She did happen to get a glance at his undescended balls, which were, in fact, still trapped inside his body. His penis was a great, floppy thing, but alas, his nuts were invisible.
Shannon looked for some sort of controls on the ground to guide her love on his impending wild ride, yet there were none. She could only watch and pray. Preston finally reached the top of the climb and bowed slightly to the roller coaster cars. They were perched at the tippy top of the first mind-numbingly steep hill.
Okay, it wasn’t really mind-numbing, but the fear factor was upped once Shannon readjusted her perspective that this was an unmanned coaster. Preston got in the first car, and the coaster was still unmanned.
“Get manned! Man up! Nuts out! Good luck, my love! I love you!” Shannon shouted it, but the concrete amplified her words up to him so perfectly she could have whispered it.
Preston scooted forward like a child on a sled, using only his body weight to tip the coaster over the edge. There was little movement forward. Shannon held her breath and stretched her hand up toward him. She was terrified.
Preston looked pointedly at her and said in a strong, sure voice, “Je t’aime, Shannon!”
He scooted forward with one final thrust; the coaster teetered on the edge of the hill.
Preston started screaming loudly and in such a high pitch that Shannon looked around quickly for the little girl who was obviously being attacked by a herd of daddy longlegs. But alas, the noise was coming from her warrior, her king.
The metal beast ground to a rusty halt at the very edge of the apex of the coaster, ready to tip into the abyss of the first slope, and Preston stopped wiggling abruptly.
“Oh God, it stopped! It stopped. Thank God and Jesus and Mickey Mouse. Fuck this shit. This is scary. I’m coming down! I just pissed moi-self so much I could fill a baby pool with pee! I’m ankle deep up here.” Preston shook his head in relief.
Shannon wanted to sigh as her muscles relaxed, but a small movement caught her eye. A drop. A drip. Preston’s coaster car was leaking his urine. It sparkled with an unearthly orange as the headlight of Big Peter’s security patrol golf cart illuminated Preston’s predicament.
With the new, harsh light, Shannon watched as the golden liquid coated the coaster’s wheels with lubricant from her lover’s body. As Preston shakily began to climb out, the succession of events that was about to happen raced through her head. The coaster was about to take off down the hill totally this time, and Preston would fall over the side and to his death in the unbuckled drop.
“Sit down! On your le asshole!” Shannon screamed, and Preston responded immediately, obviously more frightened of a sneak attack by Big Peter than the coaster.
The coaster tipped over the edge and Preston renewed his girl screams. If there had been another guest at Southern or Bust, they surely would have heard the terror, but nobody else did because that place sucked so hard.
Flower glared at the ripped up black wedding dress. She wanted to scream and vent, but she needed to save her words.
She had ten words to convince Duke that she, not stupid Dove, had the vagina of his dreams.
She needed to relax, so she did what she often did and trotted downstairs to Duke’s apartment. Flower easily picked the lock on his door. She inhaled the sweet smell of his living compartment. Man, meat, sweat, and sex. If she had a Snuggie that smelled like this, she would never take it off or stop masturbating underneath it.
She found his remote control, stuck it down her pants, and took calming breaths. She ran a hand through her jet-black hair. Maybe this had been stupid, trying to be the woman Duke would drop everything for and hump on the regular.
Not long before Dove moved in, Flower had been eavesdropping after a rigorous breaking and entering session of Duke’s domicile. He and a friend had entered the apartment and indulged in Slim Jims dipped in guacamole.
Duke had casually told his friend, “Chicks don’t need to say crap. Well, okay, all they really need are ten words a day. Those words are, in this order: ‘Give it to me big boy. The sausage is done.’ That’s it. That’s my perfect bitch. A ten-words-a-day girl.”
Since then, she rationed her words in the strictest regimen, always attempting to use sausage or Slim Jim—she couldn’t decide whether that was one or two words—but usually failing.
The thought of Slim Jims sparked a compulsion to engage in her favorite past time: Slim Jim-scenting. She hoped to get Duke addicted to her genitals by covering the meat with her scent à la Bill Clinton and the cigar.
She was an expert at repackaging the meat treats after she had added her own blend of spicy flavor. Following her meat-treatment, she remembered where she was, and she clicked on the TV and didn’t even need to use her hands to do it. After scrolling through a few thousand channels, she stopped on the local news. A bride was apparently running a newscast.
“We’re here at the Hotel Raval, also known in some circles as the wedding factory, witnessing what appears to be a dead body.”
The bride motioned over her shoulder. The camera panned out and widened its angle to bring the scene into focus. Sharpening before Flower’s eyes was Dove, her hands on an unconscious Duke. The camera reframed the bride’s face as Flower sat up straight and her vision tunneled.
“Now I had to pry the drink out of the cameraman’s hand to get him to tape this for you live, at my very own wedding. I think that’s worth at least one Emmy.”
Flower paused the feed. Bobbin was blowing a huge load onto Fordicks’ face while the news-bride’s face provided the backdrop.
Duke is dead.
Duke is dead.
Dove was going to die now. Or as close to now as Flower could arrange.
Dove rubbed her wrists. The handcuffs hadn’t hurt, but she felt like they should have.
Johnson nodded at her wrists, rubbing his own as well. “Everything okay?”
“I’m fine.” She pointed at the fanciest ballroom in the joint. “Do you have to go back?”
Johnson shrugged. “Probably. I’m feeling less and less motivated to see this responsibility through to the bitter end.”
“You look very handsome in your tux.” She looked him up and down again. He was a visual treat.
“This old thing? I think four guys were buried in it.” He straightened the lapels as she giggled.
“That reminds me of our first date.” Dove’s thought pattern brought her back to the black wedding dress Johnson had modified with a knife. Did I give that dress back to Flower? Dove figured she had. And since the woman hadn’t used one of her ten words to tell Dove she was angry, Dove assumed that Flower was fine with the wedding dress being a little less than that now.
“Everything makes me think of our last night together.” Johnson wrapped his arm around her and pulled her to him.
Dove slightly puckered her lips, hoping.
Johnson leaned down and added his lips to her hopeful little pile of human tissue and transformed her mouth into a moaning, begging megaphone for her vagina.
She wrapped her arms around him in return and threaded her hands through his elegantly styled hair. Dove was desperate to see how long it took to get his man stick inside her when it was wrapped up all fancy.
Beth was in their ears, her voice like a bucket of chum in an alligator-infested pond in a Florida retirement development—dangerous, loud, and cause for alarm.
“And now they’re announcing us in an hour and I have to get her lipstick off your face.”
Dove realized she’d wrapped her hand around his dick without even noticing. She let go and mouthed, “Sorry,” to Johnson.
“It’s okay.” He responded out loud. “Let me go do this, and I’ll be right back to get in that same situation with you again.” Johnson wiggled his eyebrows and left.
Dove was on cloud eighty-one because her cloud nines were fucking like rabbits, and she had an allotment of happy clouds that was really crazy right now. She turned and faced a wall of people who looked like versions o
f Duke.
They were all either disgusted, aroused, or punching their fists.
Dove was in a lot of trouble with Duke’s entire family, who happened to be just across the fountain filled with burnt mascot costume corpses.
Flower jump-started the old dead lady’s car. Since her passing and the yard sale filled with Marriage Saver blankets, Flower had had her eyes on the vehicle. It was two different colors, and one of the doors refused to shut.
It was her dream car. She had been negotiating with the lady’s family to buy the car, but it was slow going since she only gave them three of her ten words a day as communication.
With tonight being an emergency, she wired the starter and got that old beater to speed without actually owning it. She was Google-searching the shit out of the wedding factory hotel at red lights. The closest hospital was Mercy General. The closest funeral parlor was Cocks Family Funeral. Flower would get her man. Even if he was dead, he was coming home with her. Broken things were her downfall. Broken Christmas decorations, broken men, broken animals.
But that ended tonight. She was going to find Duke and make him hers. If she could keep a legless cat alive for twenty years, she could nurse Duke back from the dead.
Preston’s screams rattled Shannon’s core. Seeing her love and her dreams shooting down the rusted coaster seemed to make life move in slow motion.
He’s going to crash straight through the bottom of the tracks.
Shannon lunged, and the security guard grabbed her arms from behind. “Hold on, Juliet. He’ll be fine.”
Preston’s coaster stayed on the rails and lost momentum. It stalled just before it could get around the next turn.
His sobs of joy were louder than his screaming had been. “My balls! My balls have dropped!”
The security guard let go of Shannon and hitched his thumbs in his pants. They made their way over to Preston. Shannon took a peek at the man who’d shown up out of nowhere to stop her from flinging herself on the tracks.
His outfit almost looked like a mall cop, but above his right pen pocket he had “S.O.B.” embroidered in the font Southern or Bust was semi-famous for. He nodded at Shannon.
Preston stood and pointed at his now-robust balls.
“Well, look at that. I didn’t even know it was New Year’s Eve. Balls are dropping left and right around here. Get it? Get it? Okay, Romeo and Juliet, you can sing “Auld Lang Syne” on the way to Big Peter’s Prison.”
Shannon hugged Preston as he shook his new balls proudly at her. She didn’t care if he smelled like a urinal in Grand Central Station, she was proud. Big Peter’s prison was located in the back of the crappy gift shop that housed the only bathroom off I-95 for miles. It was the singular option for a lot of desperate people traversing the roadway and it was open 24 hours a day to boot. Charging one dollar per flush was keeping the lights on at this rundown Wonderworld. The security guard sat close by as children, recently unburdened from everything they’d been holding in on the long trip and while they waited for other family members to use the facilites, poked at Shannon and Preston with dinosaur chomping jaws on a stick.
They took turns covering Preston’s genitals with their hands for a while, until Shannon and Preston gave up trying to protect the children’s innocence. And after a full night in Big Peter’s prison, Shannon and Preston were released and handed a pair of pants emblazoned with cowboy hats. He offered them to Shannon first, as a souvenir, but she insisted he cover his new balls.
The sun rose over the giant hat, and Shannon hugged her king.
“I’ve been thinking, my chère. I’m giving up my dream of becoming King of Epcot France for now.” He held a finger to Shannon’s lips. “No, don’t protest. I know where my land is, who my people are.”
Shannon raised an eyebrow.
“That’s right. Southern or le Bust needs me more than my birthplace. Look around, my love. This place is a shithole. It needs amour, it needs a firm hand, and the coaster needs a good cleaning.”
Shannon looked at the dumpy ruins around her. It was expansive and disgusting, but like a dog dump with a lace doily draped over it, there was beauty to be found. And there were the Big Peter statues.
Rawr.
“I’ll be right back, mon chère.” Preston raced back into the gift shop and returned with his hand clenched.
The security guard was hot on his trail, so obviously her love had taken something without the benefit of implementing a cash payment.
He kneeled quickly in front of Shannon. S.O.B. took out his handcuffs. Preston held up his finger. “Give me one fucking second. What I’m about to do will be worth another night of pecker-poking from les asshole enfants.”
The security guard leaned back on his heels and looked at Preston skeptically.
Preston stood for a moment before pulling Shannon’s Colbie Caillat wig off and mussing her hair. “There, that’s better. I want to do this with you looking as God made you. Shannon whatever-your-middle-name-is Tinker, I’ve never been normal. Not one single day on this planet. But last night? When you clapped for joy at my newfound, piss-soaked balls? My heart stopped. I couldn’t even think—my mind stalled. I have never seen anything more beautiful than your face in the moonlight as you clapped for my crazy. Please, let’s be stupid together, stupid for each other, stupid for the rest of our lives. Be my queen, officially. With you here, even this tremendous dung pile looks like a kingdom to me.”
He got down on one knee and held out the ring. In lieu of a diamond, there was a huge ceramic cowboy hat.
Shannon ignored his ring and held his face. “I knew I was right about you. I knew we would be together forever. Let’s buy this crapfest and make it ours.”
She stuck out her tongue and he sucked it in like a baby bird accepting the worm. Behind Preston, the security guard dry-heaved at their disgusting display.
After forty minutes at the local, very empty ER on a saline drip, Duke was able to leave with Helena. A quick check of her levels and the doctor was certain the drug would be out of her system fairly soon. He recommended a lot of water and suggested Helena sleep off the rest. He also suggested melatonin for sleep needs and a trip to the doctor again to reevaluate her meds.
His sister napped on his shoulder in the taxi back to the hotel. Duke helped her out of the cab and kept his arm around her as she walked with him. Helena seemed more sleepy, the excitable side effect of the drug having run its course.
When he arrived, a swarm of cousins surrounded him. From what he could gather, everyone was thrilled Helena was fine and the puppets were okay. The bad news was that Dove had been groping Johnson in the lobby. He knew it was bound to happen. Shit. He knew she was going to pick the pharmacist. But damn if hearing about their make-out session didn’t feel like a shotgun blast to his nuts.
Helena patted Duke’s chest, adding groggily, “What puppets? And I’m sorry. I know she means a lot to you.”
His cousins were ready to go find Johnson and beat him down or, at the very least, throw him in the fountain. It was all too complicated. He needed to get Helena into a bed. They were glad that the cops seem to have given up on arresting her or him.
He gave them the first excuse that came to mind. “Johnson’s married to us as well. It’s a threesome marriage.”
“Oh my God.”
“What state is that legal in?”
“Do you take it in the pooper?”
Duke answered the questions. “West Carolina and yes.”
He pushed past his family, adding, “Now, don’t you touch my husband. I love him.”
It was the best he could do while heartbroken to keep dumbass Johnson from getting attacked.
Duke took Helena in the elevator and walked her back into her room. He strapped her down again because she honestly seemed to sleep better that way and propped open her door so he could listen to make sure she was okay.
He locked the door to the suite so that if he fell asleep, Helena couldn’t get out again.
; Duke walked into his room, unbuttoning his shirt while taking his discarded tie out of his pants pocket. It wasn’t until she cleared her throat that he noticed Dove sitting on his bed with her legs curled underneath her.
“You okay?” he asked, continuing to remove his shirt.
“How’s Helena?” She ignored his question.
“She’s fine. No more SleepSom for her. What else is up?” He lifted his chin in her direction, encouraging her to open up.
“Your family caught me kissing Johnson.” She hugged herself, looking small on the big bed.
“Congrats. Glad he knows what hole to mack on in public.” He tossed the shirt in the direction of his suitcase.
She watched him as he collapsed facedown on the bed. Duke turned his face to her, supporting his head on his folded forearms.
“I’m sorry they saw me kissing him.” She wrinkled her nose and set her mouth to the side.
“But you’re not sorry you kissed him, are you?” He exhaled, knowing the answer already.
“Actually, I feel like I should’ve hashed this out with you first. I’m wild about him—”
“Okay, can we make the fun Johnson themed picto-collage tomorrow? I’m sick of hearing about him tonight. And I just married his creeper ass downstairs.” He turned his head away from her, wishing she had somewhere else to stay tonight. It was hard being in the same room with her. Super hard. Rock hard. Shit. He was able to see her panties a little from the way she was sitting. And now he could see her reflection in the hotel mirror, and yup, her bright pink panties were still visible. Super hard.
“What now? Back up. You married him?” She sat forward a little more and now he could tell her panties were actually thong style. Jesus.
“Yes. My family wanted to beat him up, but I told them that we were in a threesome marriage and he was my husband and I loved him and to leave him be. Because that was the quickest way to keep that dickhead safe while Helena got some rest.”
Fire in the Hole Page 10