favorite pastime. The shirt was faded, but Eddie still looked cool having Satan dance as a marionette beneath his outstretched desiccated hand.
“Interesting shirt,” Helen said.
“I like it. Nice bikini,” I said. The white material was thin, and would no doubt be see-through if it got wet. “Makes you look mighty ticklish.”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“You’re safe. But we should go for a swim later.”
“We’ll see,” she said.
I certainly hoped so. Even dry, the bikini didn’t leave much to the imagination, and I found myself distracted. Her bored look told me I wasn’t likely to get her in the water and even less likely to get her into bed. Maybe I was losing my touch. Or maybe Kevin had something to do with it. Oh well.
“We can all go for a swim after we write a hit song,” Apollo said.
“Right,” I said. “You still want it to be called ‘Worship Me,’ or can we make it more of a love song to someone else instead?”
“Everyone should worship me.”
“But telling them to do so in a song is a bit on the nose.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“What if we call it ‘Let Me Worship You,’ so when people sing it, they’re singing it directly to you.”
“But they might think I worship them, which is not the case,” Apollo said.
“You’d be singing the song to the woman you love or at least the woman you want to sleep with, so worship is something you’d be saying to flatter her to get her into the sack.”
Helen shook her head, disgusted.
“I think it sounds too Christian,” Apollo said. “I hate that guy. Too many people in your country worship him when they should be worshipping me.”
“As long as it doesn’t sound like Gospel music, I think it’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want it to sound like something to his father either. It’s annoying. I should never have fallen from popularity. I managed to keep my name with both the Greeks and the Romans. My parents couldn’t even do that. But Yahweh takes a generic name like God and it lasts thousands of years. It’s not right.”
“Whatever, dude.”
“I met Christ once,” he said.
“Let me guess,” I said. “You were at the crucifixion.”
“No. I met him when he was just a carpenter. He didn’t seem that special to me.”
“People can surprise you.”
“Not often. Shall we write our hit now?”
“Sure. Want to start with the chorus?”
“Worship me, I’m all you can see.”
“Uh, no,” I said.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“I told you. If people sing that, they’re the ones expecting to be worshipped.”
“No, the song is mine.”
I stood up and sang the words to him. “Worship me, I’m all you can see. Worship me.”
He frowned. “I see your point.”
“Maybe something like, oh baby, you know that it’s true, all I wanna do is worship you. Let me worship you, I’m down on my knees. Let me worship you, I’ll be all that you need.”
“Need doesn’t rhyme with knees.”
“Close enough for a pop song.”
“I don’t like it.”
I sang out, “Let me worship you, I’m down on my knees. Let me worship you, and I’ll try not to sneeze.”
“I am not the god of patience.”
“Warning taken,” I said. “What rhymes with knees? Bees, keys, fleas, peas, these, please, cheese, wheeze, seas?”
“I don’t care if they’re down on their knees. Come up with something else.”
“Let me worship you, I’ll make you happy. Let me worship you, this song is crappy. Sorry. Let’s see. Let me worship you, you’re all that I need. Let me worship you, I think I just peed. No. I rode in on a steed. No. I do not like
greed. No.”
Apollo glared at me.
“I don’t want to bleed,” I sang. “No. Uh, I want to smoke weed. No. Don’t look at me like that, Apollo. It takes time to get things right. Do you like the first part?”
“The banal line telling baby she knows it’s true? No.”
“It’s a pop song. It doesn’t have to be original. It just needs to be done with a catchy tune.”
Apollo leaned to the side to look over at Helen. “What do you think?”
“Hey, I’m just singing backup. My part is probably just something like, I’ll worship you, I’ll worship you.”
“Do you have any ideas for a chorus?”
“I don’t care about the chorus. I don’t care about the verses. I don’t care about the bridge. I don’t care what key it’s in.”
“Well, we want it to be in a major key,” Apollo said.
“It’s your song, Apollo. You and guitar boy can figure it out. I’m just going to get a tan.”
“Dude,” I said. “Don’t overthink this. Helen is going to use her siren song to hook people subliminally. The words of the song don’t matter that much.”
“They matter to me. Perhaps I should summon the muse.”
“A woman can be a muse,” I said. “We could use that. Maybe something like, you’re all that I want, you’re all that I choose, you know my sweet darling, that you are my muse.”
He stared at me like I was a total moron. “I’ll summon her before you try to write a sequel to ‘Yummy Yummy Yummy.’”
“Wait. How about this? Baby baby baby, I worship you. Baby baby baby, you that it’s true.”
“I see why you do cover songs,” Helen said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Apollo snapped his fingers and a muse stepped out of the house. She wore black leather from her thigh high boots to her mini skirt to her bustier. Her jet black hair was pulled back into a braided ponytail, and she wore a collar with silver studs around it.
“You summoned me, my love?” she asked, and her voice sounded tight and irritated. The look in her eyes said she was ready to spit nails, and anyone on the receiving end had better like it. I didn’t see a whip, but I guaran-damn-tee you she had one in her dungeon.
“I did indeed. We need inspiration for a new song.”
“Inspire yourself,” she said.
“Now, now, Euterpe, I brought a mortal in to write me a number one hit, but he needs motivation.”
She gave her head a sudden turn and looked me up and down, then looked back at Apollo. “And here, I thought you wanted to play.”
“Work your magic.”
Euterpe placed one booted foot in front of the other to sashay toward me. She licked her ruby red lips and stared at me with her eyes half-closed.
“So you’re a muse?” I asked.
“I am the giver of delight.”
“Painful delight, I suspect. I’m not a fan of pain.”
“Pain feeds life and flows through all the best music, literature, and poetry. Inspiration comes through heartbreak, young man. The truth of loss resonates because everybody hurts.”
I unconsciously retreated a step. “Yeah, well, REM already did that song.”
Euterpe stepped up to me. She reached out, placed a finger under my chin and raised my head to meet her gaze. She stood a good six feet tall and I had to look up a bit. Her tongue darted out like a snake and she circled around me, running her finger over my shoulders and back. She leaned close and sniffed my neck.
“Magic flows through your blood.”
“Not my fault.”
She grinned, and looked ready to take a bite out of me.
My heartbeat accelerated and it was hard to breathe.
She pulled up close to me. I could taste her breath. Cherry.
Her face brushed against mine as she moved her lips to my right ear. “The history books say I played the flute,” she whispered. Her hand ran down my stomach toward my crotch, but stopped short, her fingers doing small circles at the top of my shorts. “I play the flute very well.”
Gulp.
“You’d like me to play, wouldn’t you? My fingers and lips bring untold forbidden pleasures, and when they’re gone, the loss will eat at you for years. Nothing else comes close. Imagine spending the night with me, young mortal. Imagine the ecstasy. Imagine my fingernails scratching your back. Imagine that magic blood of yours running down your sweaty skin.”
Her whispers made my heart skip, and the light touch of her fingers swept up over my chest, electrifying my skin. She pulled back and grinned.
“You long for me,” she whispered running her fingers over my chin and tracing my lips. “Isn’t that right?”
“Well, I, uh, hardly know you.”
She took my right hand, lifted it to her chin, then slid her lips over my index finger. Up and down. Her tongue swirled around and my knees went weak.
She pulled my finger out, kissed it, held my hand in both of hers. “Write me a song, mortal man. Write me a song to make me long for you. Write me a ballad that will charm me into your arms. Write something beautiful and painful and if I like it…”
She released me, circled around behind me, running her hand around my neck as she went. Then her fingers moved off. I turned around to gaze at her, but she was gone.
I spun in a circle.
“Where did she go?” I asked.
“She’ll be back when the song is ready,” Apollo said. He held up his hand and a rolled parchment appeared in his palm. He pulled a quill pen from inside the paper and handed both to me. “Impress her, and she’s yours for a night.”
He shoved me into a chair.
Helen rolled her eyes. “Men,” she said. “So easily played.”
“And you’d have it no other way,” Apollo said.
Helen stood, walked over and stared down at me. “Good luck, sport. You can’t handle an hour with Euterpe, let alone a full night.”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but I can give it the old college try.”
“You didn’t go to college.” She turned to Apollo. “Let’s go for a swim while Brett writes your song.”
“Sounds good to me,” he said. They started walking toward the ocean. As they went, he pulled off his shorts and tossed them over his shoulder. They landed beside my chair.
I turned to see if Helen would lose the bikini, but the only nudity provided was Apollo’s ass. That was not inspirational.
I twirled the pen in my fingers, unfurled the parchment, and started writing. As I scrawled the words, I realized I wasn’t writing something new. I was writing something old.
And the words weren’t mine.
I kept going anyway.
A few minutes later, I’d written all the lyrics to Tom Lehrer’s “The Masochism Tango.”
Maybe I was only good at cover songs.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Euterpe was not impressed.
Strike one.
When Apollo walked out of the ocean with the smallest dick I’d ever seen, he read the lyrics and he wasn’t impressed either. He accused me of plagiarism even though I said where the lyrics were from.
Strike two.
Finally, the white bikini Helen wore did not turn see-through when it got wet.
Strike three.
So of course, I went to the lowest common denominator and pointed at Apollo’s junk.
“I might not be original, but at least I don’t have a micropenis. Jesus, you’d need an electron microscope to see that thing, and don’t make excuses about cold water because that thing looked like a hanging mosquito bite before you waded into the sea.”
Apollo stared at me for a moment, then burst out laughing. “You’re a moron,” he said. “I’ll write the damn song myself.” And he went inside the house.
Euterpe grinned and followed him.
Helen did a face-palm and sat in her chair.
“What?” I asked.
“Have you ever looked at ancient statues from Greece and Italy?”
“Of course.”
“And one thing you no doubt noticed was that the men depicted, especially the gods, all had small penises. Right?”
“Well, they’re so small they’re easy to miss.”
“Do you know why?”
“Because they import their dicks from China?”
“Because in the old days, having a large penis was a sign of being a barbarian. Cultured men, educated men, civilized men, desirable men all wanted to have a small penis.”
I grinned. “You messed up and said desirable men.”
“It’s a question of aesthetics.”
I laughed. “They sure pulled one over on you women folk back in the day.”
“And here comes the ubiquitous everything’s bigger in Texas comment, right?”
I gave her my sexy-face look and raised an eyebrow. “If the condom fits, it must be a Magnum.”
“Is something wrong with your face? You look like you smelled a rotten egg.”
“That was my sexy look.”
“No, trust me, it wasn’t.”
Two large Mako Clansmen came around the side of the house and stepped up to us. They wore three-piece suits. “It’s time for you to go,” one of the men said, lowering his sunglasses to peer at me with a menacing stare.
He pulled off menacing a lot better than I pulled off sexy.
“Be at the studio with your guitar at ten o’clock tonight,” he said. “Bring your vampire friend and his bass.”
Helen stood and patted me on the shoulder. “Be thankful you at least bring your talent as a guitarist to the table. Otherwise, these barbarians would destroy you.” As she said barbarians, she glanced toward their crotches. Message received loud and clear.
The shark dudes escorted me off the property.
“Thanks for walking me to my car, guys,” I said.
“We don’t want you to fear for your safety,” said the shark dude who liked to lower his sunglasses for effect.
“I think you watched too much CSI Miami.”
The other shark dude leaned in and sniffed my shoulder.
“Don’t invade my space, dude,” I said, thinking it was much sexier when Euterpe did it.
He ignored me and turned to his companion. “When we get to eat him, we’ll want to bring some hot sauce. This one’s going to be flavorless.”