by Anna Roberts
I look over at Neigh and he already looks like he’s about to explode. This must be his personal idea of hell – not being allowed to talk about My Little fucking Pony.
The big guys at the back are looking antsier than ever, so I take a gulp of water and get ready to deal the coup de grace. “I don’t know if you’re familiar with bronies,” I say. “That’s what they call themselves – bronies, adult male fans of My Little Pony. If you are familiar with them them you’ll know that they are some of the most committed people on earth. Some of the most loyal too.
“It doesn’t matter to them that their precious show is a shitty little Flash-style animation that anyone with a laptop could put together in five minutes – they love it all the same.”
His nostrils flare. Oh yeah. That’s the stuff.
“They don’t give a dancing pink shit that the scripts are juvenile, the characterisation is shoddy and the voice acting is annoying...”
He’s getting properly fucking pissed now. Come on, you big manbaby – you just gonna sit there and sulk while I talk shit about your favourite TV show?
“...they don’t even care that the pony characters are shallow, shrill and dumber than a sack of backwards rocks. They love it unconditionally. And that’s a beautiful thing, especially when you consider that Fluttershy is a passive-aggressive asshole, Twilight Sparkle is a stuck-up nerd, Applejack is probably the product of incest...”
Oh fuck yeah. He’s nearly there. This is almost better than sex.
“...and Pinkie Pie is a slut.”
Crispian Neigh’s chair clatters off the edge of the stage. The next thing I see is a couple of hundred pounds of enraged neckbeard diving in my general direction. The audience are on their feet just as I’m knocked off mine.
“You take that back,” yells Crispian Neigh. “You skanky little lying whore!”
He has hold of my gown, so I slide out of it and get away, just as one of the bulky guys takes hold of Crispian Neigh from behind.
“Naylor?” shrieks Hanna.
Crispian Neigh is cuffed and jerked upright. “Agent Naylor, ma’am,” says the big guy, and I recognise him as Neigh’s chauffeur and dogsbody. “And I wouldn’t advise trying to skip out on us, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
I don’t think Hanna understands what’s going on or the implications of what he’s saying, but quite frankly nobody – perhaps not even Hanna herself – knows what goes on in that girl’s strange, triangular mind.
“Pinkie Pie is a LADY!” screams Crispian Neigh, pony-pink in the face. “SHE’S A FUCKING LADY, OKAY?”
Hanna stares at him with a weird mix of disgust and belligerence. You can say one thing for Hanna – while she’s misguided in almost every single way ever, she’s not a quitter. “She’s a fucking cartoon horse, Crispian,” she says, with a sigh. “I thought we were over this.”
Jesús reaches down and helps Teresa and Professor Jarrett up onto the stage. “Kate, what the fuck is going on?”
The hall is filled with shouting, cheers, jeers and catcalls, but we can still hear Hanna’s molars grinding. “I’ll tell you what’s going on,” she says, hands on her hips. “Someone was faking amnesia so I’d think he’d given up his pony porn habit.”
“...Hanna...”
“...no, look at me, Cris – isn’t this what it’s all about? You knew I didn’t like it. You knew I’d never like it, so wasn’t it convenient that you happened to lose your memory?”
Agent Naylor sighs. “I know I shouldn’t say this,” he says. “But you two are both as bad as each other. Eesh.” He leads Neigh towards the door.
“Wait!” squeaks Hanna, and goes to follow, but just like that there’s a bulky guy behind her too. It’s weird how they move as silent as clouds, even though even the smallest one is built like a brick shithouse.
She’s all eyes and mouth as they put the cuffs on her. By the time she realises she’s being arrested she looks like she’s trying to impersonate The Scream. “Mooommy!...” she wails.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” calls Teresa. “It’s just for questioning. I’ve called my attorney...”
She frowns as the crowd closes behind her daughter. “Oh shit. I’d better go after her. Excuse me, guys.”
“No, no problem,” says Professor Jarrett. “Go and see to her.”
“Okay, does someone want to explain to me what just happened?” asks Jesús.
“It was very simple,” says Professor Jarrett. “He was faking it, but not to hide his pony porn habit from Hanna. He was faking it because he knew the government was onto him.”
Jesús gawps. “For what?”
“Piracy,” I say. “That torrent site of his has been infringing copyright for years. Media companies have been consistently lobbying to have something done about him but you saw how the last round of attempted copyright legislation went down.”
“A clusterfuck,” agrees Professor Jarrett. “The law’s so full of loopholes that trying to pin down Crispian Neigh was like trying to nail jelly to a wall. Fortunately he got a little bit careless when he was trying to get me deported, and bribed an official whose staff were slightly more honest than the average civil servant. The bribery charge gave them something to hang the case on.”
Jesús stares at her. “And he knew about this?”
“He knew enough,” says Professor Jarrett. “Enough to worry when Teresa raised the subject and enough to know he could get some mileage out of memory loss.”
I nod. “Except everyone sensible knows that amnesia is not a thing that happens outside of soap opera plots.”
“Or marvellously cheesy novels with Fabio on the cover,” says Professor Jarrett.
Jesús raises his eyebrow at her and she turns slightly pink. “What?” she says, defensive. “You didn’t think I read nothing but nineteenth century novels, did you?”
“What’s going to happen to Hanna?” he asks. “Is she going to be okay?”
“I think so,” says Professor Jarrett. “I don’t think she’s done anything illegal – at least, not knowingly, and Teresa has an excellent attorney.”
“Actually she’s probably enjoying herself,” I say. “She’s the centre of attention and she’ll get to suffer and pine while he’s in the pokey. You know, it’s funny – I can kind of picture her as one of those weird women who end up writing love letters to Death Row prisoners and shit.”
Professor Jarrett nods. “I think you might be right there. I daresay she’ll be as happy as a clam providing they don’t let him watch My Little Pony.” She runs her hands through her hair and sighs. “Right, I must leave you kids. This has been an interesting afternoon but I must get home and surprise the wife.”
“She doesn’t know you’re back in the country?” asks Jesús.
“No. Although strictly speaking I never left it – the diplomatic corps recruits rather heavily from Oxford, so luckily I knew people who could get me to an Embassy while the mess was sorted out.”
“Ha,” says Jesús. “And they said a degree in Literature was useless.”
“It has its uses,” says Professor Jarrett. “If you’ll excuse me.”
She gets halfway into wings before turning back to us. “Oh, and congratulations! I keep forgetting it’s a graduation!” She laughs and carries on walking.
“Certainly a memorable day,” I say.
“I’m not likely to forget it either,” says Jesús. “It’s not often you see a grown man go crazy because someone called a cartoon pony a slut.”
“Yeah. On reflection I was a little harsh on Pinkie Pie. She likes to party but she’s not trashy about it.”
He laughs but not that convincingly. We look out over the hall, at the caps that got discarded and the chairs that were overturned in the crush when everyone went outside to rubberneck at Crispian Neigh’s arrest. It looks like the aftermath of a disaster, or a party – a really wild party that went on for four whole years while we pretended we didn’t care what would happen when it was over.
/> There just aren’t enough billionaires to go around in this economy.
Jesús takes my hand. “What’s the matter? You look sad.”
“No. Not really. A little. Maybe.” I sigh. “We’re going to have to get jobs, Jesús. Be grown ups.”
“Only as much as we need to. Anyway, I have a bone to pick with you.”
"Dude, I'll pick your bone any time - you know that."
He laughs and puts his arms around my waist. "Did you call me your boyfriend? I heard you - when you were talking to Hanna this morning."
Oops. This wasn't supposed to happen. I have a lousy degree because I spent senior year sitting around on my ass thinking that if I did enough drugs I'd turn into Hunter S. Thompson. Obviously I didn't - I just got the munchies, gained ten pounds and Jesús started making remarks about 'junk in the trunk', which might explain why we're here right now.
I have no idea how to turn that degree into a real job - I might have to move across the country while Jesús sits around in Seattle figuring out what to do with his degree - which will probably involve flipping burgers and dreaming of becoming the next Junot Diaz.
This could not have come at a worse time in my life. On the other hand, every time he smiles it's like my heart does the lambada and every time I touch him I turn into a raging horny beast who wants to do him in every way humanly possible. And then some.
"Yeah," I say. "I kinda did."
The End
No, really. It’s the end.
Well, for now.
We hear there’s money in this dirty book thing.
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Also by the same author
Fifty Shades Fatter
A Sequel
Catch up with Hanna ‘Mess of the D’Urbervilles’ Squeal and her jail-bird billionaire boyfriend, in the car crash romance that’s outselling niche historical novels with a total readership of about six.
Yes, the idiots are back, and they’re dumber than ever. Despite having voices in her head and a broken heart, the most illiterate English Major to ever train for the fast food industry has somehow landed a job in publishing. Sadly her estranged boyfriend is in the pokey for numerous copyright violations, attempted bribery and (surprisingly) not kidnap, prompting Hanna to spend much of her time sighing, crying and staring at her thumbs.
Even worse, she has to fend off the moustachioed advances of her hipster boss Timothy Grope, who keeps sending her mysterious and threatening text messages – that is when he’s not drawing doodles of her tied to train-tracks.
But soon she is forced to make the biggest decision of her life when Crispian wants her back. (Spoiler - she says yes.)
Thankfully, at least from the standpoint of dramatic tension, it's not a blissful, rose-strewn path to the altar and soon Hanna is forced to contend with the horrified objections
of her friends, her mother, his mother, her boss, her boss’s boss, the voices in her head and even Crispian’s annoying and suspiciously blonde, leggy, beautiful attorney. It’s almost as if getting married to someone you’ve known for less than a month is a catastrophically stupid idea…
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Fifty Shades Later
An Inevitable Conclusion
Brace yourself for the final excursion into the dysfunctional life of Hanna Neigh (née Squeal) and her brooding, bondage-freak husband, Mr. Neigh.
It’s not easy being the skinny, rich and beautiful wife of a billionaire, especially when you’re in the South of France and the hotel where you wanted to stay has been besmirched by the presence of the trashy romance writer responsible for the infamous ‘Sasquatch Gangbang’ novels. To add further complications to her meaningless existence, Hanna can’t find a decent martini on the entire Cote d’Azur and someone keeps sending her threatening e-mails. Worse, her Inner Goddess keeps reminding her about the part of Book Two where her husband died in a helicopter crash, although that’s kind of her own fault for anthropomorphising aspects of her creaking mental processes in such an incredibly annoying way.
Who is driving the mysterious black van labelled INEPT KIDNAPPERS INC? What really happened to felonious Brony-billionaire Crispian Neigh on the night of the Kleptocrats Only Masqued Ball? Have the ponies stopped screaming yet? And is this the one where they finally do anal? (No)
Confused? You will be.
Incompetent editors, angry birds, sweary children, transvestite workaholics, myopic libertarians and horrible things that happen to My Little Pony all collide in the final part of the anarchic Fifty Shades of Neigh trilogy.
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A Box Full of Ashes
Eliot & O'Hare #1
Three misfits, three smoke breaks and one series of extraordinary events.
An angel appears on Brighton beach, a hospital patient bursts into flames in Plymouth and a goth spontaneously combusts in a churchyard in Sidmouth; it’s all in a day’s work for stage magician and freelance paranormal investigator Francis Eliot. For pathologist Camilla O’Hare it’s nothing short of lunacy, particularly when one of the victims’ bodies disappears from the morgue in the length of time it takes her to answer the phone.
When the two of them join forces to figure out what’s really going on behind the sudden rash of spontaneous human combustions taking the West Country by storm, neither can predict just how weird things are about to get. A missing cat, a dog-eared copy of Dracula, a guitar case full of garlic and a priest so turbulent that even Henry II’s drunken knights would think twice – all add up to a hypothesis so extravagantly nuts that nobody wants to come out and say the V-word.
Except at some point you’re going to have to admit the obvious. Especially when the obvious keeps trying to eat you.
This fast-paced British urban fantasy is the first in a brand new series that will delight fans of Bram Stoker, Jonathan Creek and anyone who was ever sceptical about the idea of sparkling vampires.
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