by Gary Jonas
“How long do we have to do this?” I asked.
“Until two,” Sabrina said.
I checked my phone. 1:50. Man, I’d been signing for twenty minutes. Now it was getting to be like work. I hate work. I had a collection of hot girls’ numbers already, so it was time to stop. I glanced at Teddy and Chuck. They were still all smiles for the patrons. Sabrina smiled for the people, too, but when they weren’t looking, she gave me the side-eye.
She leaned close and whispered. “Keep signing and be nice.”
I forced a smile for some guy as he moved over to stand before me. Sabrina slid the CD my way.
“How’s it going?” I asked the guy.
“Great.”
“Cool,” I said as I signed my name on the insert.
“Hey, man,” the guy said. “I’m in a band, too.”
“Good for you.”
He winked at me and reached into his pocket to take out a homemade CD in a white paper sleeve. “Think you can give this a listen?”
“I would,” I said with a smile, “but I don’t want to.”
“Oh,” he said as his brain registered what I’d said. My smile threw him off. He stuttered a thank you, dropped the CD back into his pocket, and moved off when I slid the signed CD to him.
Motion in my peripheral vision caught my eye off to the left. I glanced over and saw two lovely young blonde women in leather miniskirts, scooped red blouses, and black boots step out of the backroom.
I gave them a big smile.
They both smiled back at me. The world seemed to brighten as they approached me.
“How you doin’?” I said in my best Joey. From Friends, not my older brother.
One of the blonde girls leaned over and reached out to caress my jaw with a finger.
“My eyes are up here,” she said.
I moved my gaze from down her blouse, which was a very nice view, up to her smiling face, which was also lovely. “I like your style,” I said.
“You’ll like it more when I slit your throat and drink your blood.”
“Oh, kinky,” I said.
The other blonde came up beside her and leaned over to give me a glimpse down her blouse, too. Again, I appreciated the view. A necklace dangled in front of her. It looked like a silver rat’s foot.
“You want a better look?” she asked.
“Um,” I said, not sure how to respond to that without coming off like a creeper.
“Come with us,” the first blonde said.
“This must be my lucky day,” I said and stood.
She took my left hand. “This way.”
I glanced over to tell Sabrina I had business to attend to, but when I turned, I saw that nobody else was moving.
And I mean nobody.
The last few people in line stood motionless. The music still played over the speakers, but the girl at the register was in a total freeze-frame. Chuck was frozen in mid-signature.
Teddy was smiling at a young woman who kept her motionless smile aimed at him. Sabrina’s hand hovered over a CD insert, holding a marker that was almost touching the paper.
I turned back to the blonde women.
“Are you coming?” the second woman asked, reaching for my right hand.
“I’m not even breathing hard yet,” I said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Melissa,” lovely blonde number one said.
“I’m Rhonda,” said lovely blonde number two.
And at the same time they said, “We have so many pleasures to show you.”
Rhonda pulled her blouse down a bit to reveal her right breast for a moment. She smiled and said, “She stuns her prey with ease.” And she was right. I’m a guy, so the sight of breasts instantly deducts a hundred IQ points.
She licked her lips and put a finger in her mouth, and I gulped, my brain overloaded.
“Lead on,” I said.
And they did.
They led me through the doorway to the back room and out an emergency exit. No alarms sounded.
A long black limousine waited in the alley behind the store. A slender black man in a black suit who stood six-eight opened the back door for us.
The blonde women pulled me into the limo.
I sat between them.
I put my hands on my knees, not quite trusting them. I wanted to see where this was going.
Melissa pulled my hand to her chest, then slid one leg over both of mine. She straddled me, pushed my arms away from her while Rhonda stuck her tongue in my ear.
“You want us both.”
“Who doesn’t?” I moved to kiss her, but she moved her head to the side and my lips slid across her cheek. She tasted like cinnamon.
“We want you too,” she whispered. “But not here.”
She writhed in my lap.
Friction had an effect on me.
Rhonda reached over and rubbed my crotch.
“He’s definitely ready,” she said, her voice just above a whisper.
“Big time,” Melissa said, pressing herself against me. She pulled me forward, hugging me tight.
Rhonda ran her hands through my hair, down along my neck, and gave a hard squeeze like she was Spock from Star Trek giving me the Vulcan nerve pinch.
And I guess that worked because everything went black.
CHAPTER SIX
I want to tell you that I woke up in bed with the two lovely ladies. And I did wake up in bed, but my wrists and ankles were bound to the bedposts, and I couldn’t move. There weren’t any blankets over me, and while they’d removed my shoes and socks, I still wore jeans and my shirt. And unfortunately, the hotties were not in the room.
The bedroom consisted of the bed with the big wooden posts, a nightstand with a lamp turned on low, and a dresser off to the side. A closet door stood open revealing a row of multi-colored dresses and shirts.
“Ladies?” I called. “I’m not a fan of Gerald’s Game.”
A dog barked in another room. It was a low, throaty bark followed by a thud, and footsteps racing down the hall.
A pit bull launched itself onto the bed and growled at me. He stepped on my stomach and drooled on my chest as his lips flared back to reveal sharp fangs. Another loud bark, this time right in my face, and I about passed out when the dog’s horrid breath assaulted me.
“Nice doggy,” I said.
He growled low and narrowed his gaze. His black-and-white fur made him look like a big mean cow, and his pink nose would have been cute if the fangs weren’t so damn big.
“You’re a good dog,” I said, trying to keep all fear out of my voice. “Calm down, puppy. It’s all good.”
The dog let out a harrumph then plopped down on top of me. He must have weighed eighty pounds.
I tried to roll him off, but he growled again.
“Okay, you can stay right there. No worries.”
He lowered his head and closed his eyes. A moment later, he started snoring.
In the far reaches of the house, a door opened and closed. Two women talked, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“Cannibal?” one of the women called.
The dog woke up.
“Cannibal wants a treat?” the woman said.
The dog bounded off the bed, pushing off against my gut, which hurt, but also allowed me to breathe easier once he raced out of the room.
A few minutes later, one of the blondes entered the bedroom. She wore a black T-shirt and jeans now. She still looked hot.
“Hello, Mr. Masters,” she said.
“Hi, Rhonda.”
“I’m Melissa.”
“Oh. Sorry. Hi, Melissa.”
“Just messing with you. I really am Rhonda.”
“Help me, Rhonda. Get me out of this mess,” I sang.
She sat on the bed and placed a palm on my forehead like a mother checking a child for a fever.
“You’re not helping,” I said.
“Do you have any idea how many people sing the Beach Boys to me?”
“L
et me guess. Two thousand.”
“At least.”
“So I’m not original. But I am psychic. Your last name is Ringo, isn’t it?”
“Based on your originality, you’re going to ask if George, Paul, and John are in the next room.”
“George and John are dead, so I wasn’t going to go there.”
“We could have their ghosts.”
“I’m betting you’re not a Beatles fan.”
“You’d win that bet, Mr. Masters.”
“Call me Brett,” I said. “Better yet, let me go and call me for a date sometime.”
“You’d date a kidnapper?”
“I’m like a male Patty Hearst.”
“Before my time.”
“Before mine, too, but I watched a documentary about her on Netflix. We could watch movies together, make love on the beach in Bali, dine at an outdoor cafe in Paris, swim with the dolphins in Florida.”
“Just you and me, huh?”
“Your sister can come, too. There’s enough of me to go around.”
She laughed.
I liked her smile.
I didn’t like the fact that she’d abducted me, but she had shown me a breast, so that made up for it even though I had to imagine the other.
She patted me on the chest. “Do you need to use the restroom?”
“Yes.”
“Aw,” she said. “You’re going to have to hold it because I’m not letting you out of your bonds yet.”
“The operative word there is yet.”
“Oh, sweetie, you’re so cute.”
“Thank you.”
“You actually think you’re going to get out of here alive.”
“Oh, come on. This has been fun so far,” I said. “Don’t spoil it.”
She touched my forehead again. This time she nodded. “Yep, it’s setting in now.”
“What’s setting in?”
“The fever.”
“But it’s not Saturday night.”
She gave me another smile. “And you’re not John Travolta.”
“True that. I also can’t sing the Bee Gees because the falsetto kills me.”
“You won’t have to worry about that because the fever will kill you before the falsetto.”
“Good to know,” I said.
“You should start feeling the effects soon. I’ll set you free when you die.”
“If I die, it will be a moot point.”
“No. When you die, we’ll control your body.”
“You forgot something.”
“Oh?”
“I’m a wizard.”
“We didn’t forget, sweetie.”
I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. Then I focused my magic and untied the knots without touching them.
I sat up in bed and put my arms around Rhonda, pulling her close. I whispered in her ear, “You can have the sickness back, baby.”
And I blew the fever into her ear.
The crazy thing about magic is that once you understand how to bend it to your will, you can do all sorts of cool shit. I hated to use it much because I didn’t like the pain of biting or cutting myself, but thanks to Lakesha, I’d been practicing.
A lot.
Rhonda blinked a few times, and looked confused. I rolled her off the bed so I could stand. The bonds on my ankles fell away as I moved. See? Magic rocks.
“I don’t know what kind of magic you used,” I said, “but I sure hope you know how to heal yourself because I’d still like to have some fun with you and your sister. That would be amazing.”
She opened her mouth and reached inside. When she pulled her fingers free, she tugged a wisp of white smoke out of her mouth and shook it away.
I smiled at her. “I trust you’re all better now too?”
She nodded. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Why would I do that?”
“We thought you were the fake Brett Masters.”
“Say what?”
“We’ve been keeping tabs on him. We thought you switched places with him for the signing so you could meet with your father. We didn’t mean to do anything to you, Mr. Masters. We were after the effigy. Honest.”
“How did you even know about the fake?”
“I told you, we’ve been keeping tabs.”
“And what dastardly deeds did you have in mind for my doppelgänger?” I asked, trying to sound more like the other Brett.
“We were going to turn him over to the Matriarch to fulfill our mission.”
“What exactly is your mission, my dear?”
She smiled at me. “It’s a secret,” she said.
I should have expected it, but I’m not the brightest bulb on the branch. A magic rope dropped over me and tightened, pulling my arms to my sides.
I spun around to see Melissa Ringo in a low-cut blouse and tight blue jeans. She held a glowing rope like Wonder Woman’s lasso, and pulled on it, making me take a few steps toward her.
Rhonda came up behind me and nibbled on my ear before saying, “Wizards are so overconfident.”
“Can you nibble my ear again?” I asked. “That was hot.”
“You’d best take us seriously, Mr. Masters,” Melissa said.
“I’ll take you any way you want.”
“You’re a handsome man, Mr. Masters, but you aren’t our type.”
“What kind of man do you like?” I asked, trying to point to myself as I said it. The damn rope paralyzed my arms.
“Jason Momoa is my type.”
“Who’s he?”
“Drogo on Game of Thrones? Aquaman? Conan?”
“I thought Arnold was Conan.”
As I spoke, I bit my cheek again. I focused my magic and canceled out the effects of the rope. But I let her hold me for now because I wanted more information.
“Don’t be cute.”
“I can’t help it. I was born this way. What about you, Rhonda? You a Drogo fan too?”
“I’m more of a Joe Jonas fan, though Bruno Mars will do in a pinch.”
“What happens now?” I asked.
“We’re going to let you go, but you’ll have to be unconscious first.”
“You’re not going to hit me are you? I really don’t want a concussion.”
“No. We’re going to nerve pinch you like we did before.”
“I’ll pass,” I said, dodging Rhonda’s attempt to grab me. As I ducked, I yanked the rope off, spun, and wrapped it around Rhonda.
She stiffened as the rope’s effects caught her. I shoved her onto the bed, and gave Melissa a smile.
“If you’ll step aside, I’ll walk out of here.”
She stepped to the side, her eyes focused intently on me for any move I might make.
I faced her as I moved around her and walked backward into the hallway.
A growl sounded behind me.
I didn’t bother to look. “Cannibal, sit,” I said with authority.
A whimper sounded and I chanced a glance. Cannibal sat and stared at me.
“Good dog,” I said.
His tail thumped the floor.
“And now, my dears, I bid you adieu. If you want to go to dinner sometime, give me a call. I’m not a muscle dude or a pretty boy pop singer, but I’ve been known to please a lady or two.”
“We’re still going after your duplicate.”
“By all means,” I said. “Give him my regards.”
And I walked out the front door.
When I stepped off the porch, my foot came down on a rock.
“Shit,” I said. So much for making a cool exit. I sighed, went back to the door, and knocked before I opened it. I peeked inside. “Shoes?”
Melissa smiled and brought me my shoes, socks, wallet, keys, and phone. I gave her a sheepish grin.
“Thanks.”
I pocketed my wallet, keys, and phone. Then I hopped a bit as I pulled on my socks. I shoved my feet into my shoes. The dog watched me the whole time. So did Melissa. Rhonda must have still bee
n immobilized on the bed, so at least I didn’t look like a complete idiot to all of them.
When I finally got my shoes on, I shrugged and said, “This time I’m really going. See ya.”
Melissa waved.
I waved back.
Cannibal barked.
I walked down the street and realized I had no fucking clue where I was.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Google Maps is a wonderful thing. I was able to pinpoint my position and call an Uber. While I waited for the driver to show up, I leaned against a fence and called Sabrina.
“Hey, cuz,” I said.
“Where the hell did you go?”
“Disneyland?”
“Seriously,” she said.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You missed the end of the signing.”
“So?”
“Wrong answer. You were supposed to fill in for the real Brett.”
I didn’t bother to argue who was the real Brett. Instead I let her rant and rave for a few.
The Uber driver showed up in a Toyota. I hit mute on the phone.
“You’re Brett?” the driver asked. Based on his parking pass, he was a college student from the medical school.
“That’s what they tell me,” I said as I climbed into the car. “Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem.”
“Mind if I continue my phone call?”
“No worries, dude.”
I unmuted the call and brought the phone back to my ear. Sabrina was just about out of breath.
“You done?” I asked.
“For now.”
“Good.”
“You didn’t listen to a word I said.”
“I caught the gist. I’m a bad boy destined for the dog house. Don’t do anything like that again. Blah blah blah.”
“I’m serious.”
“Quick question,” I said. “Who knows that the other Brett and I are both in town?”
“You, me, Brett, Michael, your father. That should be it. Why?”
“No spies at the restaurant or anything then?”
“Spies?”
“Informants. Whatever.”
“You’re being stupid.”
“Humor me.”
“Who else could possibly know?” she asked.
“The Ringo Twins perhaps?”
Silence.
“Sabrina?”
“Okay, they might know.”