by Jake Devlin
“Uh, I guess so.”
“So quit worrying and put it in.”
“I don't know, Ro. Remember all those anti-abortion freaks who ganged up on me last fall?”
“Yeah; screw 'em. They've probably all got a dildo tucked away in their lingerie drawer.”
“Ro, you really have come a long way,” he said, chuckling.
“Hypocrites and busybodies just bug me.”
“Everybody's got an agenda.”
“And an opinion.”
“Yeah.”
“And you know what they say about opinions, Gordy?”
“What?”
“Most of 'em stink.”
“Y'got that right, Ro. On both sides. But still” --
“Well, how about this? Instead of putting it directly in the book, put it online and put a link to it, so people who want to read it can and those who don't can avoid it. What d'ya think about that?”
“You mean – you know, Ro, that's not a bad idea. Yeah, I think I like it.”
“I think that's how Donne would do it. Freedom of choice.”
“Yup, you're absolutely right. I'll do it that way.”
(Author's note: Here's the link, but remember, the scene contains graphic and explicit erotic – i.e., sexual – content. By getting to the scene at the link below, readers are certifying that they choose to read this material. Readers who might be offended can easily skip it. Word to the wise, okay?)
http://www.JakeDevlin.com/27X
(Author's note: Readers who do choose to read the scene should consider it as a being a continuation of Chapter 27.)
“Now, that wasn't so hard, was it?”
“I guess not, Ro. Guess we'll find out.”
“Guess we will. But you do like the scene, right?”
“Oh, yeah, it's great.”
“Titillating?”
“Absolutely. And tit elating for you, I know.”
Rosemary giggled. “So do you like the idea of a three-way?”
“Do I, me personally, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Well, Dallas and I have been working on that scene, and she – uh, she and I” –
“She and you what?”
“Well, uh, we wondered how you would feel – uh, feel” –
“Go ahead, Ro. Just spit it out.”
“How you would feel about having a three-way with me and Dallas sometime.”
- Epilogue -
May 20, 2013
7:38 p.m. local time
Bonita Springs, Florida
“So that's the whole story, Sondra, as best I remember it,” Gordy said, leaning back in his recliner and sipping from his wineglass. “And you can write any articles you want in any way you want. But if you want to publish it as a book, I must insist on final approval and that you publish it with the title 'Devlin's Defiance' and under the name Jake Devlin. Deal?”
“Hmm. I'll have to thi-” --
“Of course, you keep all the royalties. We – I mean I don't need them.”
“Ah. Then of course, deal. I can probably get that done by the end of the year.”
“Great. But please don't do what most writers do, write down to readers, like at eighth grade level. I think it's better to pull readers up, maybe even challenge them at times, but at least get 'em to think a little more than just about sports or what's on TV or the other 'bread and circus' stuff that's fed to them as pablum.”
“I can do that. No pablum.”
“Good.”
“But I still have a few questions.”
“Shoot – I mean that metaphorically, not literally, of course.”
“Of course. Well, first, what about Pam's memoirs? And did she find proof on that CIA mole? And how did you and Jake get to where you are? And did you and Rosemary and Dallas actually have your three-way?”
“Tell you what, Sondra. Let's see how you do with this one, and then we'll take it from there.”
“Oh. Okay, I guess.”
“And just a thought. There are two things I really, really hate in novels. First, unnecessary architectural detail, and second, excessive self-introspection.”
“I can live with that. But isn't 'self-introspection' redundant?”
“Yup; just wanted to hammer the point home; I really, really, really hate it. But remember, it's all just fiction.”
**********************************************
(Author's Note: The following alternate epilogues are mostly just for fun, but the final one, labeled “Additional Epilogue,” is significant.)
Alternate Epilogue 1
May 27, 2013
Bonita Beach
“It's really weird, Jake. A lot of the folks here who let us use their names in the book are starting to act like their characters.”
“Like what, Gordy?”
“Well, Rona and Joel are studying krav maga with Dorothy right on the beach.”
“Okay.”
“Cindy is chewing gum, blowing bubbles and singing 'Daddy is an old fart' whenever she's here.”
“So?”
“She's 40-something years old, remember?”
“Oh, right; sorry, QH'd that.”
“Carie and Jill got a shotgun mike and a video camera and are letting 'em peek out of their beach bag.”
“Hmm.”
“Beverly's doing Elvis impersonations in her massage sessions, but that's getting her lots of new clients.”
“Well, that's a good thing, at least.”
“Yeah. But Birgitte tells me that Karsten is also doing his Elvis impersonations, singing and dancing on the beach, and” --
“And?”
“Well, he's starting to act pretty gay, too.”
“What? Karsten?”
“Right. And Birgitte said she's started buying batteries.
“And Norm now brings a drill with him for their umbrella, and he and Janet have started sitting in the sun, not the shade, once he gets the thing up.”
“How about Alice?”
“No change there; she's always been a bitchy old broad. But she is starting to wear more elaborate hats.
“And Dr. Deb's wearing denim short shorts, halter tops and got herself a tramp stamp tattoo.”
“No. Really?”
“Yup, really.
“Sharon's got a sniper rifle in her beach bag, broken down. And Suzanne … well, she'll always just be Sexy Raunchy Suzanne.”
“And how about“ --
“Sorry, Jake; gotta run. Ron's out on bail, and he's starting to bury himself in the sand again, and Norm's reaching for his drill.”
“Wha-” --
“Hey, Norm, hold it! Back off!”
Alternate Epilogue 2 - Part 1
June 3, 2013
1:27 p.m. local time
“Jesus, Jake. I gave you a name, a 39-meter yacht, a Gulf-front house with a full security system, an international security business with a whole fleet of private jets and helicopters, another business as an assassin, a beautiful, bright blonde to be a trusted companion and co-conspirator, even threw in another beautiful, bright blonde for some sexual adventures, and now you want to not only be a character, but claim credit as the author. Jesus, I can't believe it.”
“Pam is actually a redhead, Gordy.”
“Oh, picky, picky, picky. I know, I know; that's how I wrote her.”
“You mean that's how I wrote her.”
“Exactly; that's what I said.”
“No, you said you wrote her.”
“Right, because I did.”
“And now you think you're writing me, I'll bet.”
“No, I'm talking to you on a satellite phone.”
“You know what I mean, Gordy. Geez.”
“Of course I do, Jake. I AM writing you, after all.”
“No, you're not. I am.”
“No, I am.”
“No, I am.”
“No, I am.”
“No, I am.�
��
“Well, whichever of us is writing this, it's getting juvenile.”
“Sophomoric.”
“No, juvenile; that's worse than sophomoric, by many years.”
“Okay, okay. So let's just drop it.”
“No, let's not. I'm not going to let you get away with claiming to be both character and author.”
“But it's you who's doing that, Gordy.”
“No, I'm not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I'm – no, you're not gonna get me in that loop again.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you're – oh, geez.”
“Gotcha, Gordy.”
“No, you didn't; I wrote that.”
“No, you didn't; I did.”
“No, you didn't; I” --
“Hey, our agreement was that you'd take credit and the heat for the book, not actually for having written it and now for writing the sequel.”
“But I did and I am.”
“No, you didn't and no, you're not.”
“Yes, I did and yes, I am.”
“No, you – look, Gordy, I can prove that I'm writing all this.”
“Oh, yeah? How?”
“Easy. I'll just make this satphone go dead.”
“And you think that'll prove something?”
“Yup.”
“That won't prove anything. You can't just – hello? Hello? What the hell? Hello? Jake? Shit.”
Alternate Epilogue - Part 2
June 4, 2013
5:41 a.m. local time
Jake, half-awake, rolled over and slid his arm over Pam's side, planning to give her his usual early-morning back caress and massage, leading to an early-morning reprise of the Bolero.
As usual, his hand was buried in Pam's rolls of back fat, but since he was accustomed to her 350-pound weight, he simply began to caress and massage her, beginning at the neck and working his way down to where her shoulder blades should be, he guessed, but he was, again as usual, unable to dig deep enough into her flab to find them.
Pam began to stir, snoring and snorting as she slowly drifted up from the deep sleep in which she'd spent the last nine hours, her lips moving as she murmured unintelligibly, saliva drooling out onto the pillow case.
As she rolled her bulk toward Jake, he deftly rolled his 400-pound body away as best he could, nearly falling off the side of the king-size bed, but escaping being engulfed by Pam's sweating, gelatinous, doughy mass, as he did every morning.
He reached to the remote on the night table, clicked it, and the Bolero filled the room.
Pam giggled and rolled onto her back as Jake began his Everest-like climb to get himself on top of her, ignoring the overpoweringly foul stench of her morning breath and the stench and sight of her dark green-brown flatulence, which hovered around the bed like that dark rain cloud in the old hillbilly-based comic strip.
But he was interrupted by a loud explosion, which, as he later found out from his foreman at the sewer plant, had been a meth lab in the trailer eight lots down from his and Pam's in a decrepit park near Florence, Alabama.
In a McMansion on the Gulf in Bonita Springs, over the tapping of keys on a keyboard, a male voice hissed, “Turn off my satphone, will ya? Take that! Payback's a bitch, ain't it, Jake?” followed by gloating, slightly sadistic laughter.
Alternate Epilogue - Part 3
June 5, 2013
7:41 a.m. local time
The duellers stepped off the required ten paces on the umpire's count, and on his “Now!” they turned and fired. Each hoped his aim was true and his opponent's was off. Each was half right.
The projectiles hit both of them in the center of the chest, dropping both of them to the ground, writhing in pain, until the gooey messes that emerged from the projectiles had enveloped their bodies completely and they lay still.
The umpire and the seconds wrapped the bodies in plastic and hefted them into a small van, which carried them off to be sealed further and then interred in statues that would be donated to two parks, one in Iowa and one in Ohio.
“Now maybe you two will finally stop behaving like children and quit fighting over who wrote what. Geez. Gordy, just for making me fat and farty, you get to be in a statue downwind of a rendering plant. And Jake, for your stupidity in making Gordy pretend to have written the book, you will be enshrined in a statue of a pig in a park in front of a feed store.”
Additional Epilogue
November 27, 2013
11:47 a.m. local time
“I've just got one suggestion, Sondra, but it's important.”
“Okay.”
“Other than that, I think it's great; accurate and fun.”
“Good.”
“Here's the problem. I promised Debbie I would call her Dallas and not use her actual pen name.”
“Oh, right; that slipped my mind. I'm so sorry.”
“So you've got to change all of those before it goes live. She'd never forgive me. And BORN would ban her for life.”
“Oh, geez; right. I'll fix that right now. Hang on.”
“You can do it that quickly?”
“Yup. I'll just run a Find and Replace tool, and it'll automatically take care of it. Can I put you on hold for a minute?”
“Sure.”
A minute later, Sondra came back on the line. “It's all done, all fixed.”
“Wow, that was quick.”
“Yup.”
“Wait a minute. Suppose, just suppose – and I didn't see any when I read through it – but suppose there was a typo of her name in there, like if you typed 'Norma,' with an M in there, instead of 'Dallas'? Would it pick that up?”
“Nope. But I don't think I did that, or any other typos on her name.”
“Oh, good; so we're safe and so is Dallas.”
“Yup.”
“I hope you're right, Sondra.”
“99.9 percent.”
“Better than the Obamacare website. But that's a pretty low bar.”
“For sure. I haven't been able to even get on, and I've tried nine or ten times.”
“Well, they've promised to have it fixed this weekend.”
“I hope so, 'cause my company canceled my policy.”
“Oh, shit. That sucks.”
“Yeah. And he said 'If you like your plan, you can keep your plan; and if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. Period.'”
“Yeah, like we can believe anything this administration says.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Just another Obamacon, like joining with his buddies in the Senate to set up the government shutdown so he could blame the Republicans. And the brainwashed Obamabots'll buy it all.”
“And I voted for him. Twice. But I've learned my lesson.”
“You know, of course, that none of that would have happened if Donne were actually in charge?”
“I know.”
“Not that the Republicans are any more honest or any less corrupt.”
“I know.”
“I mean, if I'd written the book ten or twelve years ago, it'd be the same book, but with Bush instead of Obama. Not much difference in the subject.”
“Hmm. I'll have to think about that.”
“Oops; I can feel my blood pressure getting up to normal. Good. But enough politics for now. Anything else?”
“Well, I've still got a question.”
“Okay; shoot.”
“Did you and Rosemary and Dallas actually have that three-way?”
“Now, Sondra, you know a gentleman never kisses and tells.”
And so this story comes to an end … for now
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JakeDevlin at JakeDevlin.com
And keep your eyes out for the third book
in this series, coming in late 2014
“Devlin Sub Rosa”
Both a sequel and a pr
equel to this novel
and to “The Devlin Deception”
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