by Robert Bevan
Bella looked sternly down at the shitfaced teapot. “Mr. Potter.”
Tim looked up at Julian.
They couldn’t keep this up while Bella was standing right there interrogating him directly. Julian shrugged and jerked his head to the side. Tim removed his finger.
“Yes, m’lady?”
Bella put her hands on her hips. “Why have you not yet served our guests?” She picked up Mr. Potter and poured his contents into his children’s heads.
Faces gradually sprouted onto the sides of the cups, but they lacked Crack Baby’s adorable cheer. These faces were cross-eyed, tight-lipped, and puffy-cheeked, like they were all about to throw up. One by one, they began to waddle off of their saucers in random directions.
“I hope it’s still warm enough,” said Bella. “Mr. Potter needs a lesson in manners.”
“I beg your forgiveness, Miss.” Mr. Potter’s voice was the very definition of sobriety. “I was out of sorts. I promise I’ll never –” His eyes widened, looking down at the trolley. “No!”
“Shit!” said Tim, as the teacup nearest him stepped off the side. He managed to catch it before it hit the floor, then hurriedly passed it off to Dave as a second cup teetered on the edge.
Julian picked up the remaining two cups to avoid further incident, and passed one of them to Cooper.
The combination of Cooper’s stench and it’s likely first experience with alcohol was too much for the little guy to take. Hot boozy tea poured out of the side of the cup all over Cooper’s chest and down to his loincloth.
“Son of a bitch!” cried Cooper as the infant teacup’s vomit soaked through to scald his dick. “This is why I never hold babies.”
Bella rushed over to take the teacup from Cooper’s hand. “Oh my! Are you okay?”
“I may need a minute before we head off to the library, but I think I’ll – Oh, you were talking to him.”
“I’m much better now,” said the teacup, which Bella hugged firmly in her ample cleavage.
Dave and Tim necked back their own tea, Dave presumably to avoid being vomited on, and Tim presumably just for the booze. Julian tried to gulp his own, but could only manage sips. The combination of hot tea and stonepiss was just about as palatable as he’d expected it to be.
“Do you have any food here?” asked Dave. “Or something else to drink?”
Bella placed Mr. Potter back down on the trolley a little harder than was strictly necessary and narrowed her eyes at Dave. “I’ll see if I can find something in the kitchen.” She stomped toward the same door she’d just come from, giving Crack Baby’s remains a good crunch on the way.
Why that would be giving Julian an erection, he didn’t even want to contemplate. Unless it was something... “Ravenus!” He scanned the floor just in time to catch Ravenus’s and French Tickler’s tailfeathers disappearing under the blue sofa. He supposed that was marginally less disturbing as he double-layered the sides of his serape to hide the growing bulge in his crotch area.
“What crawled up her ass?” asked Tim when the door finally slammed shut.
Julian made eye contact with everyone to try to keep their eyes above his waistline. “I think she might have taken offense to Dave’s request. It was like saying her hospitality hasn’t been good enough.”
Dave’s face looked like he was having a hard time taking a dump. “Can I talk to you guys...” He glanced at Waxoff and Mr. Clockwise. “...in private?”
As discreetly as they could, Julian, Dave, Cooper, and Tim placed their cups back onto the trolley, then shuffled a few steps away from the confirmed living objects in the room and huddled together.
“Dibs on the feather duster,” said Cooper.
Julian laughed. “Good luck with that. I think someone’s already beaten you to the punch.”
Everyone’s gaze lowered to Julian’s crotch. His efforts to conceal the bulge only brought more attention to it.
“You sick fuck!” said Cooper. “You shoved her down your pants?”
“What? No! I... it’s Ravenus.”
Cooper scratched his head. “You shoved Ravenus down your pants?”
“Julian! Cooper!” said Dave. “Shut the fuck up. I didn’t bring you over here to call dibs. And seriously, you picked the feather duster before Bella?”
Cooper and Tim’s eyes widened. “Dibs on Bella!” they said in one voice.
Dave closed his eyes and lowered his head.
“What did you bring us over here for?” asked Julian.
“I have a really bad feeling about this.”
Cooper put a hand on Dave’s shoulder. “Is this your first time?”
“No!”
“First time with a woman?”
“Shut up, Cooper!” Dave shook Cooper’s hand off his shoulder. “It’s not the woman I’m worried about. Mr. Clockwise mentioned a master, and he looked like he was about to shit his gears. Is it not painfully obvious to anyone but me who this master is?”
“We don’t know that Mordred ripped off the entire movie,” said Julian. “Maybe Bella’s the master.”
“I don’t think so. She’s a little unhinged, maybe, but she hardly seems terrifying.”
“If there’s a...” Tim glanced back to make sure they were still alone, then lowered his voice. “If there’s a beast running around this place, then why the hell would Bella be running around in the middle of the night picking up random dudes in a tavern?”
“Maybe he likes to watch,” said Cooper.
Tim grimaced. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable doing it while there’s a giant wildebeest man whacking off in the corner.”
Cooper bit his lip and nodded slowly. “I think I can manage.”
“But what if he wants to do more than watch?”
“Assholes!” said Dave. “Shut the fuck up! It wasn’t in the middle of the night. It was mid-morning. We were still drinking from the night before.”
A feeling of dread came over Julian, mixing awkwardly with Ravenus’s arousal. He hoped he wasn’t screwing up his familiar’s mojo. “Where are you going with this, Dave?”
“Maybe she was just in for some breakfast. We chatted her up and pretended to be interested in all her talk about books. But her tits were all up in our faces, so we took everything she said about her passion for books as innuendo.”
Tim squeezed his head between his palms like he was trying to produce thoughts like orange juice. “Hang on. So you’re saying there’s not going to be an orgy?”
“I’m saying there’s a giant monster around here with a bad temper and insecurity issues. What do you think he’s going to think when he finds four drunk assholes drinking his booze, in his living room, chillin’ with his hot-ass girl? You think he’s going to buy that ‘We just wanted to check out her book collection’ bullshit? Cooper can’t even fucking read!”
“Dude,” said Cooper. “Don’t tell her that. You know, just in case you’re wrong.”
The key turned in the lock. Julian, Dave, Cooper, and Tim sprang back to their former location like the rest of the floor was made of lava.
When the door swung open, Bella glided in holding a smaller tray with four crystal shot glasses on it, and a small matching decanter. Neither the decanter nor the glasses appeared to be alive, and all of them contained some kind of dark blue liquid.
“Use your Diplomacy,” Dave whispered to Julian. “Tell her politely that something’s come up, and we need to leave right away.”
“I hope you gentlemen will find this suitable,” Bella said contemptibly to Dave. “It’s a blueberry wine, made with berries I picked myself from the garden outside.”
Dave smiled weakly and looked to Julian.
“We, um...” said Julian. “We have to go now. My grandmother died.”
“Oh my!” said Bella. She pursed her lips in thought. “Just now?”
“Yes.”
“But how did you learn of this news?”
Shit. “She and I were very close. We have, or rather had, an Emp
athic Link.”
Bella frowned, her gaze falling to his junk. “We express our grief in different ways.”
Julian feigned a distress-induced stomach cramp, letting his serape fall loosely over his erection. Dammit, Ravenus! How long does it take to fuck a feather duster?
Bella set the tray down on the other side of the drink trolley. Mr. Potter stared longingly at the dark blue liquid.
“You mustn’t leave without first sampling the wine,” said Bella. “I’d been saving it for my seventeenth birthday, but now I’ve already poured it.”
Tim and Cooper coughed.
“My,” said Cooper. “You’ve blossomed early.”
Tim stepped forward. “I think I’ll have that drink now.” He, Julian, Dave, and Cooper took their glasses.
Julian raised his glass to Bella. “Happy birthday.” Dave, Cooper, and Tim mumbled something along the same lines. It was clear that all four of them were in agreement that it was definitely time to leave. They tilted their heads back and dumped the contents of their glasses down their throats.
Julian found the taste surprisingly bitter for blueberry wine, and it had a consistency just a little thinner than honey. His vision started to blur as his mind grew foggy. He turned his head, but the network was laggy. His vision followed a second later, and with some concentration, he was able to focus on a stunning, healthy-bosomed woman in a yellow dress.
“You’re pretty. What’s your name?”
A stunning, healthy-bosomed woman in a yellow dress smiled at something on the floor near him. He turned his head to follow her gaze, and his vision dragged along like the other end of a heavy accordion. A little boy lay face down on the floor with an empty shot glass in his hand.
“You shouldn’t be drinking, little boy.”
A stout, bearded midget fell on top of the boy, and some kind of monster swayed like he might fall next.
Julian looked down at his own crotch. “Why am I so... goddamn horny right now?” His vision darkened as he felt his body falling backward. He didn’t feel himself hit the floor.
*
“Hello?” a voice echoed from some distance away. Cooper’s voice.
Julian opened his eyes, but it did him no good. He was engulfed in complete darkness. The floor he lay on was rough damp stone. It felt slimy on his fingertips.
“Hello?” Cooper said again. “Come on, man. Talk to me!”
Shit.
“Are you alive or not?”
Shit shit.
“I swear to God, if you don’t speak to me, I’m going to take a dump in your head.”
What?
“Cooper?” Julian called out.
“Julian?”
“Who are you talking to?”
“The bucket in my cell.”
“Oh.” That raised a number of questions in Julian’s mind, but the most prominent was, “Why?”
“Common courtesy,” said Cooper. “I don’t want to shit in it if it’s magically alive, do I?”
That made more sense than Julian was anticipating. “You’re a good man, Cooper.”
Though Julian knew in his mind and in his heart what the following sounds and smells were, he tried to convince himself that it was just a forty-year-old can of spray cheese. If that bucket was alive, it must have a hell of a Willpower Save.
“Jesus Christ!” shouted Tim from Julian’s left. “What the fuck is that?”
“I think that blueberry wine was laced with something,” said Cooper. “It’s giving me the runs.”
“Where are you? Specifically, I mean. And more general, where the hell are –” CLANG “Son of a bitch!”
“We’re in some kind of dungeon,” said Cooper. “Our cell doors are locked.”
“Thanks, Cooper,” said Tim. “I just found that out... with my face.”
Someone was still unaccounted for. Julian took a moment to clear the cobwebs out of his mind.
“Ravenus!” said Julian when he was able to focus. “Has anyone seen Ravenus?”
“No,” said Dave from the cell adjacent to Julian’s. “But I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
Shit. “I was going to say you next.”
“No you weren’t. Shut up.”
“Come on, man,” said Julian. “He’s my familiar, and you’re...”
“I’m what?”
Julian frowned. “I... I don’t actually know how to finish that sentence.”
Slow clapping from Dave’s cell echoed annoyingly through the dark dungeon. “Well done, Captain Diplomacy. I’d say that’s what a Natural 1 sounds like.”
“Uh-uh,” said Tim. “That was a piss poor Diplomacy roll to be sure, but a better example of a Natural 1 is when you talk about your goddamn dead grandmother while sporting a raging hard-on.”
“That wasn’t my fault!” said Julian. “It was Ravenus.”
Cooper snorted. “I guess that explains why he was worried more about the bird than you, Dave.”
Tim, Dave, and Cooper shared a laugh.
Julian pointed middle fingers in the directions Cooper’s and Dave’s voices were coming from, as they were the only ones who could see in the dark. “You know what? Fuck all of you.”
Dave stopped laughing. “How are we going to get out of here? Tim, can you pick the lock on your cell door?”
“I don’t think so,” said Tim. “Not in the dark with nothing to use but my dick.”
“Okay,” said Dave. “How about you, Cooper?”
“I don’t think my dick will even fit in the hole.”
“No, stupid! I meant can you break through the door with your Barbarian Rage?”
“I can give it a shot.” Cooper breathed in and out a few times. “I’m really angry!”
A series of grunts and groans started in low, then rose to a crescendo joined by the clanging of steel bars, and finally petered out with a long wet fart... and possibly some shit.
Cooper took a few more breaths. “Um... no.”
“Shit!” said Dave. “That leaves you, Julian. Do you have any spells memorized that can get us out of here?”
Julian shrugged. “I have Mount.”
“Of course you do.” Dave sighed. “Well, give it a try, I guess.”
Julian stood up and waved his arms around to make sure he had enough room in the cell to summon a horse. Satisfied, he pointed his hand at the floor.
“Horse!”
Displaced air shifted around him. His summoned horse whinnied nervously. Being called into existence would be disconcerting enough without being in total darkness as well.
Julian groped the air until he found the horse’s mane, and stroked it gently. “Easy, girl... or boy.” He couldn’t tell if it was male or female in the dark without groping around for its junk.
The horse calmed its trembling and whinnying as a stream of pungent urine loudly splattered the floor under it.
“That’s okay, buddy,” said Julian, continuing to stroke its mane. “You feel better now?”
“Julian!” said Tim. “How about a little less bonding and a little more door kicking?”
“Alright! Give me a second.” Julian discovered that his cell wasn’t quite as big as he thought. It took some maneuvering to get the horse completely turned around. “Okay, friend. Let’s see what you’ve got. Give us a good kick.”
The horse leaned down and kicked its rear legs back. There was a loud clang of hoof against steel.
“Nice job!”
“Not nice enough,” said Cooper. “The door didn’t budge. They’re strong as fuck.”
Dave sighed. “I figured that would be the case after Cooper couldn’t break it.”
“Well shit,” said Tim. “Now what do we do?”
“Now we wait,” said Dave.
“Wait for what?”
“Yeah,” said Cooper. “That plan sucks ass.”
Dave cleared his throat. “If you’d let me explain.” When everyone remained quiet, he continued. “I’ve been thinking about this. We’ve obviously come
in somewhere in the middle of the movie. Bella has already succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome, which is why the Beast allows her to come and go as she pleases. But we know we haven’t gotten to the end yet, because all the servants are still furniture and shit.”
“So what?” said Tim.
“Yeah, seriously,” said Cooper. “I mean, I’m sorry your childhood was so shitty that it earned you an encyclopedic knowledge of a little girl movie, but how the fuck is that supposed to get us out of these cells?”
“I’m just saying that maybe we can exploit our knowledge –”
“Your knowledge.”
“Fine, asshole,” said Dave. “My knowledge of the story to our advantage.”
Julian guided his horse back around to face the cell door. “I’m not even convinced that we’re ‘in’ the movie. I mean sure, there are similarities, but we don’t know for sure that Mordred ripped off the entire script.”
“It’s all we’ve got to work with,” said Dave. “And if I’m right, then I think our best chance of escaping is when that dickhead... What’s his name, Garçon? Anyway, when he and the villagers come to raid the house.”
“Sorry,” said Julian. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen the film, but didn’t the villagers get their asses kicked?”
“Yes. But we are outside variables. Tim has already killed one of the Beast’s servants.”
Julian sighed. The little flicker of hope Dave had given him was snuffed out. “You really think taking out Crack Baby is going to turn the tide of battle?”
“Hey shitheads,” said Tim. “For the record, that was an accident, and I kinda feel bad about it. So could you maybe shut the fuck up?”
“I’m talking about the butterfly effect,” said Dave.
“That shitty Ashton Kutcher movie?” said Cooper. “Shit, I was way off. I thought we were talking about... Hold up, I don’t remember any talking teacups in The Butterfly Effect.”
“Not the movie, idiot. The scientific principle that tiny variables can lead to enormous differences in –”
A door creaked open to Julian’s left, beyond Dave and Tim’s cells, letting in the faintest flickering light. The light grew stronger as Waxoff shuffled into view, followed by the squeaky-wheeled drink trolley. Mr. Potter sat on top, but his children were absent.