by Mark Henry
“Ah! Wade, so glad you could make it, my boy!” the man rushed in and grabbed the back of his arm, guiding him to a room with a star painted on it haphazardly, the green paint trickling down the door from the lower points above it the words: The Ballpit.
Inside, three men, two much younger than Wade and smoother in a nauseating boyish way glanced in his direction looking him up and then down and back again never once retracting from a trio of gigantic water bottles.
Their grins spoke volumes but Wade didn’t have time to even set them straight about how far off base they were. In fact, they’d have a much better chance at getting into bed with the other man in the room. A geriatric fellow who sat precariously on the stool of his walker, tennis balls flattened as he oiled up for his portion of the show. When Wade sat down next to him, he’d progressed to nipple icing and handed a few cubes to Wade as a good-faith welcome.
“There you go, kid. Get ’em nice and hard for the ladies!”
Wade looked down at the quickly melting cubes and tossed them to the other two.
“Listen, something bad is going on here and none of you are safe. I suggest you leave and…”
“And what?” The old man lurched forward shaking his finger wildly. “Let you snatch up all our allowance? Not a chance and I don’t know what you’re talking about. Bad stuff? It’s all bad stuff. Those people are sickos!”
The towel he wore around his waist came loose, revealing an elephant shaped G-string, with large flapping ears and a, well, trunk, obviously.
Wade looked away only to find one of the boys approaching nervously.
“Listen,” Wade said, “I’m sure you’re very nice but I’m not into any backstage romances. I’m looking for my girlfriend. She’s gone missing.”
“There’s plenty of girls out there.” The old man chuckled, which turned into a coughing fit.
“No,” the boy said. “There is something weird going on. When I came to work, it’s our first day, too—we do a twin act.”
“But you’re not twins.”
The other one piped up. “We look much more alike in our Little League outfits.”
“Doesn’t matter. Listen, I tried to find the bathroom and found this creepy room a few doors from here. Lots of black candles and an altar. I think it was voodoo or something.”
“Where?” Wade said, rising.
“Don’t go out there like that,” the boy said. “They’ll kick you out if you don’t look like you’re ready to dance. No men allowed!”
Wade grumbled and began to disrobe. The two boys watched intently, the helpful one handing him a box. “This is for you. Mr. Gimble left it.”
Wade opened the box and sighed. If it were anyone but Luce, he’d never subject himself to the humiliation. He withdrew a schoolboy’s uniform, white shirt, striped tie, navy trousers, and, of course, the tiniest G-string ever stitched, there was barely enough fabric to cover anything. The boys nodded to each other, agreeing that it was the showstopper, while the old man grumbled that he was much more in tune to the spirit of the youthful finale. Wade, apparently was old…inside.
Wade dropped his trousers and pulled the jock strap over his boxers.
“That’s not gonna work,” the helpful kid said.
“I don’t give a single shit. This is how it’s gonna be.”
“All right,” he said, eyeing Wade viciously. “But that’s really going to cut into your tip haul and you, sir, could earn bank tonight.”
“Just show me the room.” Wade’s patience for the conversation had drifted into possibly violent territory. He tugged on the pants—also tight—and the shirt, which he could barely button and had to be left open at the chest.
The kid shrugged and pushed out into the hall, looking each way as though they were escaping a prison cell rather than peering into the hallway of their place of employment. He kept one foot inside the room and contorted until he had a direct line on the door he’d been referring to. “Right. There.” He punctuated each word with a flimsy poke in the air. “Now, if you want me to come in there with you and help you get a better fit on your outfit, you just let me know.”
“Yeah, that won’t be necessary.”
“Your loss, mister.”
Wade sidestepped him and shot toward the door, grappling with the knob and finding it locked not nearly quickly enough to stop himself. He ended up flat against it, nose registering the shock and the distinct feeling of blood trickling over his lip.
“Didn’t I mention they locked it?” The kid smiled coyly, turned back into the room with a fluttery stereotypical kick that curdled Wade’s stomach, and shut the door behind him.
Wade rubbed the bridge of his nose for a fracture and finding none, shouldered into the room with a single heave. The kid was right about one thing—and possibly two, as it was clear that the women in the audience last night, would have doubled their tips had he not been wearing boxers. As it was, he had a wad of ones in the glove compartment of the Porsche that had he the nerve to tell anyone, he’d admit that he was more than proud. But the candles were definitely satanically placed if not supplied by an actual Satanism wholesaler. A chalky pentagram covered the top of an equally black table. None of this did Wade a damn bit of good and Luce certainly wasn’t tied up in the corner or this whole nightmare would be over—and by nightmare he meant the schoolboy clothes and the underwear digging into his balls.
Wade backed out of the room.
“You’re working that uniform,” Mr. Gimble said as he staggered out into the hall. “Keep that up and you’ll clean up tonight. You’re all set up. Just like we talked about. The bedroom set will be waiting for you, messy as hell. Just go out there and do your thing.”
The man twisted past him the cigarillo sloughing ash like a steam engine and moved forward through a velvet curtain. Wade followed, cautious to peak around the edge of the fabric before pushing through himself. On the other side, the stage was lit by a single overhead light and beyond he could see the gathering crowd and a familiar face there.
Bishop Bugenhagen chatted with a brunette who’s face was partially obscured, but there was something about the way she laughed, chin lilting and the way she brushed her hand across the priest’s thigh that seemed familiar. Recently, so.
“Luce?” Wade said, eyes narrowing.
“Of course, it’s her, you ox.” Sister Mary-Agnes squished in next to him to get a look herself and to toss back a slug of some very unrighteous communion wine from her flask. “Actually,” she squinted at the scene, “I don’t think so anymore. I think he has her now. See the corona around her?”
“You’re making that up, Mary-Agnes.”
“Yes, but wouldn’t that make it simpler? Why can’t this be easy? After all, it’s a long way down here.”
“Why don’t you both quit your chattering and get out of my way so I can get a look?” Quince prodded and pushed the nun out of the way and then swung Wade around toward the light. “Very nice! Are you hot for teacher?”
Wade ignored her, staring through the gap. “Luce is out there.”
“Yeah, but I’ve seen her. And you’ve never been so”— Quince glanced down at his crotch already painfully bulging from the constriction— “exposed before. Did I tell you about my friend, Mona?”
“I don’t need anything expanded, Quince. I just need for Luce to be safe.”
Sister Mary-Agnes nodded. “We have the girl from that shitty TV show in the back of the car now, fished her out of the van out front. She’s groggy but okay and knows way too much about The Parts Department, so she’s going to have to come with us. The Bishop has been terribly chatty, apparently. He needs to be dealt with. Lazy-eyed freak.”
“It’s not a lazy eye, Mom,” Wade said. “It’s glass. I nearly tripped over the thing. Could have killed me or Luce or anyone really. Or used to be glass. Now it’s a jawbreaker.”
“Prosthetics,” Sister Mary-Agnes scoffed. “Candy or not, them shit’s are dangerous.”
Bishop Bu
genhagen led Luce to a table near the stage on his arm, as though he was allowed a few dates a year. He called over the waitress and ordered and then smiled broadly as another woman arrived at the table. Mannish, and severe, despite the gigantic Dolly Parton wig and fake tits, she introduced herself as Carla. Luce pressed in close to get a good look and recognized her, immediately as the Carlito they should have popped the eyeball out of.
“Hola, Bishop,” she cooed. Carlito’s post-possession accent was probably a stretch on a good day, but now it sounded vaguely Scandinavian.
Those eyes found Luce without any hesitation, pointing her position in the room out to Bugenhagen as they all seemed to scoot close together, including her Hitch-manned form. Laughter ensued. And Luce recoiled to the back of the stage where she instantly heard a familiar and welcome voice.
“You do your little act, Wade,” Sister Mary-Agnes said. “Distract them. Quince and I will deal with Hitch and that pervert Bugenhagen while you do.”
Luce thought she should help, too. Maybe throw herself back into her body to distract Hitch. Work with the team from the inside while they came from behind. It was a perfect plan.
She threw herself across the stage and into her body.
Chapter Sixteen
Mr. Gimble must have licked his palm before he slapped Wade on the back of the neck, because a bead of fluid dribbled down his spine as he staggered onto stage. He tried to find his center and steady his legs amidst the screams of the women in the crowd. He scanned the crowd for Luce, to focus on a friendly face.
Her beautiful, sweet face.
But as the music started, all he could see were hands waving to and fro as though they were at a heavy-metal concert. Or maybe they weren’t waving as much as reaching, trying to snatch at his uniform, to pull his shirt open, his pants, and see underneath. For a second, Wade worried that the boxers would disappoint them and then realized that was completely crazy. He wasn’t a stripper. He needed to get off the damn stage and find Luce. Hustle her away so that Sister Mary-Agnes could nag the demon out of her. But he had to stick to the plan and for right now, distraction was probably the best course of action.
The lights flicked on, illuminating a replica of a teenager’s room, bed unmade, clothes strewn about…stripper pole—that probably wasn’t authentic, though it had been a long time since he was a teenager. The beat thumped and Wade began to dance, winging it, as Luce had encouraged. He noticed an empty laundry hamper and bent over, shaking his butt for the women, while picking up sweat socks and tossing them inside the hamper.
The crowd exploded into screams of excitement.
He’d hit on something. Something primal. He tore off his tie and tossed it into the hamper.
More screams.
In what he thought was a stroke of genius, Wade spun toward them and stripped off his shirt, dancing it over to a wooden chair and hanging it nicely. Wadded dollar bills pegged his stomach and legs.
Cleaning plus nudity equaled his allowance.
…
Luce felt like she was eavesdropping and catching only every other word, but most of those words seemed to involve Bishop Bugenhagen coming back to Luce’s place for some kneeling and or prayer. Though the look in the priest’s eyes didn’t seem to correspond with anything helpful or holy, and if she wasn’t mistaken, the hand on her thigh wasn’t her own.
The man seemed to lose interest only at the point where Wade appeared on the stage. He looked like a schoolboy who’d grown out of his uniform, bulging out, everywhere, and though she tried to clap her hands along with the rest of the women, Hitch didn’t seem to want to let that happen.
“Stop that, Luce. You just relax. Aren’t these drinks delicious? Don’t you feel sexy?”
The words had the opposite effect, she thought. Hitch was implying that what they were doing was somehow pleasurable, but she had known real pleasure, and recently and the only thing that even seemed sexy at that moment was the man on the stage…and he was dancing.
She looked out of the corner of her own eye and saw his hips wiggle a bit and then the women went wild. His pants went flying into the hamper and he bent over, straightening the sheets and the bedspread, giving the crowd a view.
There was movement to her left and Aaron stumbled into the picture, sneaking up behind Bishop Bugenhagen, with something in his hands, thin as a piece of wire.
…
Through the vee of his legs, Wade was aware of Sister Mary-Agnes approaching behind Luce, Quince backing her up and both wearing the leathers and the rosaries and spray bottles full of holy water. Luce seemed to focus on the Bishop so completely that there could be no question that the demon had her and would use her in horrible ways to its own ends.
Wade readied himself to launch from the stage and help his compatriots wrestle Luce to the ground and prep her for exorcising the bastard inside her, but just as he moved closer to the edge of the bedroom set, Mr. Gimble began to rile up the crowd.
“Schoolboy Wade needs your help, ladies! He seems like a young man who’s got the world by the bootstraps, but he is, as you know, a boy at heart and needs parental guidance.”
Wade cringed. He needed off that stage and quick. Bugenhagen would soon be in full combat with Aaron, which had Luce’s entire attention. That was good. Very good. Sister Mary-Agnes and Quince would hardly be noticed until they had her. But he wanted to help. He needed to.
“Who among you can provide a firm hand?” Gimble roared.
Which is when he spotted the woman on the opposite side of Bugenhagen. Strange and thick. She didn’t seem to be aware of the Bishop’s struggle; her eyes were firmly glued to Wade.
Glowing red eyes. Bugenhagen’s demon-infected accomplice.
Two birds, one stone, Wade thought and a lightbulb went on. He’d use the possessed eyeball guy as his “assistant” long enough to do the act and when it was over, he’d lure him into the back and scoop the hellish orbits clean. One less demon in this equation would be just what the exorcist ordered.
After a few gyrations, moves that coaxed some ecstatic screams from the pearl-clutchers in the front row, he reached his hand in Carlito’s direction.
“I need some assistance with my.” Wade paused, licking his lips. “Pillow fluffing.”
The crowd exploded into cries of delight, even the Bishop seemed pleased—he wouldn’t be when Aaron descended, Wade thought and smiled.
It was easy to see Luce’s error, the “drag”-ed out man before him could have been the bishop’s sister, only both her eyes were moving in tandem, rather than scurrying around in her skull. She grinned at him and pushed him back suddenly. Wade wasn’t prepared and stumbled, falling over onto the mattress with a flopping, obscene bounce. He felt a chill breeze over his nether regions and didn’t need to look to know his penis had flopped out of the fly in his boxers, the G-string twisted to the side, uncomfortably.
The crowd let him know. They screamed in unison, surging, even as Wade fought to retain the last vestiges of his integrity.
He barely had time to cover himself with a pillow before Carlito fell on him, running her hands down his chest. Trapping his fallout between them. Wade jabbed his palm into Carlito’s nose, forcing him back and twisting to place Luce in his sight line.
The Bishop was enthralled by their onstage antics, he clapped from the audience just as the wire dropped around his throat. His hands flew up and his eyes bulged, but Aaron was merciless, dragging Bugenhagen into the obscurity of the shadows with a speed and force that could have only been demon-altered.
Luce, likewise, a bag slipped over her head was carted into the darkness, even as the crowd exploded into sick applause.
Carlito dipped down close to Wade’s ear, even as he was fumbling to right himself in the jock strap, and whispered, “Aren’t you worried about bed bugs?”
“What?”
Carlito smiled viciously and produced a squirming Ziploc bag of cockroaches. Wade gasped for breath. What little air he could manage was already bei
ng pushed out by Carlito’s weight. The fear wrapped around him like chains, tightening. His heart pounded.
“No!” he cried, the word stretching out forever.
Women rushed the stage as Wade exploded in anger and frustration. Somehow both Carlito and the bag were knocked free as was the pillow—completely inconsequential as Wade was moving into a full-blown panic attack. From the edge of his vision, where it surely burst open. Bugs spilling everywhere. He was pretty sure he could see them scuttling, squirming, focusing their efforts on getting to him.
Sister Mary-Agnes rushed the stage, throwing elbows and leaping over backs like a rugby player.
“Thank God,” he cried, eyes craning toward the mass of bugs.
Wade wasn’t ashamed to admit needing help. At some point he’d fallen pray to a vicious groping, but as the ex-nun finally got close enough, she didn’t pull the women off him, or disable the perp; rather she slipped her hand down his oiled abs and tucked something into Wade’s G-string—useless for anything but gathering the tattered shreds of his boxers and keeping his junk twisted at an odd, painful angle.
“What the?” Wade managed before he fell beneath the dogpile, his face pressed to the stage floor and turned to see an approaching beetle. He screamed the next part. “A tip? You gave me a tip?”
“Of sorts!” she shouted. “Get a move-on for Christ’s sake!”
“But the bugs!” he cried, swiveling his neck toward the approaching horde. “If you could just stomp them a little.”
“There’re like five, Wade. Stop being a child.” She rolled her eyes and disappeared.
Wade caught glimpses of the ex-nun’s retreat into the dark bowels of the club among the hundreds of women’s floating around him, fading to nothing but dots of color, a pointalist mural, in pinks and grays and lascivious stares. At some point Carlito found his way back to Wade, scrabbling across the melee and pinning his wrists to the backs of the fallen.
“Oh, Wade,” he said, sounding disappointed. “I had expected a man of your stature and”— he swept his eyes down Wade’s physique— “attributes to have a much better way with the ladies.”